Trish Stratus Defends Controversial Vince McMahon Segment

Trish Stratus has reflected on one of her more controversial moments.

Although the war with WCW was all but won by early 2001, Vince McMahon and WWE continued to push the envelope with its content. And this mindset created one of the more infamous moments in Monday Night Raw history.

With McMahon on a power trip that was barely clinging to reality, he started up a relationship with Trish Stratus as he and Linda headed for divorce. This storyline saw McMahon and Stratus caught in numerous compromising positions, much to the disgust of Stephanie McMahon.

As the story continued, McMahon ensured to humiliate Stratus at every turn, including having her crawl around the ring on all fours and bark like a dog on the March 5th episode of Raw. She was then instructed to strip down to her underwear and ultimately remove her bra.

The segment drew an incredible amount of criticism at the time and continues to provoke anger to this day. The storyline wrapped up at WrestleMania X-7 where Trish turned her back on Vince during his match with his son Shane.

Trish Stratus Explains Reasoning Behind Controversial Segment

During the new “Mr. McMahon” documentary, Stratus defended the segment, explaining that it was supposed to make fans uncomfortable before she later got her own back.

“With the barking like a dog segment, they want me to be like [exhales] ‘it was horrible,’ but that’s exactly the feeling we wanted you to feel. Don’t you get it? We knew we were presenting a sensitive scene to the fans.

We knew it was gonna be talked about, and be interpreted and misinterpreted. We were aware of that. The thing is, when we did that scene, we knew the comeuppance would come at WrestleMania.”

Elsewhere, Vince McMahon claimed that the murderers committed by Chris Benoit and his subsequent death had nothing to do with steroids or concussions. Instead, McMahon suggested Benoit “went nuts” when he killed his wife, young son, and then himself.

Following a lawsuit filed by former WWE employee Janel Grant, McMahon is currently under a federal investigation regarding allegations of sex trafficking and sexual assault.

H/t to Fightful