10 Wrestling Facts We Didn't Know Last Week (March 11)

10. Velvet Sky Was Inspired By Lita's WWF Debut

Amy 'Lita' Dumas wasn't paired with The Hardy Boyz when she first joined the then-World Wrestling Federation and she instead acted as the valet for Essa Rios, a performer who mainly worked in the Light-Heavyweight division. 

Together, they made their WWF debuts on the February 13, 2000 edition of Sunday Night Heat. 

There, Rios defeated Gillberg to become the new WWF Light-Heavyweight Champion. Lita did much more than simply act as a cheerleader for her male counterpart, and even performed his trademark Hurricanrana and Moonsault moves on opponents. 

In the crowd, a future female wrestler was watching. That woman was TNA star Velvet Sky.

During an interview about her career with DoubleGSports, Sky revealed that she was at the Smackdown taping that Sunday Night Heat was taped before and saw Lita perform that night. 

Completely taken aback by her involvement, this only influenced Sky - who was interested in training to become a wrestler - to pursue her passion. 

Velvet later made her own wrestling debut in 2003, and counts Lita as her biggest inspiration.