Trish Stratus looks back on her match with Becky Lynch at Payback.
At WWE Payback recently, Trish Stratus and Becky Lynch opened the show inside a steel cage in the culmination of a rivalry that began shortly after WrestleMania 39. The storyline has dragged at times, with the pair consistently pushing back matches with non-finishes and other reasons for the storyline to be extended that fans were not in agreement of.
Speaking on GAW TV with Mickie James, So Cal Val, and Victoria, Trish was asked about working with Becky.
“WWE came to Canada and asked me to host the Canadian shows. I knew I’d be interacting with her on those shows and we started a little Twitter war. People were raving. There are always those dream matches and fantasy matches, I don’t think anyone ever put Trish Stratus and Becky Lynch together. Sasha Banks [Mercedes Mone] has been in the running because we had that epic and memorable face-off in the 2018 Royal Rumble and people fantasy match, ‘old gen vs. new gen, that’d be cool.’ I didn’t really hear Becky. When we did [the face-off], people were like, ‘this is a dream match, best of this gen and best of that gen,’ and people were interested. We saw the interest, and eventually, it took a good year, maybe over a year, to get to each other. We finally got to each other, we got to team together, which was great to be alongside her. She’s great. After we worked together and I watched her a little closer — you get busy with mom life — I became a huge fan watching her closer. Damn, she’s really something special for this generation. She really brings something.
“You know how we always go, ‘she wrestles like the guys, she does a promo like the guys.’ I don’t know why that’s our benchmark, but if we can not wrestle like a girl, it’s better for some reason, though nowadays wrestling like a girl is awesome, the way we wrestle these days. She really delivered, and I bought into the hype, too. ‘That would be cool.’ We worked really well together. We had never met before, and we connected when she became pregnant. Those moments where moms connect. ‘Congrats, good luck with the delivery.’ We bonded over that and became good friends outside of wrestling, completely removed from wrestling, just mom friends, which was cool. When you get to work with someone, you become super close with them, and we got to really explore each other, explore our friendships, dig into each other’s brains, and we wanted this to be something. It got lost in other storylines, but at the end of the day, it was an epic generational face-off that you could never have again. You’ll never have that dynamic. When are you going to have LeBron [LeBron James] and Jordan [Michael Jordan]? Ali [Muhammad Ali] vs. Tyson [Mike Tyson]. That fantasy match-up stuff people talk about. There was Rock and Hogan [Hulk Hogan], but I can’t recall a generational face-off like that for the women. We knew it was a special opportunity to deliver something very unique, a unique dynamic, and we didn’t want to lose that. Once you realize that was the focus, to bring something special to the fans, we worked really well together, and I enjoyed kicking her ass.”
Trish Stratus
Lynch has gone down to NXT to capture the NXT Women’s Championship for the first time in her career.
In the same interview, Stratus noted that she felt like at times that the story with Lynch was dragging.
H/T to Fightful for transcription
Follow Corey at @CoreyBrennanBS on Twitter
If you enjoy Bodyslam’s content, you can help donate to the site here. You can also visit our PWTees store and buy Bodyslam official merchandise here.
You can listen to all of Bodyslam’s podcasts by following us on Spotify and subscribing to our YouTube Channel, or any of your favorite podcast platforms.ⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘ
