Lacey Evans' background should make her a can't-miss babyface in the eyes of WWE bookers, but she spent time as a heel while portraying The Lady gimmick, the origins of which are interesting, to say the least. Ahead of this weekend's Money In The Bank premium live event, she took time out of her busy schedule to talk with ScreenRant.com about several subjects, including Evans' biggest influences from her time in NXT.
That particular variation of Evans' character wore large dresses and over-the-top hats, generating heat that she wasn't necessarily keen on. She's spoken in the past about looking at the general idea of old-school Divas and not feeling like it was in line with the kind of person she is as an ex-Marine, so The Lady was a departure from her personality.
When asked about what brought this character shift, Evans stated that it began with her "being a smart a**." A performance center coach, who she revealed to be Matt Bloom, tried to talk Lacey into going out with some of the other female NXT wrestlers to help her learn how to dress as a WWE professional. Evans stressed that Bloom was doing this "out of the goodness of his heart" and that he simply noticed that Evans "needed a little guidance there." She explained that "I didn't have mommy to teach me all these things about being feminine and being a woman so I was lost in the sauce."
She continued, saying that "I took that offensive, because I'm Lacey Evans and I'm a bad son of a gun, I'll figure it the hell out." Evans then recounts a story where she took it upon herself to go acquire so-called professional clothes from a thrift store. "I got the longest dress that I could find, I got a big pair of these, like, bulging pearl necklaces and earrings... big red lips, these vintage old gloves from the back of the thrift store, and this big hat [laughs]." She said she walked in, found Bloom, and said "'I don't dress good enough? Well, what do you think about this, sir?'" Evans revealed that was it, though, because "every head turned and I was just trying to be a smart a** to Matt Bloom, saying 'I can dress nice.' And then it backfired."
She's moved away from that schtick now and is currently portraying a character that seems much more true-to-life for Evans. Various reports have stated that WWE isn't sure if they want to keep her a face or a heel, but it sounds like her preference would be to use her platform to portray the former as opposed to the latter. Evans is set to take place in the titular match of WWE's Money In The Bank premium live event on July 2.
(If any portion of these quotes are used for an article, please give credit to ScreenRant.com as the source.)