– Eva Marie opened up about getting back into WWE in 2021 and was pretty honest about where she was at skill-wise. She said she went back to the Performance Center “to get me ready to come back just to make sure I was in shape and everything,” and had fun training with Norman Smiley and the other girls.
She admitted she wasn’t ready for long matches: “obviously not comfortable enough to do like, even eight, ten minute matches because my skill set is not that, let’s be honest.” Her goal was just to nail the basics so she wouldn’t look like she was messing up spots: “I’m very self-aware that I can do some basic things, let’s get those massively fluid so I don’t look like I’m botching spots out there.”
She also pointed out the reality in wrestling—someone’s always carrying the match: “Ultimately, anybody I faced had to carry me no matter what, because that’s kind of the nature of the beast… It’s fine, but I wanted to be able to take the lead.”
(Source: Daria & Toni Unwrapped)
– Dave Meltzer on the SmackDown ratings going under 1 million.
“The Friday SmackDown number is the one that people are jumping on more than any because it was 933,000 viewers and 0.20, and it was under a million — well under a million. But again, the thing there is, yes, it was against the World Series… But it was Halloween night, so you can throw that one out.
I think a lot of people are jumping on that one as something — between that and the attendance of SmackDown this week — that shows that WWE is going down, it’s doing terrible. And it’s the farthest thing from the truth. It is not at its peak. It is very clear that the peak numbers that they were getting before, we’re past that and things are down, but they’re not in danger zone or anything like that.”
(Source: Wrestling Observer Radio)