Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Lilian Garcia on her most emotional WWE moments, advice from Howard Finkel, The Rock, singing

Episode Date: January 21, 2020

Chris Van Vliet sits down with Lilian Garcia at the Chasing Glory studio in Los Angeles, CA. She tears up while talking about her most emotional WWE moment, what it was like singing the national anthem after 9/11, the ring announcing advice she received from Howard Finkel, her interaction with The Rock, why she started her "Chasing Glory" podcast, her inspirations in life and much more! My audio equipment provided by Samson Technologies: http://bit.ly/CVVSamson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, y'all? It's Druski, and I've teamed up with Mountain Dew to produce a hilarious new basketball podcast called The Do Zone with Drewski. Learn the backstories of your favorite ballers and celebrities like Jamal Murray. Did you have like a favorite team? Was it the Raptors at the time or no? Was the Raptors even started around that time? Come on, bro. I ain't that old, fam.

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this is the Chris Van Bleet Show Ladies and gentlemen Chris Van Bleachie! How are you my friends? Welcome to the show. Thank you as always for listening and thank you for making this a top 10 wrestling podcast in the world. Such a pleasure to sit down with Lillian Garcia for this.

Not only is she amazingly talented. But she's just an incredible human being with this great presence about her. I love this conversation. I know that you will too. We had moments in there where we got goosebumps, like actual goosebumps. She even like remarked. She was like, oh my God, those are. Look at your goosebumps on your arm. I had them all over my arm. At a moment where she started to tear up. It's such good stuff. Thank you for continuing to share the show on social media. In fact, if you're listening right now, take a screenshot. Tag me. Tag Lillian, let us know that you're listening, let us know what you think of this show.

And thank you for subscribing so you know exactly when these new interviews drop. We've got a bunch of them dropping in the next, well, the next couple days and over the next couple of weeks. But you know we're dropping at least one interview a week. So subscribe so you don't miss those. Also, thank you for the five-star reviews on Apple Podcasts. They are so helpful. They are the most helpful thing you could do. Well, subscribing is also very good, but the reviews, if you listen on Apple Podcasts, please take like four seconds to click the five-star thing.

This one comes from, what a username this is? TC underscore C-0R underscore 204. Wow. Love from Canada. This is the best wrestling podcast I've listened to in a while. Even better than Jericho's. Tell them that, Chris. I don't care.

Le Champion shall be dethroned soon in. enough. Well, thank you so much. Please keep those reviews coming. That's very kind. Also, Canada. Great country. My country, my home country. So thank you for the reviews from the U.S., from Canada, from the U.K. We've got reviews from New Zealand and Australia, India. Worldwide, there's wrestling fans. This was so amazing about wrestling. It unites us all. So please keep those reviews coming. We're up to 610 right now, and the specific goal for the year is 1,000 reviews. Because, as you know, vague goals get to be able to be. vague results. So if you happen to be listening to the podcast on your iPhone, just take a few seconds.

Just scroll down on the show page, click on those five stars. Lillian Garcia knows a thing or two about podcasts. She has a very popular podcast called Chasing Glory. I'm sure you're familiar with it. She has a lot of wrestlers and former wrestlers on the show. In fact, we've had a lot of the same guests, but she dives deep into these conversations. And she knows a lot of these people personally. I mean, she's known a lot of these people for 10 or 15 or maybe more years. So she gets like a different perspective in these conversations. I love them. I've been hooked on her podcast for a while.

In this chat, we talk about her transition to life after WWE and her incredible story of how she became a ring announcer for WWF at the time in 1999. They basically threw her to the wolves. On her first day of work, they said, you're going to go be live on Raw, which I can't believe that's the thing. And things get emotional when she talks about performing the national anthem right after 9-11 on SmackDown. What a great conversation. It's hard to not love her.

Her positivity is so infection, infectious. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Lillian Garcia. Well, here we go. We are in your beautiful studio here. Ah, I'm so excited you came to me. I know everybody. I know, I'm just kidding. No, I would have come to you too, but this is awesome.

I'm a little jealous. Welcome to Chasing Glory Studios. Yeah, well, thank you for having me. I'm jealous. I feel like I need a setup like this. You know, it was a lot of fun putting this together. And when we moved from the Marina, it's so wild. I had to tell you the story because I think it's important to talk about this segue,

if you don't mind. I'm going to take over. I'm going to interview myself. It's the Chris Van Leeds Show with Lillian Garzica. But no, but we were living in the Marquisites. living in the marina and mold invaded our place. Oh my God. Badly. And I've, I already had about a mold exposure from a house that had black mold 20 years ago. And it really affected my respiratory. Like I've been on a mold-free diet since then. Wow. It's that intense. So when that

started happening, it was when my dad was passing away. Actually, he came and lived with us because he was getting treated at City of Hope. And we thought he could beat bladder cancer, of course. That's what you always think, right? But then the doctors told us he had two to three months to live, and he ended up living five, because my dad's a lieutenant colonel. He fought all the way. But that's when I left WWE. But during that time, I was getting very, very sick. And I thought maybe it was because of dad dying that I was losing my immune system, the stress and everything like that. Come to find out, he passes away. And then we go, my husband and I, he passes away Christmas Day, 2016. And in 2017, it was around April

and we were like we need to just go away for a while. Maybe it was, yeah, I can't remember maybe it was 2018, but anyway we went away for a month to Thailand. A friend of us invited us out there so we were like, okay, we're going to go.

We were originally going to go for two weeks. We extended it for a month. We needed the break from the whole thing. And then I clear up completely. Like I have no allergies. I can eat whatever I want. It was insane. Yeah.

And then I come home and I get sick again. And even my husband feels it. So all of a sudden it dawned on me because of the house 20 years before. I was like, wait, could we literally have mold again in this place? I was like, no. Luck cannot get me twice. No. Well, I got messed twice because we had it tested high levels of mold.

Bad, bad, bad. Try to go through remediation. It just none of it worked. We ended up having to leave. And it was hard because that's where my dad passed away. So it was so hard. And my sister had painted this huge mural in the kitchen. Like we were wanting to stay there.

So when we were forced to move and we started looking around, my allergies just like go somewhere dry, dry, dry. So we went to West Hollywood. And we walked into this place. We're like, I could literally have the chasing glory room, you know, the studios. So that's how we landed here. So now I'm like grateful to the mold. Super lining and everything. Yeah, I like that you find the positive and everything.

silver lining and everything. That's amazing. Seriously, there's a silver lining in everything. And I know at times it feels like the world is falling and crumbling apart and whatever, but you can find it. If you can focus on it, and you know, even with my dad passing, there's a silver lining and everything. So I think that's what's so great about your podcast, too, about just about chasing glory in general is that you have these guests on there and they're talking about their life and not necessarily talking about what they did inside the ring. And I think that this would set you apart. Thank you. That was the labor of love, actually. My dad, before he passed away, this was in September. And like I said, he passed away Christmas Day. So in September, and I left WWE at the beginning of like the first of October when we got the news. So by September, mid-September, so he goes, Lil, please, I feel so bad already that you left. Like, you got to find something. What are you going to do now? And I had this idea back in 2004. I actually presented it to WWW. It wasn't called chasing glory. Sure. But the concept was there because I was in the locker room with all these amazing women that had gone through so much from alcoholism to eating disorders to being abused. You know, and I was like, wow, there's some real stories here. And if the fans really knew what these women had gone through, I think that they could embrace them even more, right?

