Stephanie McMahon entered her father’s kingdom of the WWE during her teenage as an on-screen character in 1999. With lesser in-ring skills available from her, she was barely considered to be a legit wrestler. Almost a year later, her father, Vince McMahon made a polarizing decision that led to criticism from the pro-wrestling fanatics.
In a surprise set of happenings, Stephanie McMahon ended up pinning Jacqueline to win the WWE Women’s Championship. She held the title for about five months before losing it to another WWE Hall of Famer Lita. The lengthy reign wasn’t taken well by the fans as they must have considered this one to be a biased decision.
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While speaking on his Something to Wrestle podcast, Bruce Prichard revealed how the locker room reacted to Vince’s decision to put the women’s title on his daughter, despite being a newbie in the business. Prichard noted that Stephanie McMahon expectedly received a lot of backlash from the fans as they felt she didn’t deserve the championship.
However, Prichard also noted that “heat” toward Stephanie McMahon proved to be beneficial for the business since it caused monetary benefit to Vince,
“She was getting heat from the audience. So, heat from the audience. Heat in the locker room. I don’t give a sh*t where the heat is coming from. She’s getting heat and it was money-drawing heat. So, I thought it was absolutely the right move because of that, the jealousy, the fact that the audience is saying, ‘She doesn’t deserve that.”
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Stephanie McMahon’s title win turned out to be financially beneficial
Prichard also explained that Stephanie McMahon’s controversial title win also led her to deal with backstage heat in the locker room as many wrestlers were unhappy with the decision. However, the WWE creative team member still believes that it was a smart choice from the business perspective as the overall negativity surrounding her drew attention and money.
“Now, of course, when you won the title it was real. When you lost the title it was a work. No, man, come on. What’s best for business? That was best for business. That was good stuff and it was the right thing to do.”
For the better part of the last decade, Stephanie McMahon played an on and off-screen role in the WWE before willingly resigning from the company’s board of directors. After staying away from TV for more than a year, she returned for multiple one-off appearances on night two of Wrestlemania XL, WWE Draft, and then at Summerslam.
