Liv Morgan Recalls Being Taken Off WWE TV For Six Months After Match With Charlotte Flair

Liv Morgan has been through quite a lot over the last three years, as she was first promoted from NXT to the main roster where she was a part of the Riott Squad. Then, that group broke up, and Morgan became a singles competitor before she and Ruby Riott linked up again to form the tag team version of the Riott Squad.

During the course of her career, Morgan was in limbo for a while when she was waiting to make her mark as a singles competitor. After splitting from the Riott Squad during 2019’s Superstar Shake-up, Morgan was off TV for more than three months before joining SmackDown. She talked about that wait in her WWE Network special: Liv Forever.

“One week became two weeks and then a lot of weeks – it was three months. In July 2019, I finally got my opportunity and returned to action against The Queen, Charlotte Flair,” recalled Morgan.

“I finally made my debut on SmackDown. I spoke up in a town hall meeting. I called Charlotte out and we had a match, which ended up to me setting off on a journey to find myself.”

That match with Charlotte ended up being a one-off, as Morgan wouldn’t have another match for six months. When she finally returned, she was part of the Rusev-Lana-Bobby Lashley love triangle, although, she didn’t really know how she would fit into that angle.

Morgan recalls waiting for her opportunity and how much communication she had from WWE at this time regarding her new character.

“It was the slowest burn ever. Over the next couple of months, I waited and waited until I got the news in September of 2019. All I got told really was, ‘We want a stripped-down Liv with less makeup and less distraction.’ So, I played it safe and I was like, ‘I’m going to just go back to blonde.’ No one’s really telling me anything of what this new look should be. So, I just took it upon myself and I just dyed my hair blonde,” stated Morgan.

During the course of her time away, WWE brought Morgan in as her new character to have a dark match with Ember Moon. But at the last minute, the match was scrapped, which initially upset Morgan. But the reason why it was scrapped was actually a good thing and showed that WWE was putting effort into her character in keeping it under wraps.

Morgan recalled being told that the match with Moon was cancelled.

“Then out of nowhere, I hear Michael Hayes and he’s like, ‘Liv can’t go out there.’ I thought they were joking with me. I was like, ‘Are you ribbing me?’ That was it; it was bizarre. I was super ready to go perform and I wasn’t let out. So, I didn’t go out,” stated Morgan.

“It turned out that I was not supposed to be exposed to this crowd, not in my final debut form. So pretty much I couldn’t do this dark match. I’m not to be seen until I debut back on WWE TV. I was shocked, but it was encouraging because the boss didn’t want anyone to see me not on TV and find a form. I was like, ‘Oh cool. I’m not forgotten about, everyone still cares. We want my new character to stay under wraps until its debut.’

“So, I ended up taking it as a little bit of a positive. It was positive. Even though I didn’t wrestle that night, I felt the momentum was going my way. A few weeks later in October, another pleasant surprise. I was sitting at home during the draft, watching the draft on TV. ‘Okay, I’m going to RAW’, and it was televised. I took that as a positive as well.”

When Morgan did finally return to TV, it was certainly a surprise to the WWE Universe. She crashed Lana and Bobby Lashley’s wedding and revealed herself to be a past lover of Lana. Morgan recalled Paul Heyman breaking the news to her about her return to television.

“I got a FaceTime from Paul Heyman. Tell me this is your debut. I’m like, ‘Yes!’ because none of my pitches worked. None of anyone else’s pitches worked; I’m about to debut. He says that I will be crashing Bobby and Lana’s wedding and revealing myself as a past secret lover of Lana,” remembered Morgan. “The thought process was to re-debut Liv in the biggest way possible.”

While Morgan had the biggest spotlight she ever had in her time in wrestling, she admits that the character started to slip away from her. She talked about the difficulty in finding a new character and how her confidence issues played a role in her struggles.

“I got told we were going with Liv as an undefined character. As we kept going, I kind of lost more and more sight of who I was supposed to be,” revealed Morgan. “I’m getting the most spotlight I’ve ever gotten since I’ve been signed. This is not the time to not look confident or strong on TV, but it was very hard just because I just didn’t believe in myself.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit WWE Network – Liv Forever with a h/t to PWrestling.com for the transcription.

Mehdy Labriny contributed to this article.