Deonna Purrazzo has opened up about the creative plans she and Taya Valkyrie discussed for The Vendetta, revealing that the AEW pairing had ideas ranging from short, decisive television matches to a mob-film-inspired angle and a potential expansion into a trios act with Gisele Shaw.
The Vendetta brought Purrazzo and Valkyrie together in late 2024. While both performers arrived at the alliance with established reputations and a genuine friendship away from the ring, the on-screen partnership did not last long. The two had quietly gone in separate directions by early 2025, leaving many of the proposed developments for the group unrealized.
In a new interview, Purrazzo described how she initially viewed the pairing as a challenge because she and Valkyrie project different personalities, even though their relationship outside wrestling was already strong. However, she felt their first promo together quickly demonstrated that there was an effective chemistry worth exploring.
“I loved the entire concept of Vendetta,” Purrazzo said. “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.’”
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For Purrazzo, that initial response was only the starting point. She did not want The Vendetta to be defined solely by talking segments. Her focus was on giving the unit matches that would make its presentation feel credible and show audiences why the two wrestlers were dangerous together.
Purrazzo said that there was a distinction between online goodwill toward both women and building a fuller connection with the live television audience. The answer, in her view, was straightforward: let The Vendetta wrestle and let the team dominate.
“Then we only did promos,” Purrazzo said. “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.’”
Purrazzo proposed that the act could have been established through brief squash matches against enhancement talent. She stressed that the request was not for extensive television time, suggesting that even a 90-second appearance on Rampage could have helped build the duo’s identity. The key was consistency: a chance to show The Vendetta working together in the ring rather than simply discussing what it might do.
“My first idea was, we need to have some squash matches and just beat up extra talent,” Purrazzo said. “It could’ve been 90 seconds on Rampage, we weren’t asking for a ton of TV time.”
The group also had a potential program in mind involving Anna Jay and Tay Conti, who Purrazzo referred to as Taynara. Purrazzo wrestled Anna Jay at Full Gear in New Jersey, and she explained that an earlier version of the plan called for The Vendetta to use its numbers advantage to help Purrazzo win. That result would then have set the stage for Conti’s return and a wider tag-team story.
Before that match, Purrazzo said The Vendetta was meant to approach Jay with an offer of assistance in her issues with Saraya and Harley. The pitch would have positioned Purrazzo and Valkyrie as women capable of providing protection and backup, with Jay ultimately refusing their offer.
Purrazzo wanted the rejection to have consequences in a segment that drew from classic mobster cinema. Specifically, she considered a visual nod to The Godfather, with a fish placed in Jay’s bag as a threatening message. The scene was intended to reinforce the faction’s criminal-underworld aesthetic and give the rivalry a distinctive flavor beyond a standard series of matches and promos.
“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,” Purrazzo said. “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.”
As Purrazzo laid it out, the Full Gear match was supposed to move the story forward immediately. Her intended win over Jay, achieved with Valkyrie’s involvement, would have put The Vendetta on the path toward its next conflict with Conti returning to the picture.
That prospective program also carried a personal thread for Purrazzo. She recalled that she and Conti shared a tryout in 2016, during the period when both were pursuing opportunities in WWE’s developmental system. Purrazzo remembered Conti standing out immediately at that session and said it was clear to those in attendance that the Brazilian wrestler was likely to be signed.
She also remembered a small but meaningful incident from the tryout weekend. Another Brazilian participant accidentally took Purrazzo’s rental-car keys, preventing Purrazzo from going to lunch. When Conti learned what had happened, Purrazzo said she felt terrible about it and gave her an authentic Brazilian soccer jersey. Purrazzo still has the jersey, and she believed it could have been worked into the eventual on-screen build to their AEW confrontation.
“Taynara and I have a very long history together from NXT,” Purrazzo said. “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.”
The soccer jersey was one of the details Purrazzo felt could have elevated the story by grounding it in something real between the two women. Rather than merely presenting a newly formed rivalry, The Vendetta’s proposed angle could have emphasized that Purrazzo knew elements of Conti’s history long before either arrived in AEW.
Beyond the planned feud, Purrazzo and Valkyrie were also thinking about The Vendetta’s long-term makeup. Purrazzo disclosed that numerous names were discussed as possible additions. Among the people she specifically pitched was Gisele Shaw.
Purrazzo’s description of Shaw makes clear that the appeal was not simply about adding another skilled wrestler. She believed Shaw would naturally fit the group’s visual style and attitude while allowing Purrazzo and Valkyrie to remain distinct personalities within the same faction. The goal was cohesion rather than turning every member into a copy of the others.
“We pitched a ton of people to join us,” Purrazzo said. “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.”
A three-woman version of The Vendetta could have provided another layer to AEW’s women’s division, particularly through tag and trios-oriented stories. Purrazzo said Shaw was someone they discussed in the event the group became a trios act, and she felt the unit had the potential to become a major force.
Still, Purrazzo acknowledged that the broader environment may not have been ready to support the concept in the way she envisioned. In her assessment, it may have been too early for women’s tag teams to receive the kind of sustained presentation needed to make a faction like The Vendetta thrive.
“That was something we had pitched if we became a trios,” Purrazzo said. “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.”
The Vendetta’s run was brief, but Purrazzo’s comments show there was considerably more envisioned for the partnership than what ultimately reached AEW programming. From dominant short-form matches and an Anna Jay-Tay Conti program to the possibility of Gisele Shaw joining the fold, the group had ideas designed to give it a recognizable identity in and out of the ring.
Instead, The Vendetta remains a short chapter in the AEW runs of Purrazzo and Valkyrie. Even so, Purrazzo’s account illustrates how much thought went into finding a shared voice for two performers with different vibes, then turning that chemistry into a faction with a clear visual presentation, a ruthless edge, and room to grow.
Darryl Polo
Darryl Polo is a passionate wrestling fan covering WWE, AEW, TNA and beyond. He loves great rivalries, breakout stars and the moments that keep fans talking long after the bell. How we work.