And so I presented it to WWE, but it just wasn't the right time. This was before Total Divas. This is before the network. This is, you know, they were just doing things on www.com. Yeah. Right. But I also think that at that time, they weren't open to letting people into the real life, right? The curtain was still there.

So it wasn't until a few years after that that they decided to do total divas and all. And so when my dad said that to me, I said, hmm, I wonder if I can go ahead and do the original concept that I had. I called it making their way to the ring. And I started it after Buzz TV. And the four, I don't know, four. or five episodes were women and are a lot yeah i brought in a lot of women because i wanted to keep that original concept and then from there it just grew podcast one then um signed me and we changed it to chase and glory and boom i mean it's just you know taken off from that i went independent

about a year ago now i left podcast one and so here we are in the studios and it's it's been a labor of love dude because this is a lot of work as you go this is a lot of work people think they and just like, oh, I'm just going to do. Holy cow, this is a lot of work. And anyone that's listening right now, that's not to say you can't have a podcast, you can have a YouTube show, you can have a YouTube show. You can't, it's just, it's a lot of work.

You got to do it for the passion of it. You can't just do it because you go, oh, everyone else is doing it, so let me do it. You got to do it because you've got something serious to say because you have a passion, or you know you also want to bring stories out, but you've got to understand that it's the work of setting all of this up, doing the interviews,

then it's the promotion behind it, the uploads, the, you know, all of that. That's every, yeah. The equipment, the, yeah. Yeah, it's a lot. Yeah. How are you chasing glory in your everyday life? Yeah. Wow.

You know, it's wild because people think, you know, the perception is that if you are a celebrity or you've been in a position of making it in a certain, you know, distance, that you have no troubles. That that's the perception. But, and I definitely am one of those people that will count my blessings and have to continuously remind myself to count my blessings. But I've also realized that I think I'm a product of watching what my parents did. And I think that's why I like to get into those interviews, too, as to how did you grow up?

Tell me about your life as a kid. Because a lot of what happens to us as a child, you know, in those growing up years, really do follow us. And I realize it's more and more that, you know, my dad, Lieutenant Colonel, my mother raised us. She had her own career for a long time. She was an accountant and all. But I remember that they were still, like, never happy. Like, they struggled to find happiness with each other.

I think they were completely mismatched. My sister and I, you know, when we were growing up, we begged them to get divorce because they were fighting so much. It really affected me. And it wasn't until after we moved from Spain. I moved from Spain when I was eight years old. You were born in Spain, right? Well, I was born in the Canal Zone of Panama, so people don't realize that.

They think immediately. But when my dad was stationed in the Canal Zone, now the Canal Zone no longer exists. The Canal Zone is there, but the name is now just Panama. But at that time, the U.S. owned the Canal Zone. So there was a military base there. So I was born there, but at three months old, I went to Spain. And I lived there in Madrid for eight years. That, to me, is home.

That's what I consider home because it's the first eight years of my life. I don't remember Canalson or the Panama Canal. But so their life there was amazing. My parents got along great. Love the energy. I went to the military school when I was five years old. I had a little sign that's because Spanish is my first language. All I could say was hello and goodbye.

That was it. So I went into kindergarten saying, you know, all I can say is a loan, goodbye. Oh, wow. That was it. Scary, but my mom tells me this, because obviously I don't remember everything at five years old, but she tells me, she offered it to me. Do you want to go to the American school? You want to go to the Spanish school? And she presented to my sister and I both, and we were like, the English school, American school. And so, but she says I was so scared, but at the same time I was mad at myself for being scared and going, oh, I can do this, I can do this. So I've got that ingrained. I'm sure my dad instilled in my, and my,

and my mom as well. Like she's definitely somebody that has broken some barriers. She was like number three in her class. She was the only female for a while to like, even in being in accounting and business administration. She broke some barriers. So I know I have that in me. And so,

but I remember that I went in there and the teacher was telling everybody to talk to me in English. And even she wanted it in, when we had recess, she's like, I want all of you, because she knew some kids that speak Spanish. She goes, well, I want everybody to speak to Lillian in English. I was furious in a way because I couldn't really communicate, right? And so I'm trying to figure this all out, but I found one girl, and we would go in recess

and would hide in the corner, and then I'd speak Spanish all the whole time. She spoke Spanish the whole time to me. But then they told my mother to speak Spanish, so at home she was, I mean, to speak English. So at home she was speaking English to me. She said I was furious that I was just like, no, my mother speaks Spanish. Like I just felt like it was just weird to hear my mother speaking a different language. And I think it's probably I just wanted a break from all day long hearing English to then at home. It was a little too much.

Now how much do you speak Spanish now? I do. I still do. Which is I speak to her in Spanish all the time. It's weird. It really is weird for me not to have a conversation. in Spanish with my mom. Now, when we're around other people, of course, I'm going to speak English.

But with just, she and an eye, it's like, yeah, it's definitely. Would you interact with any of the wrestlers who spoke Spanish? Speaking just Spanish to that? Ray. Ray Mysterio. Carlito, when he was there. I would speak to, what's the other one? Did Eddie speak Spanish?

Eddy? Yeah, I spoke to all of them in Spanish. We'd have these full-on conversations backstage. It was great because it gave me an opportunity as well, because if you don't practice it, you will lose it. And there's some words that I have lost. I totally have. And I also left when I was eight.

So I realized that leaving when I was eight, and I still spoke with my parents here, but it wasn't full, I don't know. I feel like I've lost the ability, or not lost, I think I just never got it. The big words. The big words. Right.

Because I have like the more generic conversation. But you throw some of these bigger words. words that we'll even throw, like it's an ominous day. I have no idea how to say ominous in Spanish. No idea. But that's what I mean, like those kind of words that we don't use every day. Well, you talk about your mom breaking barriers. It's exactly what you did in the WWA.

Although I imagine when you were going in, you had really no idea what you were getting yourself in. No idea. No idea. No idea. Like literally. Got hired. I show up and I still don't know what I'm doing. And this is in 1999.

1999. I just remember like my interview process was kind of like this. Like I would be interviewing a wrestler or they'd turn the tables on me. Michael Cole would interview me and see how I did on camera. And there was a few things that I had to do. But nobody at any point said ring announcer ever in the process. And I almost didn't even go to the audition. It was my agent who said, go, you never know. So I was like, okay. And I was hosting at the time. I was, singing, but singing was like my main thing, main thing. And so, but it wasn't until they wanted me at SummerSlam. That was supposed to be my first day starting.

I started in August 23rd of 99, which was Monday Night Raw, but they wanted me for SummerSlam. I have no idea what I would have done it at SummerSlam. But anyway, I couldn't because I was in the Dominican Republic. I'd already been booked for a singing gig. So I flew back on Sunday and then Monday morning gone on a plane to go to Iowa State University, because that's where the show was at that week. And Michael Cole gives me a tour, and then I go to the production meeting.

