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It's normal to feel anxious or nervous on the first day of a new job, but a WWE legend had a panic attack on her first night in the company. Lilian Garcia shared how she felt during her television debut back in 1999.
The former ring announcer started as a video jockey in Atlanta before getting signed by WWE in 1999. She made her television debut on August 23 and was already involved in her first angle less than a month later.
Garcia had two stints with the company, the first one from 1999 to 2009. She made sporadic appearances in the next two years before making her full-time return in 2011. Her second tenure lasted until 2016, but she continued making special appearances for the company over the years.
In an appearance on the Good Journeys with Second Mountain podcast with Ben Veal, Lilian Garcia discussed her television debut. She revealed that she had a panic attack and almost left the arena:
"I almost ran," Garcia said. "You almost did not get Lilian Garcia as your ring announcer for 15 years that night. I looked at the exit sign and I was full-on panic, full-on panic mode. I'm like hyperventilating. ... The only thing that helped was the fact that I have photographic memory and so I would look at the cue card before I'd go out there and then read it off my mind. I sounded horrible, there was no cadence. Thank God, there was no Twitter. There was no Facebook."
Check out the clip from the interview below:
Lilian Garcia had a successful career as a ring announcer. She currently works as the announcer for the Professional Fighters League, or PFL.
Lilian Garcia credits WWE star for reminding her about her debut
In a post on her Instagram account, Lilian Garcia thanked Becky Lynch for reminding her about her debut story. As mentioned earlier, Garcia had a panic attack and almost ran out of the building to leave. She quoted Lynch's words after she won the NXT Women's Championship.
"'What is for you, won’t pass you.' Thank you @beckylynchwwe for this reminder which I share as a guest on the new episode of @secondmountaincomms with host @benvealwrites," Garcia wrote.
This is the post the 57-year-old ring announcer was talking about:
Garcia's last appearance was on the special RAW reunion episode of 2019. It remains to be seen if she'll be making future appearances now that WWE has merged with UFC, which is a direct rival of the PFL.
Do you think Lilian Garcia deserves a spot in the WWE Hall of Fame? Share your answers in the comments section below.
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