Getty WWE superstar Liv Morgan enters the Women's Royal Rumble match in 2023.
The New York Knicks‘ league-long winning streak was finally snapped on Tuesday night as Julius Randle and Co. fell at Madison Square Garden to the Charlotte Hornets amid a poor fourth-quarter effort. However, at least one entertaining thing came out of the ill-fated contest.
WWE superstar Liv Morgan was sitting courtside at the game — an event she chronicled with a slideshow post on her Instagram account — when MSG cameras caught her in a viral moment.
Specifically, the former SmackDown Women’s Champion sat stone-faced as a man next to her yammered on about something that apparently didn’t warrant much of a response or any genuine recognition. Video of the exchange made the rounds on social media in short order, and fans got a major kick out of the live ghosting.
Alas, while the chatter surrounding the clip was hilarious, the situation wasn’t quite what it seemed.
Liv Morgan Becomes a Living Meme at the Knicks Game
She definitely didn’t hear one word you just said bro
A number of commenters joked that the man sitting next to Morgan was just some rando who had crashed an burned while shooting his shot with the grappler and actress.
Here are just a smattering of the responses to the clip from Twitter:
“Bro it is OVER. If she’s making this face while you’re trying to talk to her just go home,” tweeted one fan.
“It don’t matter how ugly the shot is as long as it go in (it didn’t I hope),” read another comment.
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. – Wayne Gretzky. If @YaOnlyLivvOnce was sitting next to me I’d have to,” confessed a third tweeter.
In truth, the man in the video was WWE’s Senior Vice President of Live Event Marketing, Justin Scalise. So, there’s a chance that no shot-shooting actually occured. There were, however, some alternative theories about why Scalise seemingly had Morgan so nonplussed.
Here are some of the mock conversations people conjured up:
“‘So basically Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life… He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying…'” mused one comment.
“Guy: Bret Hart was great but when he was the face of the company, the WWE almost went out of business. Things didn’t start turning around until Stone Cold became popular. You see Hogan made Vince a millionaire but Steve Austin made him a billionaire…” joked another respondent.
“‘Let me tell you about the big 3, Naruto is the king of games, Luffy is a Sailor scout, & Ichigo is a Pokémon. If we put our hands in the air, Roman unleashes the spirit ball. Lastly, I think Kratos is a super saiyan,'” a third tweet read.
Updated Knicks Record & Playoff Projection
Losing to a team like the lottery-chasing Hornets is never a good thing, even when you have extenuating circumstances, i.e. the Knicks being fresh off a double-OT grinder against the Boston Celtics. However, the loss did little to harm the club’s postseason outlook.
Per the latest predictive models at FiveThirtyEight (that’s as of March 7’s games), the RAPTOR forecast has the Knicks as a virtual lock for the playoffs with a 98% chance of qualificant and a final regular-season record of 48-34.
Meanwhile, the Elo forecast similarly had New York at 48-34 with a playoff chance greater than 99% and an 8% shot at advancing all the way to the NBA Finals.