And at three, I remember even Howard Finkel asking me, so what are you doing tonight? And I go, I don't know. I have no idea. And then at 330s, when they told me,

you were ring announcing tonight on the air on Monday Night Raw, and I was like, and you would never ring announced before. Never ring announced in my life. That seems very un-W-W-W-W-E-like. You will not get that now. There was no NXT back there.

There was none of that. But like that. show or something, you know. You got it. You would think. But no, it was, and then 20 minutes before I'm going live, they said, oh, yeah, by the way, no cue cards. Yeah.

Why? You see that expression? You just get, yeah. I first I thought Mark Gaten was like joking around. And I looked at him, I said, I'm sorry, but this is not a time to joke. I'm so nervous. Like, my training was watching Tony Chimel announced Sunday Night Heat, which was the show that was right before Raw for four matches.

That was my training. So, and I'm sitting there trying to rewrite the cards that I'd gotten in the afternoon, you know, that I sat down with Tony to go over everything. And yeah, when Mark looked at me and he goes, yeah, there's no cue cards, I was just like, wait, how am I expected to do this job? I have to tell you that that point I thought I was going to just run. Like I had in my mind, I looked at the exit and I was just like, go, just get out of here. Because there's 20,000 people in the arena. there's it's 146 countries Monday Night Raw this was the attitude era oh yeah we're talking 14 million people watching it okay it's not what it is now like the numbers were so high there's no DVR back then

no DVR people are like oh my god yeah crazy and uh 10 minutes till I was able to calm down like I literally thought of two other situations that I'd been thrown into in the sink or swim situation and I succeeded in both so I remember using the tools from what I learned there and applied it to that. And so I got through it, but I sounded horrible. And there was no cadence. There's like, the following contest is scheduled for what for? Like, it was bad.

It was so bad. I don't even know how they invited me back. It was so bad. Even now, like, some people will throw me, like, check this out for a flashback. And I go, oh, God. But at least you can see the improvement. Did they give you any sort of advice like, okay, we're going to say hometown first, then wait? Well, Tony had sat down with me when I was told at 3.30, he and I met at 430.

He sat down and said, okay, this is what you say for this match. It's what you say for this match. So I was writing everything down. But the crazy part is it never happened. Ever again, the 15 years that I was there, ever, ever did it happen like that night? Most of the matches got switched. In other words, I'd been memorizing, memorizing, okay, this is coming next, this is coming next. And then I'd be in the ring and they're like,

now Seg 3 is going to be Seg 2. And so now this guy is going to come instead of this guy. And I'm just like, hand me my cards. Hand me my cards. And he'd run up, this is during the commercial. He'd run over with the cards. I'd look at the cards. I'm like, okay.

And then I go up there. And thank God I have photographic memory. I'm sure that helps a little bit. For sure. I would like from my head just be reading off what I just saw on the card. Oh, my God. And then just trying to. Keep calm. Keep calm. Breathe. Keep calm. It was crazy. How long would you say it took you

till you were comfortable? Never. No. No. It was a few years. Wow. Dude, it was a few years. I mean, it's live TV. There's so much that can happen. Developing a cadence, developing a sound. I never wanted to listen, even after I found out that that's what I was going to be doing. That was going to be my job. I didn't go back and listen to Howard or I didn't go back and listen to Tony because I didn't want to try to copy them. And that's what I always told the announcers moving forward whenever I was

helping somebody else coming up. I said, don't listen so much to what anybody else has done. Try to find your own voice so that you can be original. Otherwise, if you're just copying someone else, you know what I mean? Yeah, you just sound like you're doing an impression of them. Exactly.

That's like somebody doing an impression of Madonna or whatever. They're never going to have their own originality and stand out. Yeah. So I did that on purpose. I didn't want to hear that. And so I just had to develop my own sound through trial and error and just doing it over and over and over. And so it took a while.

Do you remember having like one mess up that like stands out in your mind where you're like, There's so many. Are you kidding? But like one that you're like super embarrassed about. You know, it was funny because at the beginning, I'll tell you what silver lining. I love it. I used to be a perfectionist. I would beat myself up so bad if I messed something up.

And I remember I would mess something up in the ring because I was learning on the job, right? And I would mess something up and you would see me. I'd sit. And it's almost like I couldn't watch the mat. Like the whole night, all I kept thinking was I messed up, I messed up, I messed up. Oh my God. This is horrible. I'm horrible.

I suck. Every negative thing that you could think of that was going on in my mind. So what that does is when I'd go up there again, I'd mess up again. So it was just this perpetual thing that would happen and it was just really bad. And I actually went and consulted a coach to try to help me mentally as to how do I quit doing this. Because then there were times where I'd be like, wow, okay, there'd be like, I don't know, 13, 14 segments, something like that. So I'm like, we're at sec 13 and I have one more and I haven't messed up. Okay, I could do this, I could do this.

I haven't messed up. I haven't messed up. Then I'd go mess up. Because what you focus on is what happens. A thousand percent. So the silver lining of that was that finally, I remember I messed up on something, and I turned around and I just started laughing. And laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing.

I'd go to ringside and I'm still like laughing at it. I can't believe it. Just like laughing laughing. And all of a sudden, everything got lighter. And I was like, oh, it's okay. I've survived it. It's okay to mess up. I can just laugh at myself and then I can move on.

From that moment on, I started doing really well. And it was night after night after night without nothing. And I realized, too, that this job, the mess-ups show up more than the regular job on, let's say, commentators. Because commentators are allowed to mess up and they'll go, excuse me, I mean. And nobody sees it as a mess up. News anchors. Right now, if you ask me something, you're like, I mean, it's not considered, oh, he messed up, you know. Whereas an announcer, if you're in the middle of the ring and you do mess up, it is like, whoa, it stands out.

It totally stands out. Because you're supposed to be perfect. You're supposed to be perfect. But then somebody presented it to me, and they were like, look, some of the best basketball players, the best football players, the best, whatever. They don't get every touchdown. Okay? They throw the ball. Sometimes it misses and it does.

But Tom Brady, for example, one of the best, right? But has he nailed every single throw he's ever done? No. Right. Right? So that's when the whole thing of perfectionism and all I was, oh, wait, so if I can mostly be good, like, mostly, you know, then it's okay. Then it's a higher ratio, have a high ratio of doing a good job and having good attitude, you know, all of that. And that's what my career has been. Have I nailed every single announcement? No, but it's okay. But I've heard the stories of going out and doing what you thought you were supposed to do in the ring and then going backstage and hearing from Vince or someone else. Why'd you do it like that? Yeah. You're like, because you told me to do it like that.

Yeah. Yeah. That must be difficult to work with. Well, it was what I say, too, is the fact that sometimes I didn't get the, they changed something. Oh. And because everything is like TV. You don't have an earpiece either. And I didn't have an earpiece.

For 15 years, I didn't have an earpiece. That's so crazy to me. The thing is, is sometimes things would change back there, and then they would forget, they'd forget to tell me. And so I'd go in the ring and I'd announce it a certain way because that's the way that I, I knew, I thought it was supposed to be around. And then I find out, oh, my God, why did she do it? Well, because I never got a message.

