Beth Phoenix Says New Divas Are Rushed Onto TV, Lilian Garcia, New Victoria Pics

— IGN.com recently conducted an interview with the WWE Women’s Champion Beth Phoenix. She makes note of WWE bringing in Divas despite marginal experience. “There’s more and more girls out there that want to be part of the business,” Phoenix told IGN.com during a THQ media event this past week at Florida Championship Wrestling headquarters. “As far as the experience level of some of the WWE divas, there are girls who get rushed along in the process. They’re beautiful and we want to get them on TV as soon as possible.” She added, “Sometimes that doesn’t leave for a lot of time for wrestling training. This isn’t a business that you can pick up in a few weeks. This takes years of commitment, dedication, passion, and hard work. With that is WWE’s road schedule that doesn’t provide for enough in-ring time for the divas to develop. With our current grueling schedule, sometimes the way our girls come into WWE, it’s with less experience than the training the guys get.” She also commented on internet criticism regarding her character’s appearance in the Smackdown vs. RAW 2009 video game. Phoenix said, “If you go read the comments on boards, there’s a lot of criticism on my character. ‘Oh, this isn’t quite right. That’s not updated.’ And to me, that’s so cool because it shows that people really care about this game. … It’s really been eye-opening – I get to interact a lot with WWE fans – and gaming fans are just as dedicated and devoted to the game.” You can see the video interview at the following link.

— Speaking of the SmackDown vs. RAW 2009 video game, WWE ran a commercial this past Monday night on Raw promoting it. During the television broadcast, you only got to hear ring announcer Lilian Garcia’s voice, but she was shown in the uncut version of the commercial, which has started circulating online after THQ released it to the video gaming press. The uncut video is over one minute long and features footage of Lilian announcing WWE Superstars for a tag team match. You can see the extended version of the commercial at the following link.

— WWE.com has posted some brand new photos of SmackDown Diva Victoria. You can see them at the following link.

See video of Victoria attacking Lilian Garcia (>>)