Various: Deonna Purrazzo Reportedly Expected to Leave Impact, TNA Announces Kazuchika Okada for TNA Snake Eyes, Indies

Deonna Purrazzo Impact Contract Status Update – Purrazzo Set to Leave Impact & Explore Free Agency

As noted before, Deonna Purrazzo’s current contract with Impact Wrestling is set to expire at the end of this year.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that Purrazzo currently intends to explore free agency and no new deal with Impact had been reached. It was also reported that this upcoming weekend’s Final Resolution 2023 event and television tapings are currently Purrazzo’s last scheduled dates with Impact.

It was also reported that those spoken to stated that Purrazzo’s upcoming departure from Impact has been on good terms and Impact officials have left the door wide open for a potential return or a new deal for Purrazzo in the future.

Prior to her upcoming departure, Purrazzo has been working for Impact since May of 2020.

---

TNA Announces Return of Kazuchika Okada for Snake Eyes TV Tapings This January

Impact/TNA Wrestling announced that New Japan Pro Wrestling talent Kazuchika Okada will be making an appearance for the company at their Impact! Snake Eyes television tapings on January 14, 2023 in at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada.

BREAKING: @rainmakerXokada returns to TNA on January 14 at #SnakeEyes at the Palms in Las Vegas! @njpwglobal

Get tickets HERE: https://t.co/uIMNT4ffq6 pic.twitter.com/ONIXdcTLsj

— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) December 8, 2023

This will be Okada’s first appearance in TNA since 2011.

---

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Friday’s World Tag League 2023 event for New Japan Pro Wrestling in Kagoshima, Japan featured Hikuleo & El Phantasmo and Bishamon (YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto) advancing to the Finals of this year’s tournament, which takes place this Sunday in Mashiki.

Thursday’s One Shot event for Major League Wrestling in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania featured Richard Holliday making his official return to the company. Following Alex Kane’s victory over Matt Cardona to retain his MLW World Heavyweight Championship at the event, Kane called out for someone to come out to be his next challenger. This led to the lights going off and when it came back on, Holliday was in the ring. MSL then came out and stated that not only has this match between Holliday and Kane been signed for MLW’s King of the Colosseum 2024 event but that Holliday has also joined her WTF (World Titan Federation) group.

MLW reportedly is currently working on plans to run events in several new cities as part of their events schedule for 2024, according to Fightful Select.

MLW officials reportedly also recently held early talks regarding plans to potentially bring back the former CONTRA Unit stable next year, according to Fightful Select.

LGBTQ+ sports news website Outsports recently announced that National Wrestling Alliance and indie wrestler Max The Impalier took their top spot for this year’s Queer Wrestling Index 200 list. Rounding out the rest of the Top 10 in order were Alex Kane, EFFY, Dark Sheik, Anthony Bowens, “Speedball” Mike Bailey, Allie Katch, VENY, Trish Adora, and Toni Storm.

Sukeban reportedly drew an attendance of over 1,500 for their event this past Thursday in Miami, Florida, according to PWInsider. Mike Johnson reported that Sukeban had announced an official attendance of 2,000 during their show.

As noted before, former WCW wrestler Evan Karagias was arrested this past November and charged with simple assault and injury to personal property following an incident in Gaston County, North Carolina. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that Karagias is currently scheduled to attend a court hearing on January 2, 2024 based on recent court records.

Impact Wrestling announced that their Impact Plus! subscription service will be rebranded into TNA Plus! starting on December 14th. It was also announced that as part of the upcoming change, subscription prices will be increasing from $7.99 to a new price of $9.99 per month and from $71.99 to a new price of $99.99 per year.

In a recent interview with the Talk Is Jericho podcast, Frankie Kazarian gave his thoughts about his talks with WWE for a potential deal following his departure from AEW last year and why he decided against joining WWE in the end. Kazarian stated “Very good. I have relationships with a lot of people there. Matt Bloom is one because Matt Bloom and I were in Kawolski’s [Killer Kawolski] school together. He runs developmental and he had contacted me, ‘You still want to wrestle?’ ‘Absolutely.’ ‘What do you think about coaching?’ ‘I don’t know, maybe down the road that is something I want to do.’ ‘Okay.’ We talked about player-coach roles and a whole bunch of things. I had conversations with a few other people. There were offers made, and very generous, and everybody up there was very cool. Something told me, ‘Not yet, this isn’t the place to be right now.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with BodySlam.net, Lisa Marie Varon (former Victoria in WWE) gave her thoughts about not wrestling a match since this past January and the future of her wrestling career. Varon stated “When people say ‘Would you go back and wrestle?’, that’s probably your next question, I would love to be an agent, a coach. I don’t have anything else to prove in wrestling. I would rather help the younger talent, you know. Character development or work the psychology of a match, that kind of stuff, like, what Molly Holly does or what Gail Kim does, that kind of stuff. I don’t need to be on camera. We have YouTube.com with GAW TV show, okay, slash (/) GAW TV show. That’s our entertainment right there, we’re in pajamas, drinking wine and shooting the shit just, you know, having fun, having great guests on there sometimes. Just us. Honestly, I don’t know why people are shocked. They’re like, ‘Oh, you need to go back!’ and I’m like, ‘No, no, you know, I’m 52. These girls are incredible. I had a great career.’ I would like to give back more, I’m enjoying my appearances, Comic Cons and stuff like that. So, yeah. did I miss anything? No? So when I’m telling you, when I do these interviews, I don’t realize what I’ve done. Honestly, yeah and it’s weird, I usually get recognized, I have no makeup on at Walmart, and I’m like “Oh my God! You still remember me!?”. I’m still baffled by it, it still shocks me. Crazy huh? It’s crazy.“