Trish Stratus has a test she puts herself through before agreeing to any WWE return: getting a ring put up in private to see whether she can still do it.
She described it at a live Insight with Chris Van Vliet event in Toronto, using the 2018 Royal Rumble as the example. The call came from John Laurinaitis.
“He was like, okay, they want you in it. It’s iconic. It’s historic. And I was like, I will let you know. I’m gonna check my calendar.”
She was not checking her calendar.
“But secretly, I had to call, you know, Fuego, Rob? I was like, dude, put up the ring. Let me see if I can still do this s***. And I got in the ring, and I was like, and then I was like, yes, I am available, John.”
Her verdict on the experiment was that it turned out to be unnecessary.
“It turns out that wrestling’s like riding a bike when you’re a wrestler, I guess, or when you do yoga.”
Asked whether she has a number in mind for how much longer she wants to wrestle, Stratus said the only measure she uses is whether the match holds up when she watches it back.
“I just know that I’m only gonna do it if I can give like 100 percent. Every time I’ve gone back, I’ll watch the video and I’m like, is this s***? Let me see. And I’m like, oh, it’s pretty good.”
“But if I watch it back and I’m like, she was good, but she was slower than usual, I don’t want that. I want to give you guys my 100 percent. I don’t want you to be like, no, that last run was a little. I don’t want to do that.”
“I’m not going to half-a** it. I’m not giving you a cool 60. I want to give you 100 percent and make sure it’s impactful, and it means something.”
The second test is what the return is for.
“There’s a few boxes that I need to check if I go back, and it has to be not self-serving. It has to be like, let’s pay the business forward a bit, let’s do something that maybe is a fan fantasy matchup or something like that.”
She put it more directly in a separate interview this month, saying she only goes back if there is somebody specific she can help, and that her 2023 run was built around Zoey Stark rather than around herself.
“When I went back and worked with Zoey Stark, I’m not doing much for Becky, so to speak,” she said. “But I’m not giving her the rub. She’s Becky Lynch for God’s sakes.”
The third is time, and it is the one that takes the longest. Stratus works backward from a match she wants and lays the groundwork years ahead of it. The Evolution match with Tiffany Stratton in July 2025 is the example she used.
“Evolution, headlining with Tiffany Stratton. Women’s championship match, and we’re baby versus baby. So we’re talking about planting seeds.”
The first seed was Money in the Bank in Toronto, where she hosted.
“If we go back even a year, the Money in the Bank in Toronto when I hosted that, we on purpose. This is me with the writers. They always just go along with it. Yeah, sure, Trish. If it pans out. I’m like, oh, it will. I know it will.”
“They moved on to other things. So we planted a little seed back then, and then we thought it’d be good to do the Evolution. We know one-on-one, babyfaces facing each other, and then we sort of thought about a little finale, a little final run.”
The middle piece was an Elimination Chamber tag match in Toronto in March 2025, which mattered to her for a reason unconnected to the story.
“So then we thought, okay, perfect time to do this. Tag match, me and Tiffy. My kids are here.”
Her children Max and Maddie were in the audience for the interview, and she brought it back to them.
“As an old-school wrestler, they had never had. They knew their mom was a wrestler. We’d gone to events and they could see that people want my autograph and things like that, and they’ve heard about it. They’d YouTubed it. So the fact I got to go back that many years later and actually have a wrestling match live in front of my kids was so special.”
The whole run was timed to her 25th anniversary, including the number she entered the Royal Rumble at.
“I was like, I’m coming back, but if it’s the 25th, and they’re like, of course. You guys know how I like to do things. I like details. So the 25th, that was the perfect way to come back.”
She entered the 2025 Rumble at number 25 and was eliminated by Nia Jax, which she also says was deliberate.
“If you guys notice, you go back. Who was I? Who threw me out? It was Nia. You see, I’m all about storytelling, planting seeds.”
What did not happen is the finale she had in mind. Stratus said her mother became ill last year and she stepped away from everything as a result.
“So my mom got sick last year, as you guys may or may not know, and so I just kind of took a break from everything.”
She gave no timeline and no commitment on going back at all.
“It’s all about timing, the right moment.”
“So my point of all that is, I like storytelling. I like to have it be not just in the moment, spontaneous and not mean much. So if I was to go back, things have got to be in place, and it’s got to be the right person and the right time.”
She did make one promise about what happens if it does.
“I think I forgot about that amazing match, or maybe I’m not that flexible anymore. Just kidding, I am. I’ll bust it out if I go back.”
The move is the Matrish, the backward bend she used to avoid a clothesline.
Stratton beat Stratus at Evolution in Atlanta in July 2025 to retain the WWE Women’s Championship. Stratus had teamed with her at Elimination Chamber that March, beating Nia Jax and Candice LeRae, before the alliance came apart.
Stratus is a seven-time Women’s Champion. She retired in 2006, has returned periodically since, and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013.
