Trish Stratus Addresses The ‘Huge Responsibility’ Of Being WWE Champion

When WWE fans remember the top Women’s Champions in the company, Trish Stratus’ name always comes up. Now, on the latest edition of the “Insight” podcast, she revealed what it was like to win the title. Stratus said,

“Okay, as you know, maybe you don’t know. Let me tell you. Chyna had left with the championship. She was the champion. So there was no real women’s division. There was nothing for us to be really competing for. We’re going out there and putting on our little matches, but there’s no women’s division per se. Then they decided to bring the Women’s Championship back, and we’ve got six of the best women on the roster in the company at the time.”

“We were bringing in Jazz, which was like, surprise, this is hardcore from ECW. It was big buzz behind it. We have Molly Holly. Got the debut of Jazz. We got Ivory. We got Jackie, Lita. They put it together. I’m like, ooh, this is amazing that I’m in this amazing epic match. We’re talking about it, and Fit is like, ‘And you’re winning the title tonight.’”

“I’m like I’m going to do what now? I think that’s what the crowd did as well when I won. They’re like, what? Complete underdog story, unexpected moment. It was North Carolina, so I think people thought it’s a Lita win because we do that sometimes. Oh, she’s certainly going to get it in her hometown, and I won. It was a moment of we’re about to have a women’s division that they’re going to focus on.”

“They’re putting the title on me, huge responsibility. I’m up for the challenge; give me the ball, and I’m going to run with it. I had Fit in my corner. Don’t know what the original plans were or if that was original plans, but I do know that he spoke up for me. I don’t know if they were jockeying or were like, ‘Who should we put it on?’ But he definitely was like, ‘She’s been working her ass off. She should be the one.’ It was the great way to usher back in the women’s division. Here’s Trish Stratus, and here we are.”

The WWE Veteran On MaTrish

Stratus also talked about doing her MaTrish move. She said,

“I like puns, guys. Okay, but I’ll tell you, it’s funny now how everything’s named, right? I’ll come back to the story, pin that because I do do tangents sometimes. So I was one of the first women that really [named my moves], because I grew up just watching men name their moves, having costumes, and I wanted the same for the women because it kind of wasn’t the same for us. So I’d get in Jr’s ear.”

“I’m like, ‘Can we call this the da da da?’ All the girls would make fun of me, like ‘Oh, you’re gonna go name your move?’ I’m like, yeah, actually, I’m going to. To the point where I’d be like, ‘Molly, let’s call it something.’ Tell them when she does the thing, it’s called the Molly Go Round. We had to tell them because it would just be like girls match.”

“It was like she’s doing a roundhouse kick. No, bitch, it’s a chick kick. Okay, you know. So MaTrish, we’ll go back to that. Very clever, I think maybe Jerry [Lawler], I think he called it MaTrish Reloaded or something. So I was off. I had a herniated disc injury. Got totally into yoga. If you want to get into that, we can be here for two hours. But changed my life, loved it, and so I delved into that.”

“It helped me recover from my herniated disc and not have to do surgery. Went back and had probably the best run of my career afterwards. But I was literally in yoga class, and we’re doing back bends. It’s all zen, and I was like, that would be such a good aversion. So then I brought it back. I believe, the first time I did it, Victoria was doing a hardcore match. She went to swing with a trash can lid. I MaTrished, the crowd went, what? Because nobody had ever seen that before. Then I came up, which also happened, then I delivered a chick kick after that, so that was super fun.”