10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About Lita

7. She Was Fired By Eric Bischoff Because She Refused To Pose Nude (Really Had A Neck Injury)

Lita had a few major injuries during her WWE career. The neck injury she suffered was the most significant one and the unique thing about it was that it didn't even happen in a wrestling ring. It actually happened while she was filming an episode of the Dark Angel television show in April 2002. She ended up having neck surgery that caused her to miss over a year of action. She appeared on the April 21, 2003 edition of Raw, at which point she was close to coming back from the injury. Eric Bischoff pushed for her to pose nude in Playboy, like Smackdown's Torrie Wilson had recently done. She respected Torrie for doing it, but she didn't want to do it herself (Lita actually turned down a Playboy offer in real life, same as Trish Stratus and Stacy Keibler). Bischoff called her worthless for her insolence, and suggested that if she wanted to save her job she better get her kit off for Hugh Heffner's publication. She said no, so he fired her. There were a lot of angles in 2002/2003 that were really controversial, such as the truly awful Katie Vick story and the pandering Hot Lesbian Action segments. This one was forgotten by many, but it was really bad to see a guy fire a woman because she wouldn't take her clothes off. There's heel heat and then there's being too over the top, which is exactly what this was. Four months on from this angle, Lita returned to the ring after she was re-hired in the storyline by Steve Austin.