Angelina Love Discusses WWE Divas Tryout, Numerous Canceled Main Roster Debuts

Angelina Love checked off all the boxes for what made a prototypical WWE Diva in the mid-2000s, and yet, she would never actually appear on WWE programming due to a variety of reasons outside her control. Talking with "The Ten Count," Love detailed the various hurdles that precluded her from becoming a WWE superstar. Love first got in the door when then-developmental league OVW held a Divas tryout in late 2004. However, when she arrived at the facility, trainer Lance Storm was caught unaware as he had not been informed of an all-women camp. Two days later, she was "verbally hired" but had to return to Canada and wait on her visa. At that point, Love was given two options: either head to OVW and start right away, or wait until new farm system Deep South Wrestling opened its doors. In hindsight, Love believes she made the wrong choice by passing up on OVW. 

"I guess this decided to be the wrong choice, but I decided to wait because I felt like OVW was so full," Love recalled. "Mickie [James] was still there, Jillian [Hall], Melina and Michelle McCool ... there were so many people. I feared I would get lost in the shuffle."

Love would sign her WWE contract in January 2005, but Deep South wouldn't open its doors until that May, meaning Love had to hang around and wait. Eventually, Love did become a regular member of the Deep South roster, where she managed Palmer Canon and feuded with the likes of Brooke Tessmacher, Taylor Wilde, and Natalya.

Like most wrestlers of her generation, Love had accomplished a lifelong dream by landing a WWE contract. However, just as she was earmarked for a main roster call-up in early 2006, an untimely injury ruined her moment in the sun. "I tore my ACL training, 10 days before I was supposed to debut [on "WWE Raw"]," Love rued. "So that put me out, actually before I was even medically cleared, so that was in January '06, I tore it. I had surgery on March 1."

"August 2006, I was brought to "SmackDown" to possibly do something," Love continued. "I was placed in the crowd, and it was the first segment of the show. So, they were doing dark match "Velocity." That's when Booker [T] was doing his King Booker thing and he knighted Finlay and [William] Regal in the ring. My segment was supposed to be next. Then I got pulled from the floor by the guy who sat next to me. He said Vince [McMahon] rewrote the entire show as soon as it started, and my segment and the match that my segment was coming from were cut. He rewrote the whole show. Then it was like, 'Well, we'll probably have you back next week,' and then that never happened." Once her "WWE SmackDown" debut was abruptly put on hold, Love was told that she would receive another opportunity the following week. As fate would have it, she would be released not long after.

"I was supposed to go on a Tuesday to SmackDown because they were doing ECW before Smackdown, but then the Thursday prior, I got released," Love revealed. Shortly after her WWE release, Love made a tour across the indies before landing a contract with TNA.