IN THE STRATUS SPHERE
From WWE champ to Ottawa Comiccon
There’s a new spark fuelling the fire that drives professional wrestling superstar Trish Stratus.
The seven-time WWE women’s champion, who will appear as a celebrity guest at Ottawa Comiccon this weekend, is now a mom to two toddlers — which she considers to be her greatest victories.
While for decades she has proven herself quite capable of battling opponents on TV and entertaining crowds around the world, she has also had significant struggles with infertility, which have marked a whole different kind of fight for the accomplished in-ring performer.
After giving birth to her first child in 2014, the now 41-year-old Stratus said her struggles to get pregnant around 2016 marked a very “dark time” in her life.
“There was so much to take in. You start asking yourself, ‘How did I get here?’” she said. “You start to question yourself: ‘Should I have not worked so many days on the road?’ ”
Stratus, who also suffered a miscarriage during the ordeal, said infertility issues are important to talk about because of how many people are affected by them. She cited statistics that suggest as many as one in six Canadian couples struggle to get pregnant.
“It’s important. I went through it. I felt really alone. It’s a dark time. What happens is you start to talk about it with other people and you realize there’s a lot more people going through this than you realize, and I wish I had spoken about it more, especially at the beginning,” Stratus said.
“The biggest thing was, for me, you have to start a conversation. You may feel there is no light at the end of the tunnel, but through other people you find