All Liv Morgan could do was sit and stew while at home healing up from the first serious injury of her career.
The New Jersey native missed six months last year with a dislocated shoulder and also required labrum, rotator cuff and biceps surgery for an injury attributed on WWE television to an attack by Rhea Ripley.
While out of action, she watched Ripley -- her former tag team partner -- ascend to a new level of superstardom in WWE.
"Here I am at home and I absolutely hate it," Morgan said.
It sparked the idea of a Liv Morgan revenge tour upon her return as the 30th entry in this year's women's Royal Rumble
Eight months later, she is one win away from truly completing it in storyline.
Morgan, 30, will defend her WWE Women's World championship against Ripley at Bad Blood in Atlanta on Oct. 5 (6 p.m., Peacock) with on‐screen love interest Dominik Mysterio locked in a shark cage above the ring. Morgan won their last meeting at SummerSlam with help from Mysterio. It will be WWE's first shark cage match in seven years.
"It's interesting to be on the other side of [Ripley's stardom] and be building my superstardom in my own right," Morgan said.
Morgan, who saw her injury as "paying her dues" in an industry that few leave unscathed, knew she had to "level up" mentally upon her return. She used the time off to really evaluate herself for the first time since joining WWE almost 10 years ago.
Her return has brought the best run of her career, including beating Becky Lynch at King and Queen of the Ring in May for her second world championship and they successfully defending it against her in a steel cage.
The love-triangle story with Mysterio, Ripley and The Judgement Day has allowed her to find the on-screen persona she's been most comfortable with in WWE.
Morgan has been able to go out there and no longer care what the audience thinks about her, calling it "so liberating."
"When I was sweet little Liv, you have to be particular about the things that you do and you say," she said. "It's so much easier for people to hate you than it is to get people to love you and to love you naturally. It's so much fun. There is so much freedom because it just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter really ultimately and there is something freeing just knowing that."
Mysterio being suspended above the ring in a shark cage plays off the storyline of his character spending a short time in prison at the end of 2022.
"The trauma this man has for shark cages, being behind bars again and also he's so scared of heights and also he's claustrophobic. My goal is to get him down there as fast as I possibly can," Morgan said.
Along with seducing Mysterio away on screen, Morgan replaced Ripley in The Judgement Day, giving her a full-fledged faction to work with for the first time since her days with The Riott Squad, which broke up in 2019. He and Mysterio teamed against Ripley and Damian Priest last month at Bash in Berlin.
"It's super different," Morgan said. "Being a solo competitor everything you do is focused on you. If you succeed, you succeed and if you fail, you fail. In a faction, you share that responsibility with everyone else."
The latest ingredient added to the story is Jey Uso, the new Intercontinental champion and one of the most over stars in the WWE who has flirted with Ripley as part of the story. Morgan called Uso's addition a welcome dynamic because he is "so beloved as much as we hate him right now for getting his nose in our business."
"If he is enough to get Rhea to stop being so obsessed with my Daddy Dom then I'm all for it," Morgan said. "Just stay out of my business. Please get Rhea out of our hair. It's becoming very obsessive and stalkerish and stage five clinger at this point.
"You got [Raw GM] Adam [Pearce] to agree to a whole stipulation just to keep Dominik away? Are you kidding? Are you still in love with him? So yes, Jey please come and take all of her attention away because I'm ready to move on."
Morgan said she believes the success of the story could impact the creative at the top of the women's division long term. Over nearly the last decade, WWE hasn't done much soap opera-style storytelling among its women's world champions or have them share the screen with the male counterparts in a significant way.
"I think it's cool to know and show that we can do both," Morgan said. "Yes I can be a women's champion and have a story centered around my championship but also bring in these elements that a lot of people growing up watching WWE loved.
"They loved the romance, they loved the messiness, the love triangle. Who doesn't love a good love story. To be able to bring those together has been cool because it's usually one or the other. So to have a story that maybe isn't so centered on the championship is special in its own way."
It's done so while reminding the audience of the Attitude Era - while outside of a few revealing outfits and Morgan's makeout session with Mysterio at SummerSlam haven't pushed the envelope too far.
"We are a PG at the end of the day so the fact that we've been able to tell these stories, you know push boundaries a little bit more than we've done in the past couple of years has been exciting for fans and it's exciting as a performer to diving into the art form and the storytelling that we're doing," Morgan said. "It's a PG product at the end of the day so I know what to expect going into work."
Morgan's character got Mysterio's attention by showing him a level of attention he wasn't getting during his on-screen relationship with Ripley's more domineering and possessive character. Morgan gifted him plates of his favorite food, chicken nuggets, a PS5 and a TV to play it on. She added "there will be so much more where that came from."
Being an extravagant gift giver is something Morgan has been in her own real-life relationship saying she has given significant others 90-inch flat screens and vacations including one to Hawaii.
"I'm kind of extravagant, Morgan said. "my love language is not receiving but how I show love is I love to give gifts and I'm such a gift giver."
After watching Ripley rise to the top of the women's division, the gift Morgan hopes to give her challenger at Bad Blood is another loss.
'Man it's gonna feel so good to crush her at Bad Blood," Morgan said. "It doesn't matter how big of a star she is."
On TKO's decision to cut back the number of WWE live events in 2025:
"I'm sad to see them kind of go a little bit because the house shows are so much fun and it's so so much more intimate," Morgan said. "House shows are truly for the love of the game. House shows are for the love of the art of wrestling, performing and being with the fans and interacting with fans on a more intimate level.
"Also for me, I feel like that's when I got good having so many reps on these love events in 2017, 18, 19 I was doing every single live event. But it helped me get so much better because I was getting all these rep.
"I'm sad to see that go for the newer guys and girls coming in who aren't going to be able to have that experience and have that reps at live events under that belt but it is what is. Time home is always nice. We spend so much time away from family and friends it nice, but I do love live events."