Rare footage gives fans a glimpse of former Women’s Champion Victoria before her full-time WWE debut.
Before rising to success on WWE’s main roster, Victoria (real name Lisa Marie Varon) spent over a year working in WWE’s various developmental territories to better her in-ring craft. As seen in recently resurfaced footage, one such outing pitted Rodrageous and Victoria against The Right To Censor (Ivory and Steven Richards) at MCW.
The footage, capturing the mixed tag match from June 2001, shows a young Victoria squaring off with Ivory, who at that point had already been a three-time WWE Women’s Champion. In the early goings, Victoria also engaged in a collar and elbow tie-up with Richards before tossing him across the ring. When Richards charged toward Victoria for more, she dropped him on his back.
The closing moments saw Victoria threaten to hit Ivory with the ring bell, only for Richards to strike the future Women’s Champion from behind to stop her. Richard then positioned Victoria on the top turnbuckle, which allowed her to blast him with a series of back elbows. With Richard laid out on the mat, Victoria subsequently landed a moonsault off the top to secure the winning pinfall for herself and Rodrageous.
Victoria took notice of the throwback video, writing “Omg!!!” on X.
Victoria’s full-time WWE debut came in July 2002, with Trish Stratus emerging as her first main roster feud.
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