You know, but I don't blame them either. There's so much happening in a live TV show, you know? It's just that's what happens. Yeah. It's what happens. You can't be mad at anybody. But, I mean, sometimes I would just like, oh, I would be mad because I'm like, I'm trying to be perfect here and I'm being set up to fail.

And then I'm like, but wait, they're trying their best too. You know, we're all good. It's live TV. It's crazy. remember when you debuted and then it was like three weeks later you're being put in a figure four leg log by Jeff Jarrett and I'm like that that just seems so sudden but I thought it was great it was a great strategy to introduce me to make me part of it that people immediately started feeling for me right so I thought it was a great idea especially the fact that I was a female in a male

dominated industry and at the time females were not, you know, flourishing not to that. I mean, you have China, certain ones that would definitely, but to have a female announcer taking over, you know, Howard's position is, that's a big step. So I think it was great that they threw me in those things and then even having the feud that Howard Finkel and I had and throwing in three-minute warning in there and the moves with that. I mean, I thought the whole thing played out really nicely. And I've heard you tell the stories before that Howard was so helpful. Oh my God. Howard and Tony. But they could have had so much animosity. You got it. And that's why I thank them every chance I can get. Because, yes, Tony sat with me that day and told me everything to say it all. But then Howard

was the one that every Monday, he goes, any questions. You have any questions. You come to me. You have any questions. So I'd go to him and I'm like, Howard, what? what do I do here? And he knew. He knew, A, it wasn't my fault that I replaced him, okay? He knew that I was trying hard. He knew that I appreciated him so much. He knew that I was just doing what I was told. And that's what another lesson I think is when somebody, when you think someone's taking your job, they really haven't. They just received an opportunity and they're going to take the opportunity. And so would you, right? Don't be mad at them. You know, it's the decision of the higher up that are making that. But I love the fact that Howard didn't also take it against the higher

ups. He had like a 20-something year career there. So he moved into a different position. So he was so gracious with that. And I love that man. I love that man. I wish him, I spoke to him recently because I know he's going through a hard time, you know, and I spoke to him recently. And I did hear he went backstage and saw some people. I wish I would have been there. I wasn't there at the time. but recently apparently he came backstage and I just I saw the photos are out there right right right yeah so I just have him on the show yeah but he's in an assisted living place so I got to figure that out yeah but I think you're absolutely right

thank you for giving me that idea maybe I just find a way to go to him people would love to see that yeah that'd be incredible yeah you're right you're right thank you for that there we go there we go so when you see it yeah you'll know why did you have a specific name that you loved to say neither I love to say there's so many. Of course, but there must be one that you're... One that just popped in my head just because he and I got into sync. And it wasn't even planned.

But Rob Van Damme, when I would say his name, it was fun because the fans would say it with me. And he got to a point to where we would time it after a while. Like it just happened naturally one time and it happened so cool that it was like, oh, I'm going to time this every time. I would take my time and doing his introduction. while he was getting in the ring. So I would make sure that he was in the ring

by the time I said Rob Van Dam. And if it wasn't in the ring, if I knew that he was right at the bottom, then I would say it then. But he and I started locking up where he knew he was waiting for me and I would be waiting for him to time it where he could be doing the RVD with his hands

while I was saying his name. That was really cool. Oh, I love that. So once you started getting into it, how long did you think you were going to be in WWA? Oh, my God. I don't have for the time. Yeah, it was.

Definitely not 15 years. Like, you probably had a contract and you're like, yeah, I could do this. What was the year contract? Oh, that's it, okay. That's all it was. So at first they said, we'd like to try you offer two to three months and you could quit at any time. That's why I even accepted the position.

Oh, okay. Because as I told you, I was going music, music, music. So, but I said, God, if it's meant to be, make it obvious. If it's not meant to be, make it obvious. So when they offered two to three months and I could quit at any time, that was pretty obvious to me. So it's like, okay, we're going to try this. It's pretty obvious. So it was when Michael Cole took me around in the arena that day. I was just like looking around, I still didn't know what it was doing, right? But I'm looking around going, wow, this is pretty darn cool. And I said,

God, I've always wanted, I always had it in my mind. I was going to sing arena, stadiums. Like, that's what I always had in my mind, right? And I was like, I wonder if I can get my music somehow in this. and all it. So I was really trying to look at the bigger picture. Just look at the bigger picture. You never know, you never know. And sure enough, I mean, here I start August of 99, and by February of 2000, I, and it was The Rock,

who actually, when he found out that I sang, and we became friends from all the backstage interviews that he and I were doing, we ended up becoming friends. And then when he said, I think it was, I had to do a house show that weekend, you know, at the time they were called house shows, right, live events. But I wasn't doing those. Howard Finkel was still doing those. So he wasn't like out, out of announcing.

He was just not doing Monday Night Raw. He was still doing pay-per-views. Right. So he was still doing pay-per-views and he was still doing the weekends because he wanted to do those. And I was fine with just doing the TV. So they needed me to cover one of the TVs for him during the weekend of Valentine's. And so I had heard that. that they always play the national anthem.

And so Rock and I were talking. And he's, and I said, yeah, I hear that they play the national anthem and instrumental. Do you think they'd ever, like, have me maybe try it and do it? He goes, have you ever done it? I said, yeah, I did it from my high school, my graduation. There's 600 people. I was like, I did it there, and I've sang my entire life.

I said, I would love to if they'll let me. And he goes, I will let the producers know about this. So, why don't you come and let's do a rehearsal that day? let them hear you and let's see it. So sure enough, I did the rehearsal in the afternoon. The producers was like, absolutely, so have you do it tonight. I did it that night. Then I ring-announced the show.

I did the next night and the next night. So I did Friday, Saturday, Sunday. By Monday, Vince McMahon, they all told Vince all about it. Vince was like, I have to see this for myself. So we were, I think it was San Jose. But I remember it being, I think it was Valentine's Day because it was during that weekend. But and I sang it that night right before we went on air with Raw and Vince loved it and the fans loved it and I think that's another thing that helped them receive me too and that's one of the things that Vince said.

He goes, I want you to do this at every show because I think this is going to help you also win over the fans because they were still in that transition of this is hard to accept, you know, a female and someone who's replacing Howard Finkel and someone who's not very good or their job and they don't know that I'm not good at my job because I've never betrayed. So I think all of that helped me, putting me in storylines and then having me sing. So yeah, that was the start of every single event. And then that WrestleMania, they had me, 2000. That was the very first WrestleMania that I ever did. And then I ended up doing three total. Like I hold the record, which is crazy.

Because at one time, Aretha Franklin and I were tied for two. So I was just like, at that time, I was like, oh my God, I'm tied with Reese. Frank Flake for singing the most times at WrestleMania. And then all of a sudden they asked me to do it a third time. I'm like, I'm going to hold the record? What? Yeah, it's crazy. And this, of course, led to, you know, the moment that no one can forget.

9-11 when you sang the anthem. And obviously it was such a touching moment. I'm getting goosebumps. Wow, look at that. Wow. Wow, that's crazy. Legit. Just thinking about it.

