Trish Stratus was taking bumps, wrestling matches and grinding through the same brutal travel schedule as WWE’s male talent, but she was still afraid to call herself a wrestler. That one word could get her checked backstage during an era when the women were constantly reminded that they had a different role.
Speaking during a live interview with Chris Van Vliet in Toronto, Stratus was asked when she finally began seeing herself as a legitimate wrestler. Her answer exposed just how divided WWE’s locker room was during the early years of her career.
“It took a long time for me to call myself a wrestler. A lot of it was, back in the day, the girls had their role and the boys did their thing. The girls did their thing, and they kind of dabbled.”
Stratus said the pressure followed her outside the arena. Even when fans recognized her as one of WWE’s wrestlers, she would check to make sure none of the men heard her agreeing with them.
“If we were at an airport, for example, and there were fans and someone would say, ‘Are you one of the wrestlers?’ I would be looking around to make sure none of the boys were around, because heaven forbid I said yes.”
“They were like, ‘Did you just call yourself a wrestler?’ Because they put in the time. They’d done their thing.”
Stratus was already competing and living the same exhausting road schedule, but she said the attitude backstage made it difficult for her to claim the title she had earned.
“Even though I had matches, I wrestled, and we were on the road the same amount of time, it was very different back then. Because of that, I think I have a little PTSD about it, but it took a while for me to acknowledge the fact that, yeah, I’m a wrestler.”
She said that finally started to change during the era when she was working with Victoria, Jazz and Molly Holly. Those matches helped convince Stratus that the women were no longer merely filling a role—they had become an important part of the show.
“I wouldn’t say there was a real distinct match or moment, but it was an era. When we started to get into the Victoria era—Jazz, Molly, Victoria—those matches were like, ‘Okay, we’re hitting our stride. People give a shit.’ That was a big difference.”
Stratus eventually became a seven-time WWE Women’s Champion and Hall of Famer, but her comments show how long she had to fight before she could comfortably use the most basic description of her job.
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