Queen Of The Ring: 10 Best For Business Facts About Stephanie McMahon

Today is Stephanie McMahon’s birthday (she turns 39, although don’t tell her I told you that). Stephanie’s been a divisive figure since making her public debut in 1999. She’s been involved in some questionable storylines, although she’s also crafted one of the most entertaining heel characters in WWE history during her years on TV. Behind the scenes, her run as head of creative was sometimes less than laudable, but she’s also worked to change WWE’s image, transforming it into a more compassionate, diverse company. The fact is, with the obvious exception of her father Vince, probably nobody has had as great an effect on WWE over the past 15 years as Stephanie McMahon.

So, here are a few things you may not know about the WWE’s face-slapping, wheeling-dealing, business-handling Billion Dollar Princess…

André the Giant is Stephanie’s favorite wrestler.

Stephanie McMahon was born in 1976 in Hartford, Connecticut, right around the time Vince was starting to get seriously involved in his dad’s wrestling promotion. As such, some of pro wrestling’s most colorful and infamous names were a part of Stephanie’s life pretty much from birth.

Stephanie’s favorite of those wrestlers was the legendary André the Giant. According to Steph, she first met André when she was 3 years old. He rolled up to the McMahon hacienda while Steph was playing on the trampoline. As the nanny panicked, André walked over to the trampoline and offered Steph his hand. Rather than grabbing the huge mitt, Stephanie stepped onto it, Andre lifted her like a human forklift and Steph gave the giant a kiss on the cheek. B’awww. With a first meeting like that, I can see why Andre was Steph’s favorite.

Oh, and yes, that infamous angle a couple years back where Steph claimed The Big Show had been her friend since she was young was actually based on her special connection with André. They just changed it to Big Show to make it seem like Stephanie was a decade younger than she is. The things you can get away with when your last name’s McMahon.

Her brother Shane basically raised her as a child.

For some time, there’s been idle speculation that Stephanie and her brother Shane don’t get along, based on Shane having left the family company in 2009. The fact is, Stephanie and Shane are extremely close, as Shane played an almost parent-like role in Steph’s life, given their father and mother were pretty busy destroying and reshaping the pro wrestling landscape in their image during her formative years. “My parents weren’t around until later at night, so for the most part, Shane raised me. He not only toughened me up, but he kept me thoroughly entertained.”

In more recent years, Stephanie has said in multiple interviews that she misses Shane being a part of the company, so yeah, something drove him away, but it wasn’t sibling rivalry.

She started at the bottom with WWE, modeling t-shirts and answering phones.

If the world ever starts to get you down, remember, this picture of Stephanie McMahon in a Matilda shirt exits.

Not to cast aspersions, but Stephanie’s WWE career may have been helped along by nepotism. Y’know, just a little. That said, it wasn’t like Stephanie was immediately thrust into a high-ranking executive job. Steph first started working for the WWF at the age of 12, modeling the company’s tubular ’80s shirts and merchandise. Later, starting at the age of 14, she answered phones and did intern work for the company’s various divisions. In 1998, she became an account executive in the WWF’s marketing department, and then became the head of the creative team in the early-2000s. Obviously, Stephanie was given every opportunity in the world to succeed, but she certainly put in the work. She was never the spoiled rich kid sitting behind a desk throwing paper airplanes and cashing a check from daddy for doing nothing.

Stephanie owns victories over Big Show, Kurt Angle and The Rock.

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Stephanie doesn’t lace up the boots often, but when she does, she makes it count. She’s scored tag team victories over Big Show and Kurt Angle, and actually pinned The Rock. Oh, and she also got into the ring with Brock Lesnar one-on-one and didn’t lose. Take that, Undertaker.

She wrestled her dad in a brutal “I Quit” match six days before her wedding.