But it's the one line. Our flag was still there. I'm not even American. And I was like, that's great. I got goosebumps. What was it like before you stepped into the ring knowing that that was, going to be that moment. Well, it was a really hard week for me, especially because the way I found out about 9-11 was I, so let me preface it, the night before, we're in Texas, right? So the night before

we were driving, and when I say we, I was in the car by myself, but it was Chuck Palumbo was there that night on Monday Night Raw, and this is when we were doing both shows. We were doing Raw and Smackdown. So obviously on Raw, I did announcing on Smackdown on did backstage interviews. So we were driving And that night, Chuck and Stasiak, actually, they both were like, are you driving by yourself? I'm like, yeah, I always pretty much driving myself. This is before Trish had come into. Trish and I then became Trish Stratus. We became partners and drove everywhere together.

But I was driving by myself and they were like, well, we'll follow you just to make sure that you get there okay. Because it was like 200 miles or something like that between shows, which was really great. Such gentlemen. the level and it's so funny that that happened because it didn't happen in other nights but it's wild that it happened that night but i'll tell you why like i feel like you know there's things that protect us right so i did they did follow me and um so we got to the hotel that we're staying in the same same hotel we got to the hotel and i got awoken at uh seven something in the morning because we were two hours behind texas i think is two hours behind east coast

time or something what one hour or one hour behind okay so I remember it being seven something whatever anyway and I had to look at that time I was married and so my ex was telling me oh my god I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay and like what do you mean I was living in New York City we were both in New York City living there I said I'm trying to wake up what do you mean you're okay what do you mean you're okay he goes there something's happened something's Nothing's happened. I don't know. Everybody's running all the way. Like they were running. He goes, I'm just now making it Times Square. I've been running all the way from the financial district. And something major has happened. And I couldn't make it out. Like, what are you talking about? And then the phone goes dead. So I try to get back. Now I can't get them back. So I turn on the TV and that's when I see that a plane has gone in and hit the tower. So I'm freaking out. Freaking out. So then, as I'm watching the TV, the second plane hits, right?

And then the tower starts coming down. And that's when he called back. He gets a hold of me. As I'm watching, the tower is going down. And I'm, like, losing it. I'm alone in the hotel room. I'm losing it. I'm like, this crazy out.

I have him on the line. He's running. He has no idea what anything has happened. And I'm like, they've fallen, they're falling. They're falling. they're down, they're down. He's like, what's down? What's falling? I said, excuse my, everybody, I said, my freaking, the towers, like they're gone. And he's like, what? And he's freaking out, right? Because he said there's panamony in the streets.

People don't know what's going on, but there's like this major dust, major this, major that. So we lose contact again. And then as I'm hearing the news, they're all talking about the fact that there is a bomb threat in the Grand Central Station. There's a bomb threat here. There's a bomb threat there like it's like all new york right there's everyone's thinking that it's just blowing up everywhere and i can't get a hold of him so i remember i called molly holly i called ivory i couldn't get a hold of him but i knew that they were in a different hotel i called chuck palumbo and i was like chuck i'm i woke him up with the news and i was freaking i was crying i was freaking i was crying he runs to my room we're sitting there watching the tv he's just holding me as i'm crying

crying, crying. And I said, how ironic, right, that he and Stasiak offered to follow me. I wouldn't have known to reach out to him. And I wouldn't have known who was there at the hotel. But he helped me throughout that entire, was it two days that they decided, well, we're going to stay in Houston. We're going to go live now on Thursday. And then I get the word, I don't remember when they told me that I was going to sing the national anthem. I asked me to. I don't remember the exact date. I just remember, I mean, I was in a fog. At least I found out that my ex was, he was safe, he was fine. But Chuck really helped me for those following days. And then when I found out, when I found out, I was singing, I was just like, all right, can I do this? Can I do this?

Like, that's like a major. The fact that I lived in New York City, you know, the fact that I knew the story, like what my ex had gone through, the, the, just watching, really, you know, the, just watching replaying and replaying those images and images and the fact that I knew that they'd canceled everything and they'd cancel NFL NBA they'd canceled everything but we were still going live and you're going to be the first person to be singing our national anthem in a you know public forum and on TV and all of all it's just like well what um so right before and isn't it crazy that the time that I had sang before that prepared me for that moment had I not had the practice of singing at every single event singing for our fans who I already felt connected

with, right, who had embraced me so much from singing the anthem. All those things helped me to get through that night because it wasn't like boom on the announcer and for the first time you're hearing me sing and that would have been a lot of pressure. But I feel like all of that led me to that night and that moment. And I'd already been singing in a cappella as well for since I started. So that I'd gotten used to, but Paul Heyman saw me right before going to sing. And he looked at me, he goes, I looked at him like with this look. It's almost like he could read my look. And he's like, you know you got this, right?

And I was like, Paul, this is so much, this is big. I don't know if I can do this. Like this is so much bigger than me. And he goes, no, you know you can do this. Like this is, everything has set you up for this moment. And I said, but I think I might lose it. He goes, and it's okay. He goes, if you lose it, it's okay.

Just cry. Just cry. So I decided, I didn't even make a decision. I was just like, just sing from the heart. Just sing from the heart. Like, this is, you know, I'm an army brat. My dad fought in Vietnam. Our country got, you know, and my dad obviously was alive during that time.

And I talked and I told him, oh, God, I go sing this. And he's like, Lil, you know, we're all about America. You know that, you know, you could. him too you know you can do this mom all of that so I got in the ring now I didn't know that everybody was going to be lined up on the ramp that's what an image right having yeah all of everybody lined up I mean from the staff in the back everyone was there in out in the arena and then all the flags and the oh god talk about goosebumps I still do I still get teary-eyed I still remember that I still remember what I felt like afterwards and crying and

And you held it together until the song was done. I think you can hear it if you go back in the recording. You can hear when I say the word free. I crack up a little bit because it was starting. It was all starting to build up in me because I knew it was like, keep it together, keep it together, keep it together. But when I said the flag was still there and I had to sing it up there, like I never heard it sung that way.

I've heard it sung that way since, but I've never heard it sung that way before then. but it always bothered me. And I had sang it before that night when I was singing in the arena. I'd always sing it as I started to really be like, I want to make the song mine. It always bothered me that,

and the flag was still there. It's like, that's a big moment. The flag is still there. Yeah. You can't just, you know, la la la. Like, so that's when I changed it. The flag is still, you know, and just really make it,

the flag is still freaking there. Yeah. And that night, You can hear it too. When I sang it, that flag was still there, and everybody in the arena's like, yes, it is. We're still here. It's a crazy 18 and a half years later how you're still in that moment when you tell the story. And I think that's what's so special about that.

Like I can see how emotional you are and you're getting about this. I feel it. I think is in it next year is 20 years and it's just insane to think it was 20. 20 years ago and I can still feel it like it was yesterday. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, you won't have any moments in WWE that could ever compare to that. But match-wise, what's the most emotion you felt announcing in a match?

