From last year onward, Trish Stratus has been vocal about celebrating her 25th anniversary in professional wrestling, mostly in the WWE. With no prior hints available, she showed up at the Royal Rumble 2025 premium live event to compete in the women’s Royal Rumble match and then followed up with multiple other WWE appearances.
Initially, Trish Stratus debuted in 2000 as a fitness model and manager for the former T&A tag team. Primarily involved in non-wrestling roles, she featured more heavily in competition a couple of years later alongside rivals such as Victoria and Lita, some of the names who helped build the modern women’s wrestling landscape.
Remembering that phase in a new interview with Busted Open Radio, Trish Stratus looked back on her journey that lasted for 25 years in the pro-wrestling industry. It was emphasized by her that the company had low expectations from a fitness model at that time. Alongside her, she admittedly thinks that the other women on the roster at the time also deserve praise like her for putting up effort.
“It doesn’t sink in that it’s been 25 years since I debuted. If we hadn’t fought hard for the storylines and the longer matches…We may not have been in the place where we’re in now. We had to fight for that back then.”
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Trish Stratus realized that she’s made an impact on WWE TV
According to the below statements from Trish Stratus, it wasn’t until her second stint in the company that she saw female talents pitching ideas for dream matches featuring her or Lita. As such, it wasn’t until this phase that she realized just how influential she could be to the modern generation of women’s wrestling,
“Me and Lita were like ‘Whoah, we’ve really made an impact.”
Trish Stratus made her in-ring return during the 2025 Women’s Royal Rumble match, entering the match as the 25th seed to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her career. She lasted for a few minutes before getting eliminated by Nia Jax. Behind the scenes, she received some key help in the form of TNA star Jody Threat to get ready for this comeback.
Moving on, reports claimed that WWE wants Trish Stratus to make further appearances and she did end up appearing on Smackdown in about a week. This led her to get booked in a tag match at Elimination Chamber in her hometown of Toronto against Nia Jax and Candice LeRae, teaming up with Tiffany Stratton.
