On May 13, 2024, Lilian Garcia momentarily reprised her ring announcing role as she and Samantha Irvin introduced a King of the Ring quarterfinal match between Kofi Kingston and Gunther on WWE Raw. Garcia served as a full-time WWE ring announcer from 1999 until 2009 and later again from 2011 until 2016. Since then, Garcia has made sporadic appearances, including her aforementioned return alongside Irvin.
“I don’t get the opportunity to watch it as much as I used to, especially being there, and especially because there’s so much programming,” Garcia said. “My schedule is crazy, but I’m grateful for it. I do catch it as much as I can every now and then to get caught up.”
Lilian Garcia on Samantha Irvin
Garcia was used sporadically in storylines throughout her career, like her feuds with Howard Finkel and Jillian Hall, or her on-screen romance with wrestler Viscera. Garcia loves that today’s ring announcers still get a chance to do that, like Samantha Irvin’s involvement in the 2023 Logan Paul vs. Ricochet feud.
“I love that everything is still very spontaneous. Love that [Samanthan Irvin] gets the opportunity and they have a camera on her, which is cool. They didn’t have that when I was there on us at all. And of course, there’s social media. We didn’t really have — for a lot of the years that I was there, there was no social media. And I just think things would have been different for sure had there been social media. But I just love that they’re still using the ring announcer or some of the other announcers and throwing them in into places that you didn’t expect them.”
Strong Female Voices In A Male-Dominated Industry
While she may not be able to watch WWE as frequently anymore, Garcia is glad to see women continuing to strengthen their voices in a male-dominated industry, such as professional wrestling.
“To have Alicia [Taylor] on SmackDown, I think she’s doing a great job. It reminded me [that] Brandi [Rhodes] and I got to do that. Brandi was on SmackDown, I was on Raw. We actually got to announce a WrestleMania together. So I love that [WWE] have given women such an opportunity to be the voices of the evening, hosting the show. I think it’s awesome, I really love the team of Alicia and Samantha. I think it’s really cool.”
Watch our full interview with Lilian Garcia below:
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