WWE Women’s Champion Tiffany Stratton recently discussed her character’s evolution, her preference for being a heel, and how her current run as a babyface happened organically due to fan reactions. On the “No-Contest Wrestling” podcast, she revealed that her initial “Daddy’s little rich girl” gimmick in NXT was inspired by characters from pop culture but was ultimately scrapped by Shawn Michaels.
“The Daddy’s little rich girl gimmick kind of came from, like, Sharpay Evans from High School Musical, or like Paris Hilton,” Stratton explained. While she worked with the character for a period in NXT, the decision was made to move in a different direction. She stated that NXT’s head of creative, Shawn Michaels, made the call to end the gimmick due to a lack of a logical conclusion for the storyline. “Shawn was like, ‘we don’t have a daddy for you. We don’t really have a payoff.’ So I think we kind of just need to to scrape it,” she recalled.
Stratton also spoke about her comfort level as a performer, stating that portraying a villain comes more naturally to her. “I think being a heel is 10 times easier than being a baby,” she said. She elaborated on the reasoning, explaining, “You can mess up and you can fall on your butt and, you know, like, that’s totally fine as a heel. However, as a baby face, if you do that, the crowd could turn on you, or you could get booed, and, you know, you’re supposed to be like the face of the company.”
This preference stems from how she learned the business. “I feel like I was a heel right off the bat. So that’s why it comes so easy to me,” she continued. “And you know, I’m still learning to like be a babyface and be likable and not have so much stink on what I say in my promos.”
She explained that her current run as a babyface was not a planned creative decision, but rather an organic reaction from the audience that the company decided to embrace. “I never changed anything. I just started getting cheered,” she said.
The turning point came at the Elimination Chamber event in Australia in 2023. “The crowd completely, like, knew who I was. They were chanting ‘Tiffy Time’ the whole time,” she recalled. “It was my first PLE as a main roster talent. I really didn’t think anybody knew who I was, because I had just gotten called up, like, a month ago.”
Stratton described her initial disbelief upon hearing the chants from inside her Chamber pod. “At first, I was like, ‘Are they chanting for me?’… I started giggling. I think there’s a video. I just started laughing because, like, I was like, there’s no way they’re cheering for me right now,” she said.
That reaction from the crowd gave her a mix of confidence and pressure. “It almost gave me, like, an adrenaline rush, and it gave me more confidence. But I also, like, put a little bit more pressure on myself, because I’m like, ‘Okay, now they’re chanting for me. I have them like, I hope I don’t mess anything up’,” she explained. “That match was so amazing… it was my breakout moment.”
The organic reaction from the fans led to a shift in her creative direction. She noted that it was her work as a heel that initially got the crowd on her side. “That is what got me cheered,” she said. “But they’re kind of just like, you know, ‘be a little bit more likable now. You don’t need to be so bitchy in your promos,’ which, like, I understand completely.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit No Contest Wrestling Podcast with O’Shea Jackson with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
