Want more wrestling news, rumors, and results? Be sure to visit PWInsider.com and PWInsiderXtra.com.
Welcome to PWInsider.com's coverage of Chris Jericho Live! with Stephanie McMahon on the WWE Network. I am starting ten minutes behind as I was coming back from seeing the new Avengers movie and got caught up. Sorry!
Jericho welcome everyone and said he was here with his old "nemesis" and they played it up as if they didn't like each other and laughed. Jericho said that fans always want the hard-hitting questions, so he's going to start out by noting Stephanie just came from the WWE company staff party and asked why he's never been invited. She said Jericho obviously would be invited because he's Jericho.
Jericho said that he imagined Vince walking around serving food and Stephanie said he doesn't do that, but they do take photos with the employees who are celebrating anniversaries. They noted the producer of the show just celebrated 20 years with the company. Jericho joked about how he thought there would be a Christmas bonus and instead WWE sent everyone a plastic "hardcore" Santa. I bet a bunch of those will pop up on Ebay now.
Jericho asked how many people WWE employees these days. Stephanie said that currently it's 800. Jericho noted she was just in China for two weeks and asked her what her role was. She said she was in Singapore and then Shanghai and Beijing. Stephanie said she was there not just representing WWE but also for the Eisenhower Fellowship she was awarded. She talked about having to go and defend WWE during the process where she was being "interrogated" for the award. She broke down the process of having to serve the Fellowship. She explained the Fellowship was created when Eisenhower wanted something that could help change the world as opposed to a statue or something in his hoachienor.
Jericho said it was wild that she had to defend the company. Stephanie said that is part of her role in the company now and ran down all the achievements the company has had and that her father put PPV on the map with Wrestlemania.
Jericho asked what it's like to have her father as her boss. She said it's very challenging, especially since her father is Vince McMahon. She said everyone's dad has quirks and with her dad, she has to work super hard because he's driven and that makes her work so much more. They noted Vince was standing there off-camera giving them the finger. Stephanie cracked up. She said the bar of expectation is set very high. She noted Vince grew up living in a trailer and fought for everything he had and Vince wants her to fight and earn it every step of the day.
Stephanie said that she's made mistakes and that's the worst feeling, especially when he's disappointed because he's so emotional - especially he's also her dad. She noted that as a performer, he made her re-shoot things. There was a segment where she and Shane McMahon were sent back out at a TV Taping in Boston to re-shoot a segment during the time period where she "owned" ECW in the storylines. Steph said that making it worse was that it was the Boston crowd, saying, "They knew" what was going on and can be "so unforgiving." She said it was an awesome lesson to be learned but when she came back out there, she had the weight of the world on her because she didn't want to let fans or anyone else down. Vince warned her, "You can't let this effect the rest of your performance." Jericho noted that he's had to do it a few times and you always feel like a loser doing it. She agreed.
Jericho noted that on screen, she is just like Vince right down to the facial expressions. Stephanie said that Shane McMahon calls her the "Vincess." She said that she's been around him so much and studied him so much, but there's no one like him. She said that to be compared to him is a huge honor.
Jericho said when she started, it was almost like a deer in headlights. He said that she was basically tossed on TV but over time, evolved and improved. He compared it to Vickie Guerrero's evolution. Stephanie said that life teaches you a lot of lessons and that's a mom now and has had corporate experiences and you draw from experiences and from people you encounter in life.
Jericho asked if it was an interesting dichotomy doing her evil character and then working behind the scenes as an ambassador for the company and asked if people get it mixed up. She said it's a great question and uses that as an example during the B. A. Star rallies, noting that she's playing a bully on the WWE shows and talked about how important those rallies were for you.
Jericho talked about Bret Hart's experiences growing up. Jericho asked her if her life was that way with wrestlers in and out of the house. She said that there were guys there and it just was what she grew up with. She told a story of Hulk Hogan and Mr. T. coming over for dinner and how her mother, who hates liver, was almost nauseated while making it for T. She then told a pretty awesome T story about how she wanted his autograph and then he went off signing just about everything. She said that even thought she was little, she knew it was funny. Then, when he went into the Hall of Fame, her kids ended up with 15 things signed each.
Stephanie was then asked about her first memories of her first live WWF event. She told a story about being young (3-6 years range) and being at a show in the Philadelphia Spectrum and seeing George Steele backstage, completely in character and being so scared, she hid behind her father, who laughed. Knowing her dad would defend her, she was surprised that Vince was laughing and then realized her dad was laughing about how bad Steele felt that she was scared and Steele tried to talk to her to make her feel better.
Jericho asked her favorites as a kid. The Killer Bees and Tito Santana, but she gravitated more towards the heels and didn't root for Hulk Hogan. Jericho told a story about how his grandmother hated Jesse Ventura, so while he thought Jesse was the coolest thing on the show, he "hated" him too.
Stephanie was asked about the relationship she had with Andre the Giant. Stephanie said they had a bond. She relayed a story that her mother tells. Stephanie was out there playing and Andre showed up and the Nanny got scared. Andre walked up and with one hand, lifted her up and she kissed him on the cheek. She said that she saw people treating Andre differently because he was Andre and after she said that to him, they had a bond. She noted that she didn't like the way people treated others differently when she was young and had experiences where people treated her a certain way because she was Vince McMahon's daughter. Her dad taught her an important lesson in that not everyone is going to like her but she has to look herself in the mirror and be a good person.
