Ladies and gentlemen, Monday Night Raw is most of the way done now, with two and a half hours of this three hour show now in the books. I’m Jordan Huie of the Overtimer and I’ll be sticking with you the whole way through for all the most significant results, giving you them all as they come.
In a very unexpected moment, with basically no warning, we got what may well be the first NXT call-up – if you can even still call them that – since the black and gold brand’s move to USA in September. The Virtuosa Deonna Purrazzo, who has never even really gotten around to being a regular on NXT, nevertheless has made her Monday Night Raw debut.
She had a brief vignette hyping her up, focusing on her technical prowess, before her first match began on Raw, which just so happens to be against a storied competitor, one half of the WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Asuka!
She had a fairly impressive showing in the match while it lasted, but before too long, she succumbed to the Asukalock.
You can see my recap of the match below:
Asuka vs. Deonna Purrazzo
Brawl, Deonna with a kick to the gut, Fujiwara Armbar in deep! Asuka reverses for a cradle, then tries to turn it into an Asukalock, Deonna fights this but Asuka gets a kneebar switch! Grapevine in now! Turns into an STF! Deonna is in trouble, Asuka grinding her forearm against Deonna’s face! Reverse STO from Deonna for a nearfall! Asuka with a pop-up knee to the gut, then some vicious Kawada Kicks! Cinches her into the Asukalock, and Deonna has no choice but to tap out.
Winner: Asuka
Ultimately, this may have more been a way to showcase Asuka’s own submission acumen, since Deonna’s submission skills were put over hard on commentary only for her to end up tapping out her own. This would seem to be out of Paul Heyman’s playbook, as he did similar things to build up Taz in the past.
