WWE News: Female Superstar Teases Gimmick Change On This Week’s Episode Of ‘SmackDown Live’
It appears that after weeks of barely being featured on the brand’s roster, SmackDown Live wrestler Liv Morgan may become substantially more visible to WWE fans, as she seemed to be hinting at a character change on Tuesday night’s episode of the brand’s eponymous weekly show.
As recapped by Cageside Seats, this week’s SmackDown Live opened with Shane McMahon hosting a “town hall meeting” with the blue brand’s roster, where he encouraged all the wrestlers in attendance to speak their minds about certain matters. This meeting notably featured many of the underutilized WWE superstars Kevin Owens had name-dropped during his scathing promo against McMahon on last week’s episode, including Morgan, who interrupted Charlotte Flair as she was praising McMahon and his family, telling the former SmackDown Women’s Champion that nothing about her is real.
Mocking Morgan for her lack of television exposure, Flair responded by saying that she didn’t realize the former Riott Squad member was still employed by WWE, as the two female wrestlers continued trading insults until McMahon asked them to move on. This set up a match between the two women later in the night, which Flair easily won.
After the match, Morgan slowly limped toward the SmackDown Live announce table and grabbed commentator Corey Graves’ headset. As shown in a fan video shared by WrestlingNews.co, Morgan appeared to be close to tears as she acknowledged that Flair was justified in insulting her during the town hall meeting segment.
“Charlotte was right, and when I come back, I’m gonna be real!”
Winners & Losers: SmackDown 07/16/19 https://t.co/np3FiaZWdL #EmberMoon #LivMorgan #TheKabukiWarriors pic.twitter.com/GD2BASh8tJ
— Diva Dirt (@divadirt) July 17, 2019
At this moment, it’s not clear whether Liv Morgan was teasing a shift to a heroic or villainous character — as she had previously not been used on television since she was moved to SmackDown Live in April, WWE has yet to firmly establish whether her post-Riott Squad character is supposed to be a babyface or a heel. However, WrestlingNews.co speculated that her brief post-match promo could be a sign of a “character makeover” to come.
“Morgan has clearly stepped up her in-ring work because she looked good during her match with Flair,” the outlet added. “Hopefully, [SmackDown Live executive director] Eric Bischoff will have something good for Morgan whenever she returns to action.”
Originally brought up to the main roster in November 2017 after a few years in NXT, the 25-year-old Morgan was originally booked as one-third of The Riott Squad alongside fellow NXT call-ups Ruby Riott and Sarah Logan. Per Sportskeeda, the heel faction was split up shortly after WrestleMania 35, as this year’s Superstar Shake-Up saw Morgan get drafted to SmackDown Live while her two stablemates remained on Monday Night Raw.
