The following was sent to us from Barstool Sports:
Hope you’re well! On today’s episode of the Barstool Sports podcast, The Corp, Stephanie McMahon, Chief Brand Officer of WWE sits down with hosts Dan ‘Big Cat’ Katz of Barstool Sports and Alex Rodriguez. Stephanie gets in depth about the humble beginnings of WWE, her friendship with Andre the Giant, the incredible growth of WWE, working with her dad and is joined for a few rapid fire questions with her husband Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque.
Full episode link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4lopRwRgICklPGd8xqqFFA
On her friendship with Andre the Giant
“But so ever since I was a little kid and it was just normal to have you know Hulk Hogan over for dinner, Mr. T you know, Ultimate Warrior stayed with us for for a little while. I mean that was just kind of the way life was for me. I grew up with Andre the Giant as my best friend and I never knew any different.”
“So I met Andre. Gosh I don’t even remember this story my mom tells this story. I was about three years old and I was jumping on the trampoline outside of our house and we lived in Cape Cod Massachusetts. And Andre drove up in his special van because it had to be outfitted for him for his size and he got out of his van. And it was like his head blocked the sun and the ground shaking as he took every step. And my babysitter at the time freaked out, started locking all the doors, closing all the windows and I’m out on the trampoline. I don’t know what that says about her babysitting skills but my mom tells the story that Andre walked over to the trampoline and I was never scared. I was never afraid and he held out his hand. And apparently as lore goes I stepped into the palm of his hand and he brought me up to his cheek and I gave him a kiss on the cheek. And my mom always called Andre my Gulliver.”
On Being an Executive and in the Storylines
“I do find though now when I meet other business people and they find out that I’m also a character on the show it is quite confusing to them especially when I then explain I am the villain playing the boss’s daughter putting profits before people and all of that good stuff.”
On Who is the Best WWE Wrestler
“Hulk Hogan is one of the most easily recognized icons in the world. He is everything because also his size, his stature, that Fu Manchu the long blond hair. He just really is one of the first ever I think truly global icons.”
“Ric Flair is arguably one of the greatest superstars ever in the history of our business from a pure talent standpoint. I think that even Hulk Hogan would say Ric Flair has me beat. Rick, he transcends our business in many different ways than I think Hulk Hogan does.”
“And it feels like I’m maybe not picking one over the other but I’m picking each one for different.”
“I think Rock, especially because with all the different platforms that exist today, I think Rock has he’s probably the number one most easily recognized WWE superstar of all time. And not only is he a successful actor he also runs you know Seven Bucks Studios, he’s an entrepreneur, he’s an executive, he’s a philanthropist.”
On What the Audience Doesn’t Know
“They’re [the fans] being very vocal and they’re telling us exactly what they want and sometimes to your point earlier, it’s not what you want to do because you’re setting them up for something else. But sometimes it’s a setup for a payoff of something even bigger and they just have to be patient.”
Sneezing Around Vince McMahon
Big Cat: Have you ever sneezed around your father?
Stephanie McMahon: Totally. Yes.
Big Cat: Does he hate you for it?
Stephanie McMahon: He doesn’t hate me for it but it’s always with like a grrr, a grimace. But on the flip side I’ve been around when he has sneezed.
Big Cat: That’s got to be embarrassing for him.
Stephanie McMahon: A little bit that he can’t control. Well it’s just because he doesn’t like anything he can’t control the fact that he can’t control the sneeze is very, makes him upset.
On Dating and Marrying Triple H
“Forbidden love too, by the way. I was forbidden to date, you know the wrestlers. And then for him to take the ultimate risk and you know go after me the way he did it was all or nothing.”
Triple H on Staging His Rattlesnake Bite
“Let me tell you how easy it is to sell a rattlesnake strike. They put you in a room a bathroom and they just put a little piece of Plexiglass down. If you’re getting repetitively thrown into this bathroom and on the other side of a little Plexiglass is a bunch of rattlesnakes. And when you get thrown into they’re striking this Plexiglass. And it just like yeah you realize what they can do and the guy that is training them has like two fingers. Like you see signs clearly this isn’t an exact science.”
