Deonna Purrazzo Says Her Parents Wouldn’t Sign Off On Her Starting Wrestling Training At 16

Deonna Purrazzo recalls how she began her professional wrestling training, noting her parents weren’t fans of the idea before she was 18.

While many wrestlers have to wait until they are 18 in order to begin their training, but the industry is also full of talent who began their career earlier by training beforehand. However, for Deonna Purrazzo, she was unable to begin training until she turned 18.

While speaking to Wrestling With Heart in a new interview, Deonna noted that she originally wanted to begin training at 16, but her parents would not sign off on it.

“So to start at 16, you had to have your parents’ signature, and my parents would not sign off on it. So I had to wait until I was 18. So when I graduated high school, six months later that December, I was in wrestling school, and being an athlete, the grind of the training and how you just have to immerse yourself in it wasn’t foreign to me. But it was like the taking the bumps and using different muscles that I had never used before… I remember my first day of training, they were like, ‘yeah, you’re going to learn how to take a bump,’ and you just fall backwards, and I was like, ‘is there something else I could learn? Because I don’t want to do that.’ That doesn’t seem safe, right? I did it, and they were like, ‘hey, we’ll see you on Thursday,; and I was like, ‘yeah, yeah, no problem.’ I couldn’t get out of bed. I was so sore. So now, obviously, 14 years later, right, my body is just accustomed to it. But I think that was the biggest shock was like, ‘oh, man, like falling down for a living is going to be rough.’ But this is all I’ve ever wanted to do. So there was also that like nerves of if I’m not good at this, what have I wasted, you know, nine years of my life planning to do. I don’t have a backup plan. I always wanted to be a wrestler. So I need to- I need to get through this pain. I need to get through this struggle and build a callus, but then also like make sure I’m really good at this.”

Elsewhere in the same interview, Deonna spoke about when she realized she wanted to become a professional wrestler. You can read more about that here.

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