Backstage Talk On Lilian Garcia's Status - Many People In WWE Thought She Was Released
As noted earlier, Lilian Garcia issued a statement yesterday on Facebook "to set the story straight" on her status with WWE after disappearing from television two weeks ago and rumors of her being released from her contract had spread online.
Garcia said she is still with WWE and that she will return to Raw on Monday after tending to her ailing father. Her father has been battling bladder cancer as well as multiple Myeloma, and had recently become very ill. Garcia, however, says his health has improved and he is doing much better now.
On today's edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer addressed the situation and said that many people in WWE were under the belief that Garcia was among the performers released on May 6. However, he did note that there were also people in WWE saying she wasn't let go.
"There were so many people of the impression that she was gone," Meltzer said. "I had heard from so many people. People in the company thought she was gone, but there were people in the company who told me she wasn't gone, too. But it had spread like crazy."
After WWE publicly announced the releases of Damien Sandow, King Barrett, Santino Marella, Cameron, Hornswoggle, Alex Riley, El Torito and Zeb Colter, Meltzer was told that there were few more names who had been cut and were not announced. He received confirmation that Christian and Steve Lombardi (a/k/a The Brooklyn Brawler) were released from their respective contracts, and was told there were a few other names that hadn't come out yet. Based on what he had been told, Meltzer was under the impression that Garcia "was one of the names." He inquired WWE for official confirmation, but they never got back to him.
"Like I said, within the company, I know a lot of people within the company, people who were very close to the company, I heard over and over, all week long," Meltzer said. "But again, since they didn't confirm it, I didn't want say nothing. I don't know, it's weird."