On this week’s episode of “Cafe De Rene” with Rene Dupree, his guest Lisa Marie Varon (formerly “Victoria” and “Tara”) stopped by to talk about her tarantula gimmick in TNA, as well as helping Christy Hemme get her start in the ring.
Lisa talking about having the tarantula as a gimmick 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,” she shared.
“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,” Lisa said.
“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.”
Lisa said she helped Christy Hemme when Hemme started wrestling:
“People were like, ‘she didn’t come from wrestling.’ I didn’t either. But I remember going to Vince and saying ‘Give me Christy Hemme. I’ll make her look good. You can make me look like an a**hole. I don’t care. Give me her. I’ll make her look like a million bucks. I don’t care what you do with me,’ Lisa revealed.
“Her and I would get to the house shows three hours earlier before our check in time. We would get there and work three hours in the ring. Get this: Ricky Steamboat, Arn Anderson, Fit Finlay, whoever the agents were, William Regal, Lance Storm, anybody, like all the boys started showing up three hours early because we’re learning from the freakin’ legends here. She worked her ass off.”
Other topics of discussion included her time in OVW with Rene, her WrestleMania match with Molly Holly, leaving WWE, the creation of the Tara gimmick, life after wrestling, and much more.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit “Cafe De Rene” with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
