During Tuesday’s SmackDown taping at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, ring announcer Lilian Garcia erroneously introduced Zack Ryder as “Long Island Iced Z, Jack Swagger” for his match against Jack Swagger. On Friday’s broadcast, which has already aired overseas, the mistake is edited out in place of a voice-over of Garcia correctly introducing Ryder.
It is the third time in recent weeks where WWE’s production team has had to cover for Garcia bungling a ring introduction on SmackDown. At the February 14 show, she botched her introduction of Jey and Jimmy Uso for their tag team match against Epico and Primo. WWE had Garcia record a voice-over following the taping. During the following week’s live show, she erroneously introduced Raw Interim General Manager and WWE Executive Vice President of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis as “General Manager of Monday Night Raw and Interim (pause) Talent Relations Mr. John Laurinaitis.” This led Michael Cole to berate Garcia on-air over her miscue as he questioned her employment with WWE. The announcing error, as well as Cole’s subsequent rant, was cut out of the episode’s replay.
Following the conclusion of Tuesday’s taping, John Cena denounced Garcia’s ring announcing ability in front of the live audience by saying “she looks absolutely beautiful but doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing.” He then had Tony Chimel properly introduce Ryder since he’s a professional and “knows what he’s doing.”
Here is fan video from the WWE SmackDown tapings, showing Lilian Garcia announcing Zack Ryder as Jack Swagger…
