The Tragic Side Of WWE Diva Victoria's Real Life

Former body building champion Victoria was a force to be reckoned with during her time in WWE from 2000 to 2009, and was a staple in rings across the globe for two decades. The real-life Lisa Marie Varon, also known as Tara in TNA a friendly face on the "Grown Ass Women" podcast, had a lengthy career in wrestling after meeting Chyna at a gym in Los Angeles and getting her start in the then-WWF as one of the women who followed The Godfather to the ring. She was referred to as the "head" of his female entourage before getting reps in the ring in the company's developmental territories and returning to the newly-rebranded WWE as Victoria.

Victoria would go on to win the WWE Women's Championship twice before moving on to TNA in May 2009, where she won her first Knockouts Championship that July. She would go on to win the company's top women's title four more times, as well as the Knockouts Tag Team Championship once, alongside Brooke Tessmacher. After leaving TNA, Victoria worked the independent scene from 2011 through 2019, but made appearances with WWE and Impact Wrestling (the once and future TNA) from 2021 to 2023. This period included an appearance in the Women's Royal Rumble match, marking her first appearance with the company in almost 12 years — though the event was held in front of an empty arena during the COVID-19 pandemic and the "ThunderDome Era" of WWE.

A legend in the business, Victoria was inducted into the Women's Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2024. However, it hasn't always been sunshine and rainbows for Victoria when it comes to both the wrestling business and her own work outside the sports entertainment sphere. She's gone through a few tragedies and uncomfortable situations in her life, locker room issues to gun-toting intruders.

Victoria has been open and honest about her struggles with depression while performing in front of thousands of fans. In a 2022 interview with Metro UK, she detailed how she used wrestling as an outlet for her aggression, saying that while she was going through depression, she felt isolated and lonely despite fans possibly thinking those in WWE were "living the life" of rock stars. Victoria also said wrestlers don't show emotion at work or let anyone know about what problem they may be facing.

"You just keep it, because you want them to think, 'Oh, she might not be in the right mindset to wrestle tonight,'" she told the outlet. "The show must go on, so you have that mask of, 'My life is perfect,' and no life is perfect. We all struggle."

Victoria said in the interview that the fans watching are not alone in their struggles, and even their heroes in wrestling go through tough times. Since the inception of her "Grown Ass Women" podcast, she celebrated feeling like it's become more acceptable to talk about her problems.

"We're not ashamed of it, it's life!" she said.

Since leaving the ring, Victoria has done a lot of work to battle mental health stigmas, including hosting "DressleMania II" over WrestleMania weekend at WrestleCon in 2022, alongside her podcast co-hosts, Mickie James and SoCal Val. Proceeds from signed, event-worn dresses from female talent are auctioned off during DressleMania events, and proceeds from the second iteration of the event benefitted the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in honor of the late Daffney Unger.

Victoria also had a successful business life outside of wrestling. She and her now-ex husband, Lee Varon, opened a custom car shop called Black Widow Customs — a nod to her finishing move — in Louisville, Kentucky in May 2008. The grand opening was even attended by several WWE talent at the time, including Jillian Hall, Melina, JTG, Jimmy Wang Yang, and more.

Black Widow Customs was in business until December 2010, when the shop was destroyed in a fire that was deemed suspicious at the time, just 10 days before Christmas. Victoria issued a video statement after the fire, which occurred while she was having surgery to remove tumors from her breast. She said no one was injured in the fire (which was discovered by one of the company's window tinters, who warned neighbors and attempted to put it out himself), that the damage looked worse than it was, and that she was personally going to make sure her employees were rewarded and would have a happy holiday season. As for her tumors, she said they were benign, but had to be checked and biopsied.

The day before the fire, the shop had been profiled on a local news station's Consumer Watch segment. The story detailed a University of Kentucky football player, Antwane Glenn, who said his car was left "inoperable" after Black Widow Customers worked on it. Glenn wanted a refund for the work done on his car, saying he was stuck with a "dangerous vehicle" that cost him $2,000. Other mechanics allegedly told the football star that he needed emergency brakes after Black Widows Custom finished their work. An independent mechanic contacted by the news station said the car was raised with a lift kit, raising the vehicle between 7-12 inches, which the mechanic called "very dangerous." Victoria defended the integrity of the work her company did in her video statement about the fire.

In addition to Black Widow Customs, Victoria and her then-husband also owned restaurants, including a pizza shop known as Fat Tony's Pizzeria in Louisville, Kentucky that they sold before opening the custom car shop. In 2013, Victoria opened a wrestling-themed restaurant in Chicago, Illinois called The Squared Circle. WWE.com at the time described the restaurant as "a burger and pizza spot in the Lincoln Park neighborhood." Things were seemingly going well at the location until January 2015, when Victoria announced that she would be moving back to her home state of California and left The Squared Circle to be run by her now-estranged husband.

The restaurant was put up for sale in March 2015; the following week, a gunman entered the restaurant. Lee Varon was able to take down the man with a bodyslam, according to TMZ, leaving him incapacitated until police arrived. Victoria told TMZ that the "suspicious" man started making trouble inside the women's bathroom before her husband approached him to see what he was doing. The man allegedly tried to push his way into the kitchen, and her then-husband sprung into action to physically restrain the man, who was identified as 18-year-old Arnez Harper. He was charged on a felony count of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon after one of the cooks discovered the gun.

Following the incident, Victoria announced she intended to close The Squared Circle, and would no longer support the business. She also said she would no longer encourage fellow wrestlers to make appearances at the establishment. It took two more years after the gunman entered the restaurant for The Squared Circle to finally shut it doors, officially closing on April 10, 2017.

Having previously worked for WWE and TNA, Victoria expressed an interest back in 2020 with working with the new promotion in town, AEW, in a behind-the-scenes role. According to Victoria she felt she could accomplish a lot in Tony Khan's company as a trainer and agent, sharing what she learned over her decades-long career in the wrestling business with new talent. At the time, she told Wrestling Inc. that she would be interested in signing with the company, though she would have to have a discussion with Khan over what the travel schedule would look like.

However, in June 2023, Victoria spoke about a less-than pleasant experience with the AEW locker room on an episode of "Grown Ass Women." On the episode, Victoria said she had gone looking for AEW producer Sarah Stock while attending one of the company's shows.

"I went backstage to go find Sarah [Stock,]" she said. "She goes, 'Are you gonna come back here to say hi to me? ... And then of course when I went back there, I got the look like, 'What the f*** is she doing here?' ... I felt uncomfortable." (H/T WrestleTalk)

Victoria said that only Stock, Mark Henry, and Christopher Daniels — people she already knew — were welcoming to her. When asked if she was going to "watch the second show" (presumably an episode of "AEW Rampage" or "AEW Collision" being taped that night) Victoria said she was ready to go, saying she "felt very uncomfortable."

AEW wasn't the only company to give Victoria a bad experience. Prior to the AEW incident, Victoria described how she felt less than welcomed backstage in WWE during her first appearance for the company in around 12 years at the time at the 2021 Women's Royal Rumble, held at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida in front of an empty stadium due to COVID-19 precautions. The former Women's Champion didn't receive a happy homecoming during the event; speaking on her podcast in 2023, she said she was "treated like s***" backstage.

"How I got treated by some of the people? I will never treat a human like that. Ever," she said.

Victoria didn't comment further on the mistreatment or what exactly happened backstage. Prior to her ill-fated Rumble appearance (she was the 10th entrant in the match, only to be the fifth woman eliminated by Shayna Baszler), Victoria expressed interest in returning to the company in 2022, following Vince McMahon's initial retirement.