Lilian Garcia Finds True Love Thanks To Wild World Of Pro Wrestling [Exclusive]

If you spend about 30 seconds with WWE ring announcing legend, Lilian Garcia, you recognize quickly why she's been a staple face on television for 20 years.

Garcia is energetic, smart, collected, and those qualities bounce off the walls instantly when talking to her. She's just a regular person, right? Wrong. It's Lilian Garcia for crying out loud. She's a woman synonymous with the pro wrestling industry and whose voice echoes across some of the most memorable moments in the history of the business. She's an icon.

That's why one of the most important answers I needed about Garcia came from her fiance, Patrick Ellrich. Ellrich is one of the few on planet Earth that knows what it's like to get ready for a date with the longtime WWE ring announcer. So, I pried. I went there.

What's it like to get ready for a date with Lilian Garcia?

Lillian Garcia with Natalya, Mark Henry, and Zack Ryder — IMAGO / PicturePerfect

"Just be cool," Ellrich said about his preparation ahead of his first date with Garcia. "Obviously, I'm nervous, but as soon as I picked her up and as soon as we start talking, there's was just instant comfort. I knew I was dealing with just a super genuine person and any nerves kind of just went away at that point."

Just be cool? That would have ended my chances.

Ellrich is right, though. As a ring announcer in pro wrestling for all those years, Garcia oozed authenticity when she was out there. She talked at the audience, but also with them in a way that was genuine. Garcia helped make the world of pro wrestling real.

Lillian Garcia and Patrick Ellrich — Courtesy of Lilian Garcia

The world of wrestling gave something real to Garcia too. True love. In an exclusive interview with The Takedown on SI, Garcia and Ellrich opened up on their story and how the unique pro wrestling business brought them together. Like wrestling, it's wild and beautiful.

"My friend Candace Michelle, from WWE, was encouraging me to go on a (dating) app and try it," Garcia said. So I Googled Hinge and I Googled Bumble, and I liked the fact that Bumble had an incognito mode. I got on Bumble. I met this guy on there and so we decided to do a date. Immediately when I met him, I was like, 'oh, no, this is not my guy.'"

That guy wasn't the guy for Garcia, but it was that guy and that date, which led her to Patrick.

"We went inside this tap house and I see Patrick behind the bar, and I'm like, he's more of my type," Garcia said. So, we were just chit chatting, but I was like, concentrate, you're on a date!"

The name of the tap house was Proper Hop Taphouse and Patrick had owned it for four years at that point. It was a place that he called a perfect first date joint. Patrick is a former independent wrestler and tag team partner of Xavier Woods. Patrick said that when Garcia was ordering her drink, he tried to put a name with the familiar face.

"I had not been watching a ton of wrestling," Ellrich said. "I'm keeping up with Xavier Woods -- my good friend. So, I keep up with him and this familiar face comes in. I'm trying to place her. Then they go outside and talk. When she said Lilian, I was like, 'oh cool.'

"So yeah, I went back inside, came back out, and I just wanted to say hi and share my story with her and my ties to wrestling. I said I actually used to wrestle and my my tag team partner for a few years -- he's a good friend of mine -- was Xavier Woods. I really just wanted to say hi. Just that. That's it. I just wanted to say, what's up?"

Xavier Woods was a key player in Lilian Garcia love story

After the chit-chatting and Garcia revealing to Patrick that there wouldn't be a second date with the gentleman she was with, the two strangers texted a photo of them to Xavier Woods. Woods would become a pivotal player in the continuation of their relationship.

"I show up that next Monday and I see Xavier at ringside," Garcia said. And he's like, 'you met my boy, Patrick! We've been friends forever. He was in my wedding. He's such a great guy.' This is key. Because when I joined Bumble, I prayed for God to make this quick, make this painless, and I'd rather have somebody vetted. So, the fact that Xavier was like, 'this guy is awesome.' I'm like, this is really cool."

Garcia said that Woods told her that she and Patrick made a good looking couple in the photo that was texted his way.

Ellrich and Xavier Woods of WWE — Ellrich and Xavier Woods | Courtesy of Lilian Garcia

"That's when I told him, give him my number and tell him to send me the photo," Garcia said. "I never got a copy, right? So he gave him a number and immediately he texted me. He said I was gonna ask for your number that day, but you were on a date. It would have been a little weird. Then he asked me out and we went out that following Monday. We've been together ever since."

"He's probably happy that we've tapered off the text messages that we were sending him for a while, just giving him unsolicited updates on our lives together," Ellrich said of Woods. "Now, he's super happy, and he did play a big part in it -- just kind of facilitating that first real true line of communication.

"It's blown my mind how this whole thing happened"

Garcia and Ellrich are engaged to be married and the plan is to tie the knot in 2026, though a date isn't set at this time. The pro wrestling industry was the foundation their relationship was built on, but the timing was perfect too.

"Back in 2021, I think about how low I was," Garcia said. "I was at the lowest. I had lost both my parents to cancer. My marriage fell apart. It was just such an intense moment. And just by God's grace -- and I say that because that was the one thing in 2021, I fully surrendered myself to Christ. When a friend told me about going to church, I went with her, and it was like, I've tried to do life my way, and now I'm just fully surrendering.

"I needed that time. I needed the four years of really healing from my past and healing from losing my parents and sitting in my childhood home and just healing from past traumas. All of that then brought me to the Atlanta area and ultimately to meeting Patrick. It's just blown my mind how this whole thing happened."

Ellrich is a former pro wrestler and Garcia appreciates the fact that she can talk shop with him while they're at home.

"She's just gotten me so back into wrestling. I'm like, time to watch Raw," Ellrich said. "So, I've been watching a ton of wrestling and it's fun. I still know all the names, all the moves, and I think that's what she likes about it."

"I can say kayfabe," Garcia said. "And (he) totally understands."

The pro wrestling business brought them together and they'll both be around it even longer now. Garcia announced in October that she signed a two-year contract to stay with WWE. Garcia returned and did some fill-in work as the ring announcer on Raw and SmackDown. She's also the regular ring announcer for the WWE Saturday Night's Main Event program, which airs quarterly on Peacock.

Garcia's next major history making moment takes place on December 13. On that date, she's hoping to announce John Cena ahead of his final WWE match ever. Cena will wrestle either LA Knight or Gunther at the final WWE Saturday Night's Main Event of the year in his retirement match.

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