Stephanie McMahon Comments on WWE Smackdown on Fox, Claims Oldest Daughter Training to Wrestle, More
There are a lot of WWE superstars and even executives that are making the media rounds to promote WWE Smackdown moving to Fox this Friday. Earlier today, WWE Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon-Levesque appeared on First Things First to talk about a number of different topics with Cris Carter, Nick Wright and Jenna Wolfe. Here are some highlights of what Stephanie said with thanks to WrestlingInc for the transcript.
Stephanie on why she thinks WWE and Fox will work well together:
“Words really can’t describe how excited we are. This is a partnership that I think has been many, many years in the making, if not destined to be. FOX is the best at live television, the best at sports, the best at events, and I like to think that WWE is the same. So, we’re, I think, a perfect match. A perfect tag team, if you will.”
Stephanie on some of the memories of her WWE in-ring career:
“Oh my goodness. Well, I did have to wrestle my father in what may be the first-ever father-daughter match, six days before my actual wedding. So that’s an interesting moment. My mom was so mad at my dad. She said, ‘If you give her a black eye, if she gets a black eye before her wedding, I’m going to kill you.’ So that was a very interesting moment. But actually it was only about two years ago that I did wrestle ‘Rowdy’ Ronda Rousey. So it was after the Attitude Era, it was after I had married and had three daughters, and I had the chance to wrestle Ronda in her first-ever match in WWE, and that was a huge moment, with my husband Triple H as my tag team partner, against Kurt Angle and Ronda. And Kurt’s an Olympic gold medalist, and Ronda’s an Olympic medalist as well. So, I had my work cut out for me. I lost, yeah.”
The father vs. daughter match was at No Mercy in October 2003, which I reviewed here. She did marry Triple H six days later.
The tag team match with Stephanie and Triple H losing to Ronda Rousey and Kurt Angle was at WrestleMania 34 in New Orleans in April 2018, so it was about 18 months ago. You can check out that review here. It was a damn good match too!
Stephanie on being a working mom of three daughters:
“My oldest daughter (Aurora, who is 13) has already started training. And I would encourage them to follow their passion, you know, whatever they believe in, as long as they work hard at it. I believe in a strong work ethic and I believe they can do anything in the world they wanna do, but they’re gonna have to believe in themselves and work hard.”
Stephanie on how important it is to listen to the fans:
“I think it goes back to that relatability. Just engaging with our audience and not just engaging with our audience, but letting them know their voice matters. What they do impacts what we do, and we wouldn’t have a product without them. You know, I could go into our various strategies, whether it’s our pop culture strategy or etc., but really it is about just keeping that connection with our audience.”
Stephanie on The Rock making an appearance on Smackdown this week:
“Absolutely, The Rock is going to be there on Friday, on Friday Night SmackDown. This Friday, live on FOX at 8pm ET, and he’s going to layeth the smacketh down on the entire audience. I can’t wait to see what he’s going to do.”
Stephanie concluded by joking about possibly wrestling again:
“Anything can happen in WWE. Mother – daughter tag team? No, it’s not… but maybe.” (Laughs)
It doesn’t shock me that Triple H and Stephanie’s oldest daughter Aurora is already training and learning how to wrestle. They have two more daughters that may follow in the family’s footsteps too. After all, it’s in the blood. That’s what the McMahon Family does and with Triple H as their father, they will have some incredible people to learn from. Shane McMahon has three sons with his oldest son born in 2004 (remember the open of WrestleMania 20), so his kids may get into the business. By the mid-2020s, we could see some more McMahon family members in the ring. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.
You can check out Stephanie’s appearance below.