Lillian Garcia On Being Hired By WWE, Not Knowing She Would Be Ring Announcing Until Last Minute

– Lilian Garcia spoke with Chris Van Vliet for a new interview discussing her process of first getting hired by WWE in 1999 and her nerve-wracking first day. Garcia was the voice of WWE for nine years, but she told Van Vliet that when she signed with the company she had no idea that’s what she would be doing and recalled how she didn’t find out until hours before her first show. Highlights and the full video are below:

On not knowing what she was getting into when first signing with WWE: “No idea, no idea. Like literally. Got hired, I show up and I still don’t know what I’m doing. I just remember my interview process was kind of like this. I would be interviewing a wrestler, or they would turn the tables on me. Michael Cole would interview me and see how I did on camera. And there was a few things that I had to do. But nobody at any point said ‘Ring announcer,’ ever in that process. And I almost didn’t even go to the audition. It was my agent who said, ‘Go. You never know.’ So I was like, ‘Okay.’ And I was hosting at the time, I was singing. But singing was my main thing.”

On nearly making her debut at SummerSlam: “They wanted me at SummerSlam. That was supposed to be my first day starting. I started on August 23rd of ’99 which was Monday Night Raw, but they wanted me for SummerSlam. I have no idea what I would have done at SummerSlam, but anyway I couldn’t because I was in the Dominican Republic. I had already been booked for a singing gig.”

On her first day with the company: “So I flew back on Sunday, and then Monday morning got on a plane to go to Iowa State University because that’s where the show was at that week. And Michael Cole gives me a tour, and then I go to the production meeting. I remember even Howard Finkel asked me, ‘So what are you doing tonight?’ And I go, “I don’t know. I have no idea.’ And then at 3:30 is when they told me, ‘You’re ring announcing tonight on the air on Monday Night Raw. And I was like — had never ring announced in my life.

“And then, 20 minutes before I’m going live, they said ‘Oh yeah by the way, no cue cards.’ I first thought [timekeeper] Mark Yeaton was joking around. And I looked at him and said, ‘I’m sorry but this is not a time to joke. I’m so nervous.’ My training was watching Tony Chimel announce Sunday Night Heat for four matches. That was my training. So, and I’m sitting there trying to rewrite the cards that I’d gotten in the afternoon, that I sat down with Tony to go over everything. And yeah, when Mark looked at me and he goes ‘Yeah, there’s no cue cards.’ I was just like, ‘Wait wa — how am I expected to do this job?’ I have to tell you at that point I thought I was gonna just run. I had in my mind, I looked at the exit and I was just like ‘Go. Just get out of here’ … at ten minutes ’till [showtime], I was able to calm down.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.