Trish Stratus still wants to prove herself while serving as an influence.
WWE Hall of Famer Trish Stratus is coming out of retirement once again to take part in a six-woman tag team match at WrestleMania 39. Stratus recently spoke to Graham Matthews of Bleacher Report and noted the similarities between her partners, Lita and Becky Lynch.
“It’s a great dynamic because [Lynch] and Lita are very similar,” Stratus said about the current WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions. “They forged that path of doing it their own way and their M.O. was living that out. I’ve been a fan of Becky’s for so long. We had some interaction at a live event in Toronto and we had some fun just going back and forth. It’s a nice mix. Just being able to go in there and touch with Bayley and the new girls, it’s going to make for a very interesting match because we all came from different times.”
Stratus hasn’t competed since SummerSlam 2019 when she lost to Charlotte Flair in her hometown of Toronto. The bout seemed to serve as the ultimate swan song for the 47-year-old, but now she’s stepping back in the ring for two reasons — to have fun and to be an influence.
“I don’t think it was a conscious choice to go back and say, ‘I have more in me,'” Stratus said. “The Charlotte match was a perfect ending. It was a generational face-off: The best of that generation against who they say is the best of my generation. It was in Toronto and absolutely perfect, and for that to bring closure, I was very satisfied with that. But then having these little interactions at live events, it was fun to have that generational mix-up. When I retired, I said I’d return if it was fun… and maybe not to pass the torch necessarily but to influence a new generation.
“There’s an element of proving yourself. You always feel like you have to prove yourself,” Stratus added. “I know with my Charlotte match, that was my driving force and proving to not only to the fans that I could still do this, but also to myself. I thrive on the challenge. Can I still hang with these girls? Trust me, before I accepted, I did a few rounds in the ring and had to make sure the question of whether I could still do this was rhetorical.”
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