Trish Stratus Recalls How Women’s WWE Matches Got Elevated With Help From Fit Finlay

In a recent interview with the Getting Over podcast, Trish Stratus talked about her early days as a Diva and working with Fit Finlay (via Wrestling Inc). She shared how Finlay was interested in elevating the matches for the women’s division out of catfight territory and how the work paid off to the point that even Vince McMahon noticed the rise in comparative rating. You can read a few highlights from Stratus and listen to the full podcast below.

On Finlay’s decision to alter the execution of the women’s matches: “So we were like, ‘Yeah they want us to have a catfight, maybe we’re not going to pull the hair and slap, maybe we’ll chop and punch instead.'”

On how they managed to get away with the changes: “The lucky thing for us, at the time, we were so under the radar, really no one was paying attention to us. So we took it upon ourselves to use that to our advantage and just start having these legit matches and start putting together some good stuff that fans suddenly went from chanting, ”We want puppies’ to ‘holy shit, this is real action.'”