411’s WWE Liv Forever Report – Liv Morgan on Her Journey to WWE, Crashing the Lana/Lashley Wedding

411’s WWE Liv Forever Report

-Air Date: 11.29.20
-Run Time: 43:14

-Real quick as a 49ers fan I just want to say, same old sorry ass Rams! Now then we move on as after the 30 Days of the Dead Man I figured I would be done with these network specials for a bit, but then they drop this one on Liv Morgan and next week we get one on Keith Lee. Let’s get to it!

-We start with a girl running down the road as Liv tells us she wanted to be a wrestler to break the cycle of failure. She wanted to make something of her life and told herself she was going to be in the WWE. This is Liv Forever!

-We know her as Liv, but her real name is Gionna Daddio. Cameras have been following her for the last 18 months and she is going to take us on a ride. She calls Ruby and Sarah her best friends.

-We go back to the Superstar Shake-up in Montreal. Ruby calls it a sad and hard day as they weren’t ready for it. Liv says they were ready to be Tag Champions and they weren’t told what was coming. Liv was sent to SmackDown. Sarah says there was no payoff or closure for them. That day is still not over for her and she still thinks about it. Ruby feels it was her fault as she had to be off to get surgery and those girls are what she knew. She felt for Liv as she was heading to SmackDown on her own. Liv says that ended their 2 year run. Liv gets emotional talking about it as she is sad, but also happy. She never wanted to be in a tag team, but they are her family and she misses them.

-We go back to Liv as a child as she tells us when she was 5 years old nobody checked to see if she was doing her homework or doing well in school. She had nobody telling her anything and could only watch her brothers being destructive and angry. We meet her mom, Gigi Daddio who tells us she was working 60 hours a week as a waitress. Most of the time they were above water, but at times it didn’t work. Liv’s father passed away from a heart attack 3 months before she was born. It was now a single mother home with Liv and her 5 brothers and sisters. She grew up in the suburbs and had a good social life. Her home life sucked as she would watch wrestling with the volume loud to drown out what was happening around her. She felt this was all normal and didn’t realize she needed someone to give her structure.

-Watching wrestling there was something inside of her that made her feel this was something she was going to do. She thought the shows were amazing and she was in awe by it. Her brothers helped her build a make shift ring and they would make titles to carry around Gigi says wrestling was a big thing in their house and she actually helped build the ring with pillows, sticks from a pear tree, and 200 feet of laundry line.

-Liv dropped out of high school in 2010 during his sophomore year. She did get her GED and took a job at Hooters. She says Hooters is great as it gives a lot of opportunities to women. They not only gave her a job, but also gave her responsibility for the first time.

-She started training and doing workouts with Joe DeFranco (you know him from all the HHH work out videos). She eventually got a try-out at the WWE PC. Liv starts crying as she talks about getting the news on July 4th that she was getting a contract from the WWE. The family was so happy for her as they knew she wanted it so badly.

-So at 19 years old Liv was signed and heading to the WWE Performance Center. She says he learned everything at the PC and praises the coaches for being so patient with a 19 year old girl. She talks about the initial training and how hard it was, but they were pivotal years in her development as an adult let alone a wrestler.

-She talks about the mirror room in the PC that was pivotal in helping them with promos. They were held accountable for how many mirrors they would do each month.

-2015 she has her first match and while not televised the cameras did catch her reaction after the match. She is crying as she talks about how much fun she had. She tried out several characters over the years in NXT and then everything changed on 11.21.17. All members of the Riot Squad had the date tattooed on their body as it was the day they were all called up to a RAW show and were told they were going to be a heel faction on SmackDown. They all tried to stay calm as HHH was giving them the news and he eventually told them they could all freak out now. They celebrated as a group and their goal was to make the most out of everything they were asked to do.

-We get Riot Squad highlights as they all talk about how they bonded and had more in common than one would think. Liv says the group came together so naturally and fast that they all have a life long friendship.

-We jump back to the week the Riot Squad was dissolved as Liv is now on her own on SmackDown. We see her talking to Drake and Ember before a show about how she never wanted to be in a tag and then fell in love with it the last 2 years.

