WWE NXT: Who are Deonna Purrazzo and Chelsea Green?

Last Wednesday night served as the second ever live episode of NXT on the USA Network, but it was the second hour on the WWE Network that really got us talking.

It was during the part of NXT on the WWE Network that we caught a glimpse of an interesting debut during tag team action. As Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch celebrated defeating Ever-Rise, the camera panned over to the crowd to see two NXT Superstars in the front row: Chelsea Green and Deonna Purrazzo.

Those who recognized these two ladies were likely elated at their onscreen debut and excited at the prospect of a future in-ring debut. But those who have never seen either Superstar before may be wondering who they are. We’re here to introduce you.

Let’s start with Chelsea Green, as she’s someone you may have seen on WWE TV before.

After training under Lance Storm’s Wrestling Academy, Chelsea Green first started wrestling in May of 2014. By August, she already made her first WWE appearance when she played Megan Miller, the physical therapist who Stephanie McMahon alleged that Daniel Bryan was having an affair with.

This onscreen role only lasted a week, but WWE enjoyed Green’s work in the role so much that they brought her back to WWE a year later as a contestant on Tough Enough. She was not a member of the original cast, but when one of the cast members, Dianna Dahlgreen, needed to leave due to a personal emergency, Chelsea was offered her position as an alternate.

On the show, she competed with other future NXT Superstars like Mandy Rose, Sonya Deville, and even The Velveteen Dream. She finished fourth in the competition before being let go.

From there, she hopped around from promotion to promotion. This included stints in Lucha Underground, Wrestle Circus, Queens of Combat, and most notably Impact Wrestling under the name Laurel Van Ness. Originally a standard mean girl type character, the Van Ness character evolved into something more of a “Hot Mess” after being left at the altar during a wedding angle.

Van Ness went on to suffer a mental breakdown of sorts. She’d only walk around and wrestle in her wedding dress while wearing smeared makeup and no shoes, with the assumption being that she was so distraught that she hadn’t even showered since her failed wedding.

It was a creative, unique character that left an impression on fans and led to her winning the Knockouts Championship. In this role, Green proved that no matter what character she’s given, she is capable of committing to it and going all out to get it over. Few wrestlers are capable of being just as great at character work as they are in the ring, but Green, she excels at both.

After losing the title to Allie at the Jan. 2018 TV tapings, Green left the company.

By August later that year, after a successful tryout, Green was signed to WWE. After working live events for several months, she was supposed to make her onscreen NXT debut with a win over Jessi Kamea, but during the match, Green suffered a broken wrist in Mar. 2019. The match never aired and instead, Green went into surgery the next night.

She has since returned as of Jun. 2019 and now that she has linked up with Deonna Purrazzo, she hopes to find greater success on NXT TV. Which, speaking of Purrazzo …

After starting training at the D2W Pro Wrestling Academy in Dec. 2012, Deonna Purrazzo made her in-ring debut almost exactly a year later. In 2015, she joined Ring of Honor where she helped revitalize the Women of Honor division after it had been stagnant for so long. In many ways, the self-proclaimed Virtuosa was the resident workhorse of ROH. Not just the Women of Honor division, but the entire promotion.

Thanks to her awe inspiring technical wrestling ability, particularly in how she targets the arms in setting up for her Fujiwara Armbar finisher, Purrazzo helped produce interest in WOH by producing memorable matches with the likes of Kelly Klein, Mandy Leon, and Mayu Iwatani, among others of course. She’d leave ROH in 2018 and that same year signed a contract with WWE.

The year before, Purrazzo served as an alternate in the Mae Young Classic without being brought onscreen, but she went on to compete in the 2018 edition of the tournament where she made it all the way to the quarterfinals before being eliminated by Io Shirai. Afterwards, she made memorable appearances on NXT UK in strong matches against Toni Storm and Rhea Ripley.

Since then, The Virtuosa and the former Hot Mess have formed a tag team, performing mostly on NXT house shows. Now, they will be bringing their chemistry to television screens across the world on USA Network. With their NXT TV in-ring debuts as a team imminent, they are bound to make an impact sooner rather than later. Keep an eye out for these two.