In a match. There's been some incredible matches that I've gotten to announce. I'm trying to think. I remember it was wild. when we're outside at WrestleMania and it goes from day to night and then you're announcing the main event

you feel this energy in the stadium that you can't even explain it would give me goosebumps it would give me like sometimes I was literally cold I was shaking in there because it was cold outside and I'm sitting here in the you know a little dress or whatever but it was also the adrenaline

So mix that I was cold with the adrenaline rush and all. Those are the moments that immediately pop in my mind. It's like, wow, main event. And the fact that I was the first female to ever announce WrestleMania, like, that is just beyond something so special and dear to me and just so honored by that. So WrestleMania really does hold a special meaning for me because of that as well. Did you want to know the finishes to matches? No. So I used to at the very beginning, and I hated it.

I hated it. They used to have it written in the scripts. So I could actually see it. Even if I wanted to not know, I could see it written in the scripts. And then it started getting leaked out. So they started taking it off the scripts. And so they would ask me, hey, do you want to know? And I'm like, no, I want to announce it just like a fan.

So genuinely, when you'd hear me like, here's your word, you know. Or, and the new, you know, I would be just as excited as the fans. Oh my God, it's the new. champion, you know. That's why I didn't want to know, because I wanted to give it an honest, and I wanted to watch the match as a fan to not know the ending to go, my God, I was going, three, no, you know, so that was me. That was me. I loved it. What if there was a new tag team or something and you were just trying to figure out the wording of what they were or something. Did you ever like, you know, write down little notes or something for that? Oh yeah. I mean, I'd write

down notes, but I would need that for the introduction. So, yeah. Yeah. So I would already have everything I need, I have it for the introduction. The only time that maybe I would need to know an ending is if something was going to get worded differently or, for example, Seth Rollins coming in, just one example. But anybody would be coming in to cash their money in the bank, I would have to know that because I would need to know that, yes, it's legit. When the referee comes and says, come over, like, it's legit. Come over, you know.

And then there's times that are like, I'm going to wave you over, but take your time because he's really not going to cash his money in the bank. So that's why I would need to know those things. Sure, yeah. So if I knew that he was going to cash his money in the bank, obviously I still don't know the ending, but those little things I would need to know to coordinate. The environment was so different for females and,

in particular, female wrestlers when you started out. Yeah. It's changed drastically over the last 20 years. What was the first indication that you saw that things were really starting to take a turn? For the women. For women, yeah. Because you came in in the era of Bronwyn. panty matches and that kind of thing.

Oh, yeah. When those bottom panty matches started going away and started having real legit matches, that's when I was just like, wow, this is really freaking cool. And the way that the women were working so hard. But it was the whole give divas a chance, that tweet that went out, you know, the hashtag that was trending that WW finally listened because I was back there when the women was so frustrated. Wow, we had a five-minute match that just got cut down.

to two minutes. Like I literally would see it where they would come in and all of a sudden I would hear, wow, their matches getting, they're telling them to go home. And they just got in. They're telling me to go home, you know, and I'd see the frustration and I'd hear about it, right? Because they wanted to prove themselves. They really wanted, they're like, God, what do we hear for to go out there and one, two, three, boom. And you're going to think there's a lot that goes into makeup and hair, way more than the guys, you know, so then you should. You should, you Sure. Going through all that trouble and get your makeup and hair and yet you got two minutes out there, you know. So they just wanted an opportunity. So when that opportunity came, they seized on it, which is great. And they proved that they can hold their own in a Royal Rumble match, in a ladder match, you know, and all of these hell in the cells, elimination chamber. My God, amazing matches. And they've really proven themselves, which is awesome. Was there ever a conversation about having you start to wrestle? Okay. So I'm glad you asked me that. people had asked me about that.

Why aren't you wrestling? Why aren't you getting into a match? And I have one match with Howard Finkel, but that was like an evening gown match. It was a ha-ha match. It wasn't like a legit. We're both not wrestlers. When I saw the work that everybody was putting in

to be a wrestler, I kept thinking I would see other people come in, celebrities or that, and they would learn a couple moves and they would get in and do them at a full-blown match. And then they'd call themselves a wrestler. By the way, and they never looked right.

And then, of course not. Of course not. This takes a lot of training. A lot of training. So I didn't want to go and learn a couple moves and then be in a match and then call myself a wrestler. I felt like that was very disrespectful to the art of what's happening there. The athleticism. I felt like, no, you know what?

You've got ring announcing and you've got singing. and you do in backstage interviews. So you're good. I was good. I was good with that. And I was like, if I ever want to be a wrestler, then I need to legit go train for a really long time, like legit become a wrestler.

Don't just do a couple of moves and call yourself a wrestler. It's disrespectful. Well, you and Justin Roberts were really the last of the ring announcers that were stars. I mean, now they're not even really on camera. It's just, you know, just hear the voice. Yeah.

Was that starting to change at all during your tenure? of not having the camera? Yeah. You know, I do remember that there would be some points. When I came back, I feel like when I left for two years, I mean, I never thought, after I left for 10 years, I thought that was it. Like when I legit said my goodbye in the middle of the rain, I was crying and I was just like, I love you guys and I'll miss you.

I mean, that was legit. We know wrestling retirements aren't ever real. And it's so funny because somebody reached out and they were like, yeah, you're going to pull a Jericho before along. And I was like thinking when I read that, I went, no, I'm really gone. Because my plan was to have children. That was my whole plan. My husband and I actually, my husband now, right, because I remarried.

But my husband and I had planned to, I left on Monday. It was September 22nd, I think it was, 21st, I think it was. You're so good with dates when you're traveling the world. I'll tell you why. Because September 28th, which was the Monday after I got married. So one Monday I retire, the next Monday I'm getting married. Wow. Yeah.

And then you guys moved out here at L.A. Yeah. And we moved out, we got married in September, and we didn't move till May of the following year. It wasn't like we, I didn't, we didn't even know. That's still a lot of life changes in just eight months or whatever that is. Oh, yeah. Oh, for sure. But the plan was to have kids.

And we moved because, so we had abstained because when we went through the Catholic Church, we both got our marriages an old. So we found out it was actually a priest. who set me free, believe it or not, from my first marriage. And you would think the Catholic Church, what? You can divorce? No. But I was really unhappy. And it was really sad because my ex was really good to me, really a good guy. But I remember, and I want to say this in case anybody's in this position.

So the week before I got married, my first marriage, the week before I got married, I was hyperventilating in the car with him, telling him, I can't do this, I can't do this. And he was like, oh, you're just having wedding jitters. It's okay. Everything can be fine. But no, my intuition. My intuition was firing. And I didn't listen to my intuition, and I went through with it.

And sure enough, like, it just kept spiraling down. And I thought there was something wrong with me because the guy was so good to me that I thought, well, you just don't know how to receive love. You know, there's something wrong with you that maybe you just need turmoil in your life. And I'd never been about that. I've never been in relationships that were turmoil. So I was just like years and years and years and years. Years and years of therapy. Years of therapy.

Then I went through antidepressant pills. So I was on antidepressant pills. So I was living in New York City where I, at the time, I'd moved from South Carolina. He moved with me, New York. I was living my dream, but yet I was on antidepressant pills and so sad. And I walked into the Catholic Church. I just, just to catch a sermon, actually. And I really connected with, it was a visiting priest.

So talk about things that, that have. happened. They're not, but I really connected with this visiting priest. And I pulled them aside at the end and I said, can I talk to you, please? And he's like, yeah, so we went at your room. Oh, my God, I cry. I'll not, I still can see the amount of tissues. Everything. I was just like, I am so unhappy. And is it me that I just don't know how to receive love? And, you know, I told him everything. And he's like, well, did you want kids with them? And I said, no, like, no offense. But I knew it was already sad. I want to bring children in the situation. I think that's a mistake. People think that if they bring kids, it will make the relationship strong. No, no, no, no. Your relationship's got to be

strong to sustain the kids. So I ended up not going through with it. And I mean, so he told me, he's like, well, you know, the Catholic Church believes in an annulment when it's not with kids and all that. And so he said, it's going to take a lot of interviews. And they interviewed my ex. They interviewed me, they interviewed families, they interviewed all this, and two and a half years later, I was granted an annulment. So we could actually, my husband and I could, and we left, amicable by the way, and he also, my ex, thanks me to this day that I let him go. Because he realized it was that I didn't know how to receive love.

It was just that I was with someone that wasn't my right partner. I loved him as a friend. And so, but when you marry just a friend and not someone that you're in love with, I loved him, I wasn't in love with them, that's where the, it will just crumble. Right. So I mentioned that in hopes of helping anyone out there that might be going through the same thing, right? Sure.

But when I met my husband now and we went to the Catholic Church and we were like, okay, we want to do this. And in the eyes of God, this is actually going to be the first marriage. and they were like, yeah, you got to abstain. Because we asked him, we said, we're not virgin, so how do we do this? Going into this, he goes, we'll start abstaining as of now. And I was like, but we're six months out. And he's like, yeah, and? I was like, oh, my husband and all looked at each other.

We're like, okay, can we have the wedding tomorrow? Yeah, we're like, okay, we can do this. And it's like, have conversations, you know, communicate this, that way. He's like really just talking about how, just look at it in a different. way, right? So I was like, okay, all right, so I'm going to do that. So sorry, my phone is going off. Let me turn that off. It's okay. Maybe it's Finnswickman calling you back. Things that you forget to do before the interview. It's okay. I put this on airport mode. We keep it real, right? Anyway, so we ended up having amazing conversations, getting to know each

other, playing games, board games, all the stuff, things that we never normally would have done. It was beautiful. So in our wedding day, like, it really became legit. like we were a husband and wife and it felt like we were virgins because it'd been six months so it was like a buildup and it was just gorgeous and the plan was have kids we have not used protection since day one and uh and i'd gotten off the pill and they said it's going to take you a while when you get off it's going to take your your body a while they might take you a year so now that i'd we'd gotten off around april so by that following april when i was like well what's nothing's happening.

You know, then they checked me out and checked him out and they're like, oh, yeah, you guys can't have kids. It's like, oh, shit, what do we do now? Like, it was something that I didn't know the decision was going to be made for me. Right. You know, so it was really hard. And it was the same day I found out Candace was pregnant with her first. So, well, it's hard.

But that's when the decision came like, okay, well, let's move to L.A. I had come out here for just a job, like an interview, and everything went really well. And so I called him up and I was like, I guess we're going to live in L.A. And he loved it. He always wanted to come and live in L.A. So we moved out here. And then it was another year before we decided to go back. Like the door was open for me to go back.

So I did. Was it hard for you to deal with the news that, I mean, you wanted to be a mom? And now, like you said, the decision was made for you that you can't be. Yeah. How is that something that you dealt with? Because I'm sure that's something that a lot of people have to deal with. A lot of people have to deal with. So at first it was like, wow.

I mean, it was a hard day. Now, I couldn't even be in the same apartment where we were living in an apartment. I couldn't be in the apartment. I had to be out because I felt like the walls were really narrowing in. The apartment never felt smaller than that day. And so I remember calling my husband when I got the house. the news and he came and met me immediately left work and we were walking around in like the zombie world like I was just in a fog and crying going you know slide in the corner and just

bawling and then that's when I got the call from Candace never did I think that she was going to tell me the news that what she told me. Candace Michelle? Yeah Candice Michelle so when she called me I was going to just pour out to her oh my God I found this out but when I answered the phone she goes oh my God oh my God oh my God I was like what? She goes, guess what I found out? Guess what I found out?

And I'm like, what? She goes, I'm pregnant. Oh my God. I literally was like, congratulations. You know, and I couldn't tell her. I couldn't ruin her moment. That's her moment. And I still don't know to this day.

I can't remember if I've told her that story or not, but I couldn't remember a moment. So then I hung up the phone and I really started bawling and I was like, wow, you know, I'm happy for her. Don't leave it wrong, but I just found out this news and I'm like, oh. So I'm like, well, I'm like, what do I do? You know, like what, what do I really do? And that's, um, those, that was a big

realization. Again, we didn't find out, that's when we found out in April. And so it was like, okay, well, go out to LA. Let's see what you can do there. Start volunteering at, you know, kids, children's hospitals, which I did a lot of, um, find a way to be around children in a different capacity. Yeah. And that's what I've done to this day. And I mean, I've embraced it now. I think with my lifestyle as much as I do love doing these kinds of things in the show and all. And I see some of my friends who always wanted kids are exhausted. They're so tired all the time. And I go to them and I'm like, is it worth it?

Yeah. You know, and some of them had said, oh, yeah, there's no, nothing like it. And literally some of them have been like, I wish I would have known what I know. I love my kids to death, but I wish I would have known. now would I, you know, then what I know now. I have friends that say the exact same thing. Right. Yeah. In a personal moment, they're not like bragging to the world.

Like, oh, don't know. No, but. I don't know if I wanted to be a parent. But it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. Yeah. It's a lot of work. And it doesn't end up coming out like sometimes the way you, you know, want to come out.

Yeah. So I go, maybe God was protecting me from something. Maybe from me it would have destroyed me in some way. I don't know. But I love that you look for the silver. line. We've been talking about this as the start of the interview, but the silver line and the positive in what could be perceived to many people as a negative. It's not, you just have to then, okay, so this has happened to you. Again, 90, I always say this. 90% is what happens to us. I'm sorry,

10% is what happens to us. 90% is how we react. It's funny because DDP even shared that. I forget who the quote is by. I got to look it up. But it really is. Legit. That to anything. And recently I was supposed to sing at the Jets game. And I land on Friday and I started getting a sore throat. And my voice started going horse. And I'm like, holy crap, what's going on? By Saturday, it just got worse and worse and worse. The medication that they gave me, made me worse.

And by Sunday, I like, I had nothing. I had nothing. So they had to call in the sub. And I had to make a decision Saturday night. I'm like, all right, what do I do with this? I always say 10% is what happens to this. 90% is how we react. Well, what do I do with this?

So I was like, okay, I can be bummed. I am bummed. All right, accept that. I'm bummed. Now what do you do? And so I decided to be in a supporting role for the girl who did get called. She is a sideline reporter for the Jets. She is not a trained singer.

She's just someone that can sing. And it said, hey, if you ever need anybody in a pinch, I'm here. So she was there, right? And now she is nervous as all get out. 80,000 people. This would have been my 14th time. This was her fur. So I show up at 9 a.m. for her sound check, which would have been mine.