-Liv then is not seen on TV and Ruby says that she called her often and kept telling her that something big was going to happen. Liv had to wait 3 months before returning to TV and having a match booked against Charlotte. She calls her mom to let her know she is debuting on SmackDown tonight and you can hear the excitement in her voice. She makes her debut by speaking up in a town hall meeting and that led to a match with Charlotte. Liv says the match started a journey where she was going to find herself. Highlights from the match are shown and Charlotte wins with the Figure 8. Liv cuts an angry promo at the announce table.

-She thought the match was a success, but before getting to that we go to Bayley taking about her. Bayley tells Liv she isn’t saying nice things about her. Liv talks about the travel and uncertainty of coming to each show and not knowing if she is going to appear. She says you start to get paranoid about why you aren’t being used. She pitched ideas and wanted to be a darker character. She started writing out dark feelings she had as she wanted to be a tortured soul that was beautiful.

-Sept 2019: Liv was told they wanted a stripped down version with less make-up. She decided to go back to being a blonde because nobody told her specifics. She had been working at the PC and watching tons of tape. She is booked in a dark match with Ember Moon and gets a hug from Michael Hayes. Liv says she had new gear and was ready to show everyone what she can do and what everyone has been missing out on. She is doing her prep 45 seconds before the match and the news comes from Hayes that the match is canceled. She felt it was a rib and man, you can see the disappointment on the face of both women. That just sucks! The word came that they didn’t want the crowd to see this new version of Liv until she shows up again on TV. She understood and felt better about the whole situation.

-Oct 2019: WWE Draft: Liv is the final pick of Monday Night RAW. She took it as a positive because it was announced on television. She was back to square one as she was on Monday Night RAW and she had someone in her corner: Paul Heyman! Paul says that there are so many people out there like Liv and says his daughter tells him to stop trying to define her. Liv can’t be defined and she doesn’t want to be. Nobody that age wants a label placed on them.

-Dec 30, 2019: Heyman gives Liv the news that she is coming back to crash Lana/Lashley’s wedding and she is going to be a former lover of Lana. They show Liv getting ready backstage as the wedding is happening in the arena. Heyman screams, “Liv this is your moment. This is your moment.” Liv helps Rusev put Lana in the wedding cake (as tends to happen in pro-wrestling). Heyman says that what Liv and Lana did matched the vision he had and that is a high that is hard to convey to people who have never experienced it.

-Liv says she was getting more screen time, but she didn’t know who she was and was losing her confidence. COVID hits and WrestleMania gets moved to the PC. Liv ends up working the pre-show against Nattie. She calls Nattie a great leader and mentor. She says Nattie gave her that first WrestleMania win. Liv knows she is going to get to where she needs to be and she can get there by crawling if needed.

-From the beginning the journey was always about one thing. They flashback to a mirror promo from NXT as she talks about making her family proud. Her mom says the sky is the limit and her daughter is going to make it happen. “It’s all you Gionna and your family will always love you no matter what.” Her mom says Liv was born early at 28 weeks. Wow! I was at 33 weeks and this is over a month earlier than that.

-Ruby is back to say they have been given time to show what they mean to each other. She says calling the group The Riot Squad without Sarah seems wrong, but she is very supportive. Ruby says her and Liv are too hungry and they won’t let the group fall through the cracks again.

-The producer asks what 26 year old Gionna would say to 6 year old Gionna. She tells her to be a kid and relax. It is going to happen and you don’t need to have the weight on the world on your shoulders. You are going to do great things and have everything you’ve wanted. Liv Morgan is going to be here forever. Ruby says the group will be in the Hall of Fame one day and they will be remembered. Liv feels she is back at her starting point and she has a rare opportunity to rewrite history and she can make it whatever she wants it to be.

-As I always say I am a sucker for any type of wrestling documentary. I love that they are focusing on some of the talent that isn’t on TV every week. I love hearing the stories of these men and women and what they went through to get to a place like the WWE. I think this breezes through things at times but there was enough here to make it a solid show. Liv being a Heyman Girl isn’t surprising as the man seems to be willing to help anyone he thinks is underutilized. Again, this was good and I would say it is worth spending the 45 minutes or so to watch. Thanks for reading!