Becoming champion is the goal for every pro-wrestler, but when it’s a title you watched your idols hold before you it means that much more.
Both Knockouts Champion Deonna Purrazzo and X-Division Champion Rohit Raju are honoured to defend their titles at Bound For Glory, Impact Wrestling’s biggest event of the year.
Purrazzo became Knockouts Champion at Slammiversary in July by dethroning Jordynne Grace to join a who’s-who of titleholders from Gail Kim to Madison Rayne to Tara.
“These are women that influenced me to want to become a professional wrestler,” Purrazzo told NZPWI, “so the fact I get to be on a list with them and I get to be planting roots in Impact and expanding my career here for the long-term means everything to me.
“And the fact I’ve been champion for this long and I get to defend it on the biggest stage of the year at Bound For Glory just adds to that meaning and that specialness and all of the feelings!”
Purrazzo defends her Knockouts title against Kylie Rae at Bound For Glory.
Rohit Raju has carved his own path since becoming X-Division Champion in August. While differing from the X-Divisions titleholders of old, the significance of being in the same lineage as the division’s pioneers isn’t lost on the former Desi Hit Squad member.
“When I first started watching TNA I was drawn to [Christopher] Daniels, I was drawn to AJ [Styles], I was drawn to Low-Ki, I was drawn to [Samoa] Joe, I was drawn to all of that,” Raju told NZPWI.
“90s WCW cruiserweights, they were some of my favourite matches, and then the X-Division, they upped that. Now you look at the X-Division title, it’s such a key belt, it’s so important … being able to stand out and do something different is what I’m trying to do.
“I love to go out there and actually wrestle and work and put on great matches, I absolutely love doing that but also trying to, I guess, do what I’ve been doing and stay entertaining and stay different from those guys, that’s a real challenge as well.”
Raju puts the X-Division Championship on the line in a Six-Way Scramble at Bound For Glory.
Impact Wrestling Bound For Glory streams live Sunday, October 25, on FITE