The game didn't start to one. I really didn't need to be there at all. They were like, you know, if you don't feel well, don't worry about coming. I was like, no, no, no, I feel fine. It's just my voice is gone. So I show up whispering to her and just trying to get her through that. And she told me the next day how much it helped her, which made me feel great. Yeah.

Made me feel great. I was like, wow, I was actually able to get. give her an opportunity and give her a chance to shine and, you know, and it also, the silver lining was, for me, it made me realize singing does not define me. Because for the longest time, even doing chasing glory, I always felt like, well, if I don't have something to do with singing, my life is empty. My life is meaningless. And that's the way I always saw it. And after that moment, I went, no, singing is something I get to do. It's fun. But if I never sang another day in my life, It doesn't define who I am.

So that was a pivotal, pivotal, yeah. So many nuggets of great information that I'm taking to heart here. Oh, thanks. So many people, you know, listening are as well. As we wrap things up here, we talked about how much it's changed for women in wrestling over the last 20 years. Wrestling in general has changed and evolved so much over the last 20 years. Now we've got options with wrestling.

We've got more wrestling than ever before. What's your take on the fact that now we've, we can watch anything we want whenever we want. Oh my gosh. It's great and it's bad. I mean, I think it's amazing how many opportunities there are to watch wrestling and how many shows. And it does show that there is a hunger for it because obviously these shows would all be tanking if there wasn't a, you know, call for it.

So it's bringing attention that, yeah, this is a legit sport. This is a legit entertainment that people love and they crave and the excitement. And I think the major thing as well that makes it something that people want to be a part of is the fact that they get to be a part of it. When I mean by that is we can watch a movie all day long. It's great, but we are still in our dark rooms watching something that's projected on film, right? Or in the TV. We're still in our rooms watching a TV show.

But when you have an arena show and you get to go to the arena and be a part of it, even more than NBA or football. In those, the audience is just kind of a blur in the background where you hear them, right? But you don't really, or you see them. You don't really hear them. In wrestling, the fans are part of the show. They repeat, you know, some of those lines that are famous that people know. They bring their signs.

They, you know, you see them. They get focused on. The camera captures them because they're part of it. And even if you're at home watching it, you feel more connected than if you're just watching any other TV show. Yeah. So I think that that's the major thing that people just feel that draw to it because they really are sucked into being part of something. And I think that's more than anything. People want to belong.

They don't want to feel alone. They want to belong to something entity. They create a relationship with others. Even through me, I found out, which was such a beautiful. I had some fans that would come and they would come often. I kept seeing them and they would reach out to me, you know, Twitter, this and that. I saw them then, them forming a group because I think there was five or six of them that kept coming to see me.

Well, from them coming to see me, they started talking and then they formed a huge friendship among each other. Wow. The common denominator that brought them together was me. Yeah. But then they were able to be. to form a friendship and that's what I've seen from wrestling is that friendships are formed from the love of wrestling. The common denominator is wrestling.

Oh yes. But what has created a bond, you know, for so many people in their relationships that they've encountered with each other has been this thing and that's what the beautiful, beautiful thing of it is. I remember walking down the halls of my high school and seeing someone wearing a DX shirt and I'm like, hold on, you like wrestling too? Yes. And it's like that moment from stepbrubbers like, did you?

we just become best friends? Yep. Exactly. When you find that, you just gravitate to that person and immediately there's no longer a wall between you two. And I think that's the thing that we need to, more than anything, every day, take down those walls between people. I always, and when I'm in an elevator and people come on, I always acknowledge them.

Hi, how are you? How's everybody's morning? Right? Because more likely people are just walking in an elevator and they're just head down. And so now we're not connected at all. It's just individuals that go in and out of this elevator. But try it. Be the one to be in the elevator going, how is everybody doing?

I'm going to do that now. And I'm telling you, everyone in the elevator, you will just watch it. It's a fun experiment. Everyone lightens up and goes, oh, I'm doing okay. They're like, wow, I got acknowledged. And I got invited to be present with someone else. And people are longing for that connection because all we keep doing is being connected to a device that doesn't really fulfill us that way.

We need that human connection. Well, I want to be, there's been so much great stuff in here, but I want to be super respectful of your time. You've got somewhere else that you need to be. But thank you so much for this. Where can people find you? All right. So at Chasing Glory on Instagram, at Lilling Garcia, Instagram and Twitter,

Lillian Garcia official fan page on Facebook. And of course, the YouTube channel. Well, we're going to link up the YouTube channel below because we're on YouTube right now if you're watching this. And we're trying to build that. That's our newbie, right? So Chasing Glory just recently went into YouTube. I think we were talking about this beforehand, how we've done the reverse, how you started YouTube and I'll go on podcasting.

I've been audio with Chasing Glory for more than 100 episodes. And then when the 100th episode hit, it was like, we got to evolve. Let's do it. So I'll leave that in the description and also in the pin comment below. So you can subscribe to Lillian's channel. How awesome is Lillian. Oh, you guys great. Thank you. So thank you so much. This was amazing. Thank you.

Well, there you go, my friend. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. How awesome is Lillian Garcia? She's great. Thank you for taking the time to listen and share this hour with us and for listening all the way until the end here. please take a screenshot tag me and tag lillian let us know that you listened let us know what you thought of this chat what stood out for you also please make sure you are subscribed so you don't miss any of the upcoming episodes the way that this one came together is i was in north carolina for russel kade uh it was an autograph signing i was there and i saw her and i said you know what i've always wanted to have her on the show i have a massive amount of respect for lillian garsia so when her line died down because she had a very long line. Everyone loves Lillian. I finally went up, introduced myself and said, hey, I'd love for you to be on my podcast. And I think she must get that like all the time because she was like, yeah, like send me an email and we'll go from there. So I sent her an email. I didn't hear anything for like six weeks.

And then finally I got an email back from her people saying, oh, wow, you're in Los Angeles this week. Let's do it. And like boom, like that. I clicked to snap my fingers there. Boom like that. We made it happen. I was in LA doing a bunch of interviews, some that you're going to be seeing on the show soon. So make sure you're subscribed. Then I'm off to Atlanta next week to do some interviews with NWA. So excited about that. Then Miami the week after that for some more.

So if you have a great guest that you think should be on the show, let me know. We had 100 videos last year. And it's crazy to think that there is still a few hundred more guests that we could have on the show, maybe even a few thousand guests. Man, the future's looking bright. a great time to be a pro wrestling fan. Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving. Those are the words of Albert Einstein. So keep moving as we head here into 2020 as we head into this week and keep an eye out for our normal day on Thursday.

We got an episode coming out on our regular podcast day. Until then, enjoy your week. The Hammer Alley podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary. Back in the 80s. there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock. But there was one band that had it all. Hammer Alley. Whatever happened to Hammer Alley? How did they go from top of the rock? I'm looking for a music video.

They're a band from 1987. Hammer Alley. Ever heard of then? To Rock Bottom. Dude, I was born in 1987. I can't believe he's doing this. Hammer Allie. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.