There are women who enter the ring in rhinestones, hair curled into perfection, hearts full of crowd applause and fairy tale endings. Then there’s Daria Berenato — better known to the squared-circle faithful as Sonya Deville — who walked into the pro wrestling business with MMA calluses and a Jersey snarl, trailing behind her the cigarette smoke of broken expectations and a history carved in hard rounds, hard landings, and harder truths.
Born in Shamong Township, New Jersey, she grew up Italian-American and all grit, the kind of kid who didn’t flinch when life swung wild. By 16, she was trading homework for jabs and arm bars, choking down the harsh discipline of MMA gyms while her peers were still learning to parallel park. While most girls were dreaming of prom dresses, Deville was learning how to break someone’s windpipe. That was the foundation: no flash, just fight.
By 2015, she stormed into WWE Tough Enough with a chip on her shoulder and a clenched jaw undercutting her quiet charisma. She didn’t win — not even close, finishing 11th — but the suits at WWE saw past the rankings and straight into her storm. They signed her anyway. That’s the funny thing about wrestling: the biggest victories aren’t always tallied in scripted pinfalls. Sometimes, they’re found in the refusal to be ignored.
When she debuted in NXT, she was raw — all edges, few polish. But what she lacked in ring finesse she made up for with presence. She didn’t smile for cameras or strut for attention. She stared down her opponents like a debt collector at the end of a long week. A little Billie Kay distraction here, a Ruby Riott feud there — the learning curve was a trench, but she never blinked. The company handed her a mic and said, “Figure it out.” And she did.
By late 2017, Deville was called up to the main roster and thrown into Absolution with Mandy Rose and Paige — a faction of beautiful destruction. She wasn’t the loudest, or the flashiest, but she was the anchor. She hit the ropes like she meant it. She threw knees like they owed her money. She wasn’t built to be a diva — she was too honest, too sharp, too allergic to bullshit.
And she was the first openly gay female wrestler in WWE history.
That part mattered, not because it was her whole story — but because it was a fight she didn’t dodge. She came out during Tough Enough, before she knew if she’d be loved or fired for it. She didn’t care. “I’m gay,” she said plainly on TV. No dramatic score. Just truth. She wore that fact like brass knuckles under her ring gear — not for sympathy, but as a warning: I am everything you didn’t think I could be.
She had a mouthful of glass and a stare that could slit throats. She didn’t need validation. She needed space.
But the company didn’t always know what to do with her. So they handed her sidekick roles, manager gigs, and angles that fizzled in committee rooms before they ever touched the canvas. She became a utility knife — cut promos, played authority figure, put others over, do commentary. And she did it all, without complaint. She was the professional in professional wrestling.
Still, her best work came during the most personal feud of her life — the slow-burn betrayal with Mandy Rose. It was soap opera, sure. But underneath the bronzer and backstage brawls was real chemistry, real betrayal, and a payoff that smacked with emotional weight. When she lost the “Loser Leaves WWE” match at SummerSlam 2020 — a switch caused by a terrifying real-life attempted kidnapping that rocked her world — it felt like the chapter had ended.
She vanished. No promos. No tweets. Just silence.
And when she returned in 2021, she didn’t lace up the boots. She wore a suit — an authority figure now, flanked by Adam Pearce, delivering match rulings like a mob consigliere handing down orders. It was a good fit: power without pandering. But wrestling was never just about suits. Eventually, the ring pulled her back in.
Her work with Chelsea Green in 2023 was vintage Deville — smart, nasty, opportunistic. They were oil and fire: Green was chaos; Deville was calculation. Together, they clawed their way to the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship. It wasn’t just gold — it was validation.
Then the knee snapped.
Torn ACL. Out indefinitely. Just when momentum had finally clutched her by the waist and pulled her forward, fate whispered, “Not yet.” It was the kind of injury that ends careers — but Deville didn’t flinch. She recovered like she always did: off the radar, under the radar, and back in the fight by May 2024.
In typical Sonya style, she didn’t come back with fireworks. No overblown pop, no triumphant video package. Just a backstage segment and the slow build toward the formation of the “Pure Fusion Collective” with Shayna Baszler and Zoey Stark — a coalition of fighters, not influencers. It was the quiet start of something louder than pyro.
But then, in February 2025, WWE opted not to renew her contract. No sendoff. No tribute video. Just the end of a paragraph in a long book. For some, that might sting. For Deville? Just another fight to win. She’d beaten more formidable opponents — courtrooms, stalkers, injuries, stereotypes.
In between the work, she found love. Got married. Started a donut company with Mandy Rose. Called MMA matches. Modeled. Lived.
Some wrestlers become legends through titles and Mania moments. Sonya Deville became something else — a symbol. Not a saint, not a starlet, not a company darling. Just a fighter. The kind Bukowski might have watched from the back of a smoke-stained bar, nodding once with a drink in hand, muttering, “She gets it.”
She didn’t need a belt to matter. She didn’t need approval to endure.
She just needed the fight.
And Sonya Deville never stopped fighting.