Stephanie McMahon on How the Role of Women in WWE Has ‘Evolved Tremendously,’ Reflects on Her Women’s Title Match With Lita

– FOX Sports and Charlotte Wilder recently interviewed WWE Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon, who discussed how the role of women has evolved in WWE, her 2000 WWE women’s title match against Lita, her training for the match, the WWE ThunderDome, and more. Below are some highlights.

Stephanie McMahon on what will be different about the ThunderDome: “So many things are going to be different. Not only are we now going back to arena setting … but now we are going to the Amway Center, which is where we have our residency. It allows us the opportunity to have state of the art production with pyro, with drones … And we’re going to have 1,000 people. We’re going to mix the audio, so we will have audio from the fans that are virtual and also mix in some crowd audio from previous events because we want it to feel as alive as possible and really we’re just getting back to the spectacle that is WWE.”

On how the role of women has evolved in WWE: “It’s evolved tremendously. I think women have gone from being nice to have to being needed. The whole women’s evolution that’s happened in our business, when you think about even the way we started recruiting and training athletes; we started – and I should say my husband, Triple H, because he’s in charge of the development –recruitment and training of our Superstars, and he started recruiting elite female as well as male athletes and training the women the same as the men – giving them the same match time, the same opportunity, the same number of reps. And like anything else, the more reps you have, the better you’re going to be. And these women just really stole the show and rose to the occasion. The audience started chanting, ‘this is wrestling’ and ‘women’s wrestling.’

“And then you fast forward to Monday Night Raw, it was in February 2015, and there was at the time a Diva’s tag match – so four women that lasted all of 30 seconds, and our fans had had enough. And they started a hashtag called ‘#GiveDivasAChance’ that trended worldwide for three days, specifically asking for longer matches, more athleticism, better storylines, better character development. And we responded in the biggest way we possibly could with our chairman and CEO, also my father, Vince McMahon, and he said, ‘We hear you, keep watching #GiveDivasAChance.’ Then, at WrestleMania, which is akin to our Super Bowl, our biggest WrestleMania yet, over 101,000 people at AT&T stadium. We had Lita, who is now a Hall of Famer, go out and introduce the rebranding of the Divas division to the Women’s division. She unveiled a new championship belt more akin to the men’s and announced that our women would now be called Superstars, same as the men.”

Stephanie McMahon on her women’s title match against Lita in 2000: “A few years ago I think I watched it. When I watched it back, I realized just how poor of a Superstar I actually am in terms of my athletic capabilities in the ring, But, what an incredible privilege that was, to main event Raw with Lita – with Rock as a special guest referee. And the Hardy Boys were in Lita’s corner and Kurt Angle and Triple H, I think, wound up coming out in my corner. And let’s just say, the Rock really cheated. I shouldn’t have lost. You can watch it. You can watch it back. He cheated. And Lita won the title from me. But, it was a farce to say the least.”

On her training for the match: “It’s funny, I’ve been in training for quite a long time since I became a character, much to the chagrin of my brother who never wanted me anywhere near the ring. But, I realized as a character on the show, I played the bad guy, right? And ultimately, I was going to need to know how to do some things in the ring. So, I had started training a few years before – just really learning the basics, and we actually had to put that match together because I’m not a trained professional wrestler. And we really had to choreograph that match pretty tightly. And we did, and it was very involved, but it was so much fun.”