Despite where she would end up someday in the pro wrestling industry, Trish Stratus never thought that she could someday end up wrestling or finding her place in the industry, and because of this, was taken aback by Michael Hayes’ interest in her. “So I just thought ‘Okay, yeah, I’ll do that.’ So, I prepared a press kit, I sent it to them, and I hear back initially,” she added. This didn’t deter her, however, as she packed her bags and found out where Adam “Edge” Copeland trained before joining WWE, and trained with the men. 

“I said ‘No-no…I want to be treated like the boys!’ So, I went into this wrestling gym, basically, with all boys and I wanted to be treated like the boys, and I learnt to wrestle!” she claimed, and added that within two weeks, WWE got back to her and offered her a contract.

Stratus then admitted that winning over the audience wasn’t easy, but she eventually did it. “They saw me try and…I said to myself, each week I go out, I just have to, like, improve; I have to do better than I did last week,” she explained. “And they saw me do really crappy matches and pretty awful moves at times, but they stood with me and they saw the improvement and they watched me; it was like a true underdog story!”

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit “Pod Meets World” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.