Tara (Victoria) Recalls Horror Of Working With A Tarantula In TNA

During an appearance on Cafe De Rene with Rene Dupree, Lisa Marie Varon (formerly Victoria in WWE and Tara in TNA) spoke about her spider gimmick she had in TNA.

“I thought they were going to give me Lisa (as my name), and I didn’t put that in the contract. So it wasn’t my idea about changing my name."

“I opened the box and I said, ‘What is this for? It’s a tarantula, right?’ There were three in three boxes. I was like, ‘What is this?’ They’re like, ‘After you do your finisher, you’re gonna put it on their body. Are you afraid of spiders? I go, ‘I don’t know. So the venom is out right?’ They said, ‘No, it’s still venomous.’ I said, ‘What happens if I get bit?’ They said, ‘Are you allergic to bees?’, and I go, ‘I never got stung.’ I went to the locker room there and I go, ‘You guys, please help me Google tarantula.’ I said, ‘Why did you bring three?’ And they’re like, ‘We want to see each one’s temperament’, but they were from Gatorland. Okay, so they’re always around people putting on their shoulders.”

“In the first episode, you can see my hands going like this. I was shaking. I was like, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here."

“I don’t know, I didn’t get very much information about the spider. I would come back itching. I would look at the ref and I go, ‘Hey, the spiders gonna bite me.’ He goes, ‘What are you gonna do?’ I said, ‘I’m gonna no sell it. I can’t drop the spider. I just Googled it. They explode like light bulbs. If I drop it. I don’t need PETA after me.’ Of course, they want to be put on the belt, which needs a grip. So it’s metal. There’s no way to grip that structure. So I’m like holding the belt going, please don’t fall. Don’t fall, I’ll catch you.”

“I would come back itchy. When spiders are hunted by birds, and to blind the birds, they would shoot the fibers off their body and blind the bird. So it would shoot. I would come back. Why’s my arm itching? It would shoot fibers because what happens after a match? You’re blown up, and so my air is going on the spider thinking it’s going to be eaten. So it kept on shooting fibers at me. It never bit me. I always thought every time it’s gonna bite me, but I’ll no sell it. I’ve taken harder hits than a bite, I think. I don’t know as I’ve never been bitten.”

“And then in TNA, the guy from Gatorland had to be on site because Universal Studios, if you have an animal you have to have an animal professional on site, so the guy was making more than some of the mid-carders.”