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YMMV / Lisa Marie Varon

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  • Audience-Alienating Era: Some view her pairing with Jesse Godderz as the low point of her TNA career, seeing as how she just won the Knockouts Championship and suffered some Ukefication as it progressed. Her entire time on Smackdown was this for WWE.
  • Badass Decay: Her tendency to go back and forth between getting pushed and getting depushed.
    • In 2005 there was a growing backlash at the weak booking of her, where she played second fiddle first to Lita and then Christy Hemme, despite being a better wrestler than them both. Even when she turned back heel, she was still booked in a match that had Christy choke her out. Fans didn't take with this and sided with Victoria during their grudge match.
    • During the Vince's Devils trio, Torrie Wilson was promoted as the leader and Candice Michelle became the Breakout Character. This left Victoria as the Lesser Star who usually took the pin in tag matches. However, as the best wrestler, Victoria did most of the real work, had the most singles matches and the most displays of dominance, even if she rarely won.
    • In the 2008 period of her career, she pretty much put over newer girls like the Bella Twins. There was one brutal match where she got the win because she injured Kelly Kelly so bad she couldn't finish it, but that was on ECW and she was back to jobbing on SmackDown.
    • After she won the Knockouts Championship and got paired with Jesse Godderz, she was presented once again as a joke heel.
  • Catharsis Factor: Her Face–Heel Turn in 2005 where she attacked all the members of a swimsuit contest. It was seen as a breath of fresh air after being poorly used for so long - in favor of Diva Search contestants.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: Some fans like to ignore the 2006-2009 period of her career where she was essentially a Jobber, with only the occasional win or push.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Her teaming with Stevie Richards. In late 1994-early 1995 ECW, Richards brought in Raven to help him get revenge for some losses to Tommy Dreamer. Raven, as would be revealed at ECW Hostile City Showdown 95, hated Dreamer going back to when they were kids at summer camp and Dreamer had been mean to Beulah McGillicutty, who was the fat girl there. Victoria's hatred towards Trish Stratus was based on her claims that Trish abandoned her and slept her way to the top during their fitness modeling days. In both cases, Richards was a lackey to a dark, twisted character who had past hatred for a face.
  • Funny Moment: This picture from her Twitter from 2014 of her with a group of CHIKARA wrestlers.note 
  • Growing the Beard: After her Women's Championship win, Victoria started winning fans over with the repeated hardcore matches and the sheer craziness of her character.
  • Heartwarming Moments: Behind the scenes in WWE, Victoria was a real Team Mom. She volunteered to work with Christy Hemme to help her get more experience when she saw her being pushed, and the likes of Michelle McCool, Maria Kanellis, Torrie Wilson, Candice Michelle and the Bella Twins describe her as the type who would always happily help them try new moves and encourage them in the ring.
  • Hype Backlash: Some fans had this reaction to her TNA pushes. Cewsh Reviews even noted that they had felt she was underrated in WWE - because she wasn't used in any meaningful way - but ended up rather bland when she was pushed in TNA.
    "So many people come into TNA fresh of a “held back/down” run in WWE, so it’s very interesting to see how they fare with ample time, potentially more character, and less scripting. In some cases, like Mr. Anderson and Christian, they absolutely thrive and become better than they’ve ever been up until then. In some cases, you eat your hat and want to send an email to Vince saying “thank you sir for limiting this person”."
  • Les Yay: With Torrie Wilson and Candice Michelle as part of Vince's Devils. Later on with Brooke in TNA - complete with a kiss as part of their entrance.
  • Love to Hate: Victoria is remembered as one of the best psycho heels of the Ruthless Aggression Era. Diva Dirt called her "the original bad girl".
  • Memetic Loser: Due to how WWE used her as a jobber for the last few years of her career, and TNA were little better. She was only really treated as a credible title threat for the 2002-2004 period of her WWE run. In TNA she started strong against Angelina Love and The Beautiful People and Awesome Kong but while the matches with Mickie James didn't make her look bad, being the underling of Madison Rayne did. The matches with ODB weren't bad either, but they generated very little heat with the crowds. And her non gimmick didn't really play well off Daffney's, aside from them fighting over the tarantula, and even that lead to Tara losing the Knockouts Title belt in an anticlimactic fashion. Still, she held onto some credibility for a lot longer in TNA since she was at least facing a larger variety of more credible wrestlers.
  • Narm: The cheesy dance moves she did as a face in 2004, which she herself views as an Old Shame. She was made fun of quite often backstage.
  • Replacement Scrappy: In terms of themes, her "All The Things She Said" theme is considered her best entrance music, even though it only worked for one gimmick since that was everyone's favorite gimmick anyway. The "Broken" theme in TNA is considered to be slightly better than her other WWE themes.
  • Retroactive Recognition: Her "Don't Mess With" theme in WWE was recorded by none other than a pre-fame Nicki Minaj. Lisa herself didn't realize this until fans pointed it out to her.
  • Rooting for the Empire: When she faced Christy Hemme at Vengeance in 2005, she was the heel, but the crowd cheered her the whole time. Fans also sympathized with her getting Demoted to Extra in favor of Diva Search contestants.
  • Shocking Moments:
    • Once on TNA Impact, she pulled out, rather appropriately, Yoshihiro Tajiri's Tarantula rope-assisted crab hold.
    • The segment that really intensified her feud with Trish Stratus was one where she attacked Trish backstage just For the Evulz. And during their match later, Victoria intentionally got disqualified by hitting Trish with a chair. The next week, Trish attacked her with a ladder.
    • She once ambushed Christy Hemme during an interview by smashing a vase over the back of her head.
    • Victoria did this twice with the Widow's Peak:
      • When she debuted it on TV in a match against Stacy Keibler, the crowd briefly fell silent at the move's sheer viciousness. Jim Ross was so horrified he asked if Stacy was even breathing.
      • Before using it on TV, Victoria practiced the Widow's Peak while training with Molly Holly. Vince McMahon happened to be watching, and when Victoria saw his Jaw Drop in reaction to the move she knew she had a winner.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Her abrupt face turn in 2004 saw her abandoning many of her psycho characteristics to become rather generic. While she did switch things up to become a Genki Girl dancer, many felt that more could have been done with her psycho character.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Tara's budding heel turn in 2010 was cut short by her deciding to leave the company - apparently due to pay issues - and she thus had to play the Face in her retirement match.
  • Tough Act to Follow: For some, her 2002-2003 feud with Trish Stratus was so intense and spirited - hardcore matches, street fights and bouts that lasted shockingly long - that very little she could do later in her career matched it.
  • Unintentionally Sympathetic: A lot of the time, it was hard not to feel sorry for her when she was putting over the various rookies coming in and out. The Bella Twins talked about how bad they felt that she constantly had to put them over when they debuted, but that she set aside her own pride to do so. Later on in TNA, she came across as the more sympathetic one in her feud with Brooke - mostly due to Brooke's inability to play a sympathetic Face and grumpiness that she couldn't beat Tara.

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