10 Funniest WWE Dark Segments Never Broadcast
8. Lillian Garcia's Going Away Party
After RAW, September 21st 2009, North Little Rock, Arkansas
Bless Lillian Garcia. She’s had to put up with a lot of friendly banter over the years, none more so than from The Rock, whose ribbing has ranged from flirtatious winks to outright pretending to sexually harass her.
Unlike the male wrestling talent who work for the company under the name 'Superstars', the word ‘Diva’ used to serve to describe every woman with an onscreen role, from wrestlers to valets to announcers. While that appellation ended up doing the female wrestling talent a disservice, the flip side to that coin was that it often gave status and a place of pride to the less active female television performers, a reason to believe that they belonged on a similar footing.
On her last night with the company in late 2009 (she returned two years later, but they weren’t to know that would happen at the time), Lillian was thanked publicly by Jerry Lawler as one of the WWE’s longest running Divas, before she delivered a heartfelt, choked-up speech to all the fans from the middle of the ring and then assisted a very babyface D-Generation X (and John Cena) in putting over D-X’s trademark introduction.
Of course this was the latter day two-man D-Generation X comedy act: that meant that we were treated here to some shameless merchandise shilling, mild sexual innuendo from the Game and Cena (of all people), and some genuinely sweet goodwill from the crowd to Ms. Garcia.
Warm, good-humoured comedy bits like this are part of the reason that many WWE fans still love going to live events, even RAW and Smackdown, which often aren’t as entertaining as house shows due to the strictures of television.