Stephanie McMahon had approximately ten matches across her entire career, and the thing that frightened her most about every single one of them was letting the business down.
On her What's Your Story? podcast with Triple H, Stephanie traced her in-ring journey from convincing her father and brother to let her train, through a women's main event that drew a 7.3 rating, to a three-a-day training program for her WrestleMania 34 match with Ronda Rousey.
"That was always my biggest fear, that I was going to embarrass the business. And that's why matches to me are like a sacred pinnacle. A lot of our talent would say the opposite: the promos are what make them the most nervous, and the physicality is what they're the most comfortable doing, and I'm the opposite. But I had maybe 10 matches total."
Getting permission to train at all required a practical argument. Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon did not want Stephanie wrestling, but she made the case that the heat she was generating was going to result in her getting bumped regardless of anyone's preference.
"I kept saying, 'I have so much heat. At some point I've got to get bumped around.' And finally under that logic, I was allowed to train. It was Tom Pritchard who trained me. The first really big match was me versus Lita, with Rock as the referee. That actually was the first women's main event on Raw. It did like a 7.3 rating, which will blow everybody's mind at this point."
Triple H offered a pointed assessment of where Stephanie stands among the women of her generation, noting that her in-ring reputation is still generating interest from current talent.
"I don't think a lot of people give you credit for the ability as an in-ring performer, bell to bell. This is my opinion, but you're one of the best female performers in that generation, bar none. And part of that is why you saw all the women pitching to do angles and storylines with you. Three quarters of our roster have probably asked me at various points in time, 'Do you think Steph would be interested in doing something at WrestleMania?'"
Her biggest in-ring moment came at WrestleMania 34, where she and Kurt Angle faced Rousey in her first-ever match. The preparation was unlike anything Stephanie had done before.
"She was the one who requested the match. Rhonda was the one who said, 'We need to finish the story with Steph.' And it was her first match. So we had to really train and really put it together. And it was stiff. Safe but stiff. She would come home covered in bruises. And I was training like three-a-days because I'd never trained like that ever. Cardio, strength and conditioning, and in the ring."
The most meaningful moment of her in-ring career, however, did not come from the WrestleMania crowd. It came from a hallway backstage at SummerSlam.
"During that match, the audience started chanting, 'You still got it.' That was so cool. And then even cooler was backstage. I hear three little voices: 'You still got it.' As they're walking towards me down the hallway. And there were my baby girls and they got to see me perform. It's just so magical."