Jericho asked if she and Shane McMahon wrestled at home. She said that Shane was seven years older, so she was in every wrestling hold ever. She told the story about them tossing each other back and forth onto couches and once she missed and hit a glass door. Her dad came running in and she popped up yelling that she was OK.
Stephanie was asked about crushes growing up. She said she was in love with Bo Duke. OK, my new goal is to interview Stephanie ONLY about the Dukes of Hazzard. She told a story about being devastated about seeing John Schneider kiss Barbara Mandrell on a Christmas special. Jericho said that the show was great when you were young but it was awful. Stephanie agreed but said she loves the Dukes of Hazzard. This is the last thing I ever expected them to talk about and I popped huge, because it was so random.
Jericho asked her about starting to work for the company. She said she always wanted to work for WWE, which surprised her dad. She started as a teenager answering the phones and said she knew everyone by their office extensions and had a phone relationship with them but when they would walk past her in the lobby, she didn't know who they were by face unless they clued her in.
She told a story of a fan calling in upset because Bobby Heenan had said on TV that there was no such thing on Santa Claus. I distinctly remember this on Primetime Wrestling and being shocked they actually said that. The angle, if you care, led to Roddy Piper, who was hosting the show with Gorilla Monsoon, tracking down Heenan (in his "own" studio and slapping him around). A mother called angry about how her best friend's kids had seen Heenan "lie" about it and it caused all sorts of problems. Stephanie said she was couching the woman on how to fix things and by the summer, she received flowers from the woman.
Stephanie began interning in different areas of the company. Every summer, her dad required her to have a job so she could learn the value of a dollar. She worked in marketing and talked about when she worked on the old AOL WWF area and would go into the chats and talk to fans, only to have some of them figure it out. She said that she had no idea but WWE fans just find things out, "they are amazing." Stephanie said she worked in HR and joked she could run a Xerox machine like no one else and now they don't even exist anymore.
In college, she was a production assistant and helped make different promo reels and recalled making a Summerslam Sweepstakes spot. She said working with editors on that was very cool. After college, she spent three months in her mother's office taking notes during every business related call so she could ask her mother questions and learn. Then she spent six months in her father's office, "and it was Oh My God, this is the coolest job." Her dad was more of an in the moment sort of teacher. She said it was an amazing and unique opportunity, then went into the sales office and then started on TV.
Jericho said that his daughters are a few years away from dating age but he knows that if his daughters brought him home, he would say absolutely not, no wrestlers. He asked Stephanie if Vince ever forbid her from dating wrestlers. Stephanie said, "Oh yeah. Absolutely. Forbidden. Are you kidding me? So bad for business, potentially." She said that's why it was so shocking she dated HHH.
Jericho asked her about her father's reaction to that. Stephanie said that she feels Vince sort of put them together. Jericho joked that the master manipulator strikes again. Steph said, "Yes, he does." He would say things like Steph needs a guy like HHH but then Shane would say, but not HHH and Vince would say, No not him. So, in a way, he sort of suggested it.
Once they got together, Vince "sort of took away that blessing" and "we weren't allowed to see each other anymore." She said she was forbidden to see HHH. Jericho asked about Hunter reacted to that. She said that at the time, he wasn't sure about the risk that he was taking with his own career by dating her and whether it was worth it, because it would all be on him. Stephanie said she feels Hunter was seriously questioning the decision. She said it could have been his career. She'd like to think that wasn't the case, but it was the boss' daughter. She said their time apart was good for them. They tried to let it go but couldn't and got back together a year later. She said that it was her decision and there were some bumps and rocks. She questioned to her mother whether she was ready to move forward with the relationship because there were some past things. Her mother told her that if she wanted to proceed, she could "never" bring up the past with him again. She said that at that point, she and Hunter were two older, educated adults making an educated decision and that's what they did and they moved forward.
Jericho asked the reaction at the time and whether there was locker room backlash. Stephanie said almost all of that was focused on Hunter and that there were agents at the time going to Vince McMahon raising their concerns about this and what HHH's intentions really were. She said some of that was hurtful to Hunter at the time.
They moved onto discussing her on-air persona. She said she has no problem with making fun of herself and she's a clumsy, goofball in real life, so she's cool with it. Jericho said Stephanie got him to the next level with her interactions with him. He told the story of mistaking her on the air for one of Godfather's Ho from behind which led to their regular interactions. She said she was touched he feels that way and said that she feels her role as a character is to try and help someone else get over when she is able to do so. They talked about some of their interactions on the air.
They then told a story about Vince liking Apes and wanting them on the show, so creative got them some ape suits around the time the Planet of the Apes film came out and them putting together a silly segment which led to the Apes bringing a cake out and the cake going in Steph's face.
Jericho then told a story about a Chicago segment after McMahon got her breast enhancement. Steph said that at the time, it was obvious, so how could you not go there? The Rock came out and then when it came time to the Rock's cut-off line, Rock still said mother-F***er when she was supposed to cut him off at mother. Jericho said that he remembers going backstage and Vince McMahon just losing it and yelling at The Rock over it.
She said she got the enhancement because she was heavier and had lost weight and didn't look the same and didn't feel confident. Jericho said he remembers that people couldn't believe he went there.
Jericho then told a story about wanting to say that "Stephanie lost her flower a long time ago" after HHH would say that she was his little flower. He had to go to Vince to get the line approved and Vince sat there and thought and said, "OK, but after the line, pause so it can get the maximum effect." Stephanie laughed and said, "Thanks Dad."
Coverage continues on Page 2!
If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!
Bang On Casino
