Eva Marie says she lacked a ‘competitive edge’ before WWE
The former WWE star Eva Marie recently opened up about how WWE changed her life and she found her ‘competitive edge.’
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Marie was asked how signing with WWE changed her life. Sharing a detailed answer, the 41-year-old explained that it helped her gain the ‘competitive edge’ she believed she lacked in life.
“So, how it went down was actually really wild, because we had the in-ring physicality tryout, and that’s obviously where I met and totally hit it off with JoJo and a couple of the other girls from our camp, CJ was in there as well. So it was a four-week tryout. I fell in love with it because I was missing that competitive edge in my life, too. So the fact of doing something and getting into a ring, it’s like, especially if you don’t have that type of physicality background. I feel like dancers, gymnasts, they kind of pick it up a little bit easier. I’ll never forget my body,” Marie said.
“I couldn’t even pick up my legs. I was so sore. It was insane. So, how it went with that is, after the four weeks, if they thought that they saw some type of potential in you, you would end up getting a developmental contract, move to Tampa at the time, because that’s where the facility was, not in Orlando yet. So it was just a developmental contract, and then you would go out there, learn how to wrestle, learn whichever character you’re going to try to work on, and learn about the business, and then hope to get called up to the main roster on Monday night Raw or Friday night SmackDown.
“I always refer to it as AAA baseball, but even at AAA, you know how to play the game. But when you’re going in, how we got the developmental contract, none of all of us knew how to kind of run the ropes and kind of take a back bump by then, and we’re doing forward backward rolls. It’s not like we’re really knowing how to wrestle. We’re knowing little basics, and that’s about it,” she further continued.
Marie was known for her time as a part of Total Divas, aside from her time on the main roster and NXT. She stayed with WWE from 2013 to 2017, before making a brief return in 2020 and staying till 2021.
Shounak Chakrabarti is an experienced sports journalist with a lifelong passion for athletics and storytelling. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Journalism from the University of Leeds and joined F4WOnline in 2025.
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