Stephanie McMahon Encouraged WWE Legend To Retire At 30

Stephanie McMahon was always a huge figure in WWE ever since she was first introduced to the fans, and was an active part of the process behind the scenes as well throughout her time in the company.

Ever since leaving the promotion, she often makes surprise appearances at events and runs a podcast of her own, What’s Your Story? With Stephanie McMahon, in partnership with the Stamford-based promotion.

She recently had former WWE Women’s World Champion, Trish Stratus, on her podcast, who revealed a lot of stories about her career, including the reason behind her retirement in 2006.

Trish Stratus spoke with Stephanie McMahon before WWE retirement

Stratus initially retired from the promotion at Unforgiven 2006, when she was at the top of her career. She explained that she retired at the age of 30 as her mother was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and that’s when she spoke with Stephanie.

Vince wanted to sign me for five more years, and my mom got diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. And I just, it was like this thing where, again, you want to like, you don’t want to let people down. And I wanted to continue, of course, but—and I was kind of the girl at the time—but she got diagnosed, and I knew with that schedule, there was no way I could have been with her to do the treatments and to the chemo and everything. And then I called you, and I was like, what do I do? And like, maybe I could do a split, figure something out, or take a time out. And you said, “I think you know what you need to do,” right? And so you were there for me for that moment,” Stratus said.

Despite her retirement, she kept up with sporadic appearances in the promotion and finally made her full-time return to WWE in 2022, and was last seen at WWE Evolution in July 2025.

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