Page 23 - Real Style Holiday 2018

STRATUS
-Fied
WWE WRESTLER TRISH STRATUS TALKS ABOUT LIFE INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE RING.
BY RODERICK THEDORFF
IF YOU WERE A WRESTLING FAN in the early 2000’s, you are sure to recognize the name Trish Stratus. The former fitness model made her first appearance in the WWE (then called the WWF) in March 2000, managing a tag team called T & A, and by the time she retired from the ring in September of 2016 in her hometown of Toronto, she’d become one of the best, if not the best, woman wrestlers of all time. With a re- cord seven women’s championship title reigns, and an induction into the WWE Hall of Fame, Stratus cemented her legacy in the industry, and is looked at as an inspiration to young women around the world. That alone is something she doesn’t take lightly.
“It’s certainly humbling to know I have in- fluenced the girls of today,” Stratus says. “Espe-
cially after meeting the current crop of women, who are at the forefront of this women’s revolu- tion that is happening in wrestling right now. To hear them say it was the work we did back in the day that made them realize that they could do anything they wanted to and that we have carved out a path for them to have a place in this industry makes all the years of blood, sweat and tears worth it,” she says.
For some, stepping into the ring with what are basically modern-day gladiators—a lot of whom stand well over six feet in height—while standing 5’4” might be intimidating, that was never the case for Stratus. “I think size only mat- ters in one aspect,” she says. “It’s in your heart. The ring has a way of making us all equal. You can see six-foot giants fly from the top rope and
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