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Probably the most shocking angle Stephanie was ever involved in was her “I Quit” match against her own father at No Mercy 2003. Sure, wrestling’s fake, but even pretending to choke out your daughter out with a metal pipe is a special kind of f*cked up. Even nuttier, Stephanie and Vince’s brawl took place less than a week before her legit wedding to Triple H. When most brides would be planning the rehearsal dinner, Steph was assaulting her crazy father’s balls half-a-dozen ways on live TV. One slip up and Vince would have had some serious explaining to do as he walked Stephanie and her black eye and/or crutches down the aisle, but thankfully nothing went wrong. I mean, the fact that the match existed at all was pretty wrong, but you get what I’m saying.

Vince wanted to put her wedding on pay-per-view.

Vince is calculating how many of Steph’s weddings he can ruin and still have her love him.

While we’re on the subject of Vince’s, uh, unique reaction to his little girl getting married, it turns out Vince also wanted to put the whole shebang on pay-per-view. Vince’s justification was that the wedding was going to be such an event, it practically needed to be held in an arena, and if it’s already in an arena, he may as well put it on TV! That may sound like a joke, but Vince doesn’t joke when it comes to exploiting family drama. Thankfully, the nuptials weren’t televised, limiting the amount of wrestling wedding mayhem somewhat (I assume at least a couple people still went through tables during the dinner).

Vince also wanted to be the storyline father of her baby.

“No, trust me, guys. I’m a genius…”

And we have yet more on Vince McMahon trying to turn his daughter’s every special moment into a pro wrestling carnival! In 2006, when Stephanie was pregnant with her and Hunter’s first baby, Vince was set on the idea that he should be revealed to be the child’s father. Thankfully, Steph turned that down on account of its incredible grossness, so Vince, still sticking to his incest guns, suggested they make the angle more palatable by having Shane be the father. Wait, what? It’s stories like this that make you cherish the PG era.

John Cena and Randy Orton were “Stephanie McMahon guys.”

“Okay, it was cute once, but please stop rapping at me about tuna fish.”

Starting in 2002, and for most of the decade following, Stephanie McMahon was head of WWE’s creative department. Stephanie’s leadership wasn’t without its flaws, as you could argue WWE writing became more stilted, overly-controlled and formulaic than its ever been under Steph’s watch, but she also had her major successes, namely a couple guys named John Cena and Randy Orton.

As the story goes, Stephanie “discovered” Cena as he was freestyling with another wrestler in the back of a tour bus. Steph was impressed by the white dude rap skillz of this relatively generic rookie, but wasn’t convinced he was actually improvising. Cena responded by cutting a rap about the package of tuna Steph happened to be eating, and the rest was smelly history. Despite most top officials not seeing much in Cena, Stephanie greenlit his rapping gimmick and put her weight behind him. She also saw something in third-generation underachiever, Randy Orton. Say what you will about Stephanie’s storytelling skills, but the job of a wrestling writer is to create new stars that make money, and she certainly did that.

She’s rich as hell.

Somebody with good reason to be Yes-ing.

Okay, so the Billion Dollar Princess isn’t actually a billionaire, but she could still buy and sell all of our asses. Steph owns a ton of WWE stock, which is worth somewhere between $65 and $75 million, depending on how the market is doing. For walking around cash, Stephanie also gets paid around $750,000 to $800,000 a year for her dual roles as an executive and on-screen talent.

Stephanie’s oldest daughter wants to be a wrestler.

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That’s right, batten down the hatches, Stephanie McMahon/Triple H hybrids could be coming to a screen near you sooner than you think. According to Stephanie, her oldest daughter Aurora Rose has been “bitten by the WWE bug” and wants to be a wrestler. Suddenly, the Divas Revolution really makes sense. I mean, I’m sure Stephanie truly does want better roles for all female performers, but you can’t help but think she’s also laying the groundwork for the next generation of Billion Dollar Princesses to ascend to their gilded thrones.

There you have it, a few factoids about the most powerful woman in pro wrestling history. What are some of your favorite (and not-so-favorite) Stephanie highlights? Which “Steph gets her mom dance moves on” moment is the best? Hell, you can even talk about Chyna, if you absolutely must. Let’s chat.

via Sex, Lies and Headlocks, What Culture, PWTorch, 411Mania, Examiner“McMahon” DVD

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