Eva Marie Reflects On In-Ring Botch – “Everyone Was Laughing At Me”
Many botches in wrestling, unfortunately, end up with someone getting hurt, but Eva Marie has explained that her first flub on television came from doing something far too gently.
Back in 2013, Eva Marie was a cast member of Total Divas alongside the likes of The Bellas and Natalya despite having next to no experience in the ring. Marie eventually became a fully-fledged member of the WWE roster and enjoyed two spells in the company, the last of those ending in 2021.
Speaking on her YouTube channel, Eva Marie detailed her first time on WWE television and the reaction she got to her botched slap of Jerry Lawler:
“My first time on television was slapping Jerry Lawler which was like a rib on me. […] I was just supposed to be the Total Divas crew out on Miz TV and then all of a sudden, right before, it’s like, ‘Eva Marie, these are gonna be your lines and then you’re gonna slap The King.’ I’m like, ‘Huh?’ But it’s Jerry Lawler. He’s an older gentleman and he’s, you know, Jerry Lawler so I didn’t want to hurt him by slapping him.
“Nobody told me how to properly slap somebody so, I think it goes down in history as one of the worst slaps ever where when I got back into Gorilla, everybody was laughing at me because I slapped him (softly) and he kind of was like, you know, tried to sell it as best as he could.”