In the Raw episode of December 17th, it is announced that Lacey Evans, along with five other NXT talents, will make their debut on the main roster in the coming weeks. Made his debut on January 27, 2019, at the Royal Rumble, where he entered with the number 1; eliminated Billie Kay and Peyton Royce and after 29:30 minutes is eliminated by Charlotte Flair. In the February 8 Main Event episode, Lacey was defeated by Natalya. In the following weeks, Lacey showed up on the Raw, SmackDown and pay-per-view shows, showing up on the stage, greeting the audience and then leaving.
In an interview with TalkSport and Alex McCarthy during Royal Rumble Weekend, Evans reflected on not being a wrestling fan beforehand: “I wasn’t a fan at all. I actually did high school wrestling. Which is obviously so much different than sports entertainment. I was on a SWAT team, the military police in the marine core, and I had a staff sergeant who did, what I thought was, backyard wrestling.
So I kind of chuckled like, ‘what are you talking about?’ I’m very rough and I’ve got a lot of grit, so there was something about backyard wrestling that made me like ‘can I come see?’ There was something about it that made me want to do it. I didn’t know what it was but it sounded intriguing.”