Deonna Purrazzo Says She Pitched For Gisele Shaw To Join The Vendetta

Deonna Purrazzo really wanted The Vendetta to work out.

In late 2024, Purrazzo and Taya Valkyria came together to form The Vendetta faction in AEW. The partnership was short lived, with Valkyria and Purrazzo quietly going their separate ways in early 2025.

Speaking with Fightful Overbooked’s Joel Pearl for a new interview, Purrazzo said she knew her duo with Valkyria had potential after their first promo.

“I loved the entire concept of Vendetta, right? At first I was kinda like, how do I make this work? I thought Taya and I had completely different vibes. We have a great friendship outside of wrestling but we are very different people as well. So it was like, okay, how do we come together? That promo, I think in everyone in AEW’s mind, was like, ‘Oh.’ For both of us, we were like, ‘Oh wait, there’s something here.’”

As the weeks went on, Purrazzo wanted more for Vendetta outside of the promo game.

“Then we only did promos. My first ideas were like, we need to have a match. We need to show the audience that we beat the shit out of people. The internet likes both me and Taya and wants to see us do well and something. So, pairing us together was like, ‘Okay, we have the internet behind us, but now we need the audience behind us.’ My first idea was, we need to have some squash matches and just beat up extra talent. It could’ve been 90 seconds on Rampage, we weren’t asking for a ton of TV time.”

When it came to their potential feud with Anna Jay and Tay Conti, Deonna wanted to take some inspiration from mobster movies like The Godfather. Deonna also wanted to dive into her history with Conti.

“We were told originally that we were going to do something with Anna and Taynara. So, at Full Gear in New Jersey, I wrestled Anna. I was supposed to originally win that match with numbers games and that would lead to Taynara coming back. We were, before that match, going to offer Anna help with Saraya and Harley. We were gonna be like, hey, we’re having some trouble, why don’t you join us? We can offer you protection, we can offer you backup. She was going to deny us. I wanted to take a moment out of The Godfather and put a fish or something in her bag. She opens it up and we’re like, ‘You’re gonna fucking sleep with the fishes now.’ Something drawing inspiration from the mobster movies. Originally, I was going to beat her and we were going to be off to the races. Taynara and I have a very long history together from NXT. Neither of us have really talked about this, we had the same tryout together in 2016. She was a rockstar, everyone knew she was getting signed. She just killed it, her aura and everything. She was there with another Brazilian girl who accidentally took my rental car keys. So, I couldn’t go get lunch. It ended up being fine, but Taynara felt so terrible when that happened and she realized it was me. She gave me one of the authentic Brazilian soccer jerseys, I still have that soccer jersey. So, we thought in the buildup to all of this, we’re gonna do all of this tag stuff, we can play with that soccer jersey like, I actually know your past and where you come from. That would’ve been an interesting element.”

Rounding out the topic, Deonna Purrazzo revealed that she pitched for Gisele Shaw to join Vendetta as well.

“We pitched a ton of people to join us. I had pitched Gisele Shaw, that would be cool. I think it was really important for me and Taya to keep our own identities but still vibe together. Gisele is someone we could call up and be like, ‘We’re wearing black fur this week’ and we know she has it in her closet. That was something we had pitched if we became a trios. There was a ton of ideas that I think just would’ve been really cool storytelling, but it was a little too soon to have women’s tag teams, I think. We really could’ve been a force to be reckoned with.”

Fans can check out Fightful Overbooked’s full interview with Deonna Purrazzo in the video linked at the top of this article.

Also, check out more of our recent interviews over on our main YouTube channel.