10 Things You Didn't Know About Eva Marie
Getting up to speed on All Red Everything ahead of her speculated WWE return.
If recent reports from a host of usually reliable wrestling outlets are to believed, former WWE star Eva Marie is due to make an imminent return to Vince McMahon's sports entertainment juggernaut.
The Red Queen was previously contracted to WWE between 2013 to 2017, and it appears that Marie is viewed as a welcome addition to flesh out the women's division on either Raw or SmackDown. With WWE having lost Ronda Rousey, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, and Kairi Sane for various reasons over the past several months (or longer, in Rousey's case), the women's divisions on both main roster shows are in desperate need of something. And in Eva Marie, maybe WWE sees her as the perfect answer to that ongoing conundrum.
Born Natalie Marie Nelson - now Natalie Marie Coyle after marrying fitness model Jonathan Coyle in 2014 - All Red Everything didn't exactly set the world on fire from an in-ring standpoint during her previous WWE run. But still, there's no disputing that Eva Marie was a pivotal part of the early success of Total Divas.
Ahead of her supposed WWE return, it's time to get up to speed with some of those lesser-known Eva Marie facts.
10. She Dreamed Of Being A Soccer Star
Footballer, soccer, whatever. Either way, Eva Marie had major aspirations of making it as a pro in the world of the beautiful game.
As the story goes, young Natalie Marie Nelson grew up wanting to be a professional soccer star. Those plans were initially hit hard when Natalie suffered a major ankle injury during her senior year of high school, but that didn't put off the future Eva Marie from pursuing a living in the soccer world.
Playing as a striker, Natalie was responsible for bagging her team the all-important goals that would win games, and she continued to do just that upon enrolling at Pleasant Hill, California's Diablo Valley College. A switch from Diablo Valley to Arizona State University followed, but Natalie suffered a crisis of confidence and temporarily gave up on her soccer dreams.
Another transfer would be on the horizon - this time to California State University - and the soccer coach here persuaded Natalie to once again return to the soccer pitch. Unfortunately, she was soon labelled ineligible for NCAA consideration due to having missed the criteria for the five-year clock rule - meaning she hadn't played consistently at Division I for at least four of the past five years.
Speaking to ESPN in 2017, Eva Marie explained
"I wouldn't have run into that problem if I just believed in myself from the start. Now that I'm older, I know it's so much better to have tried and maybe you fail, then to have never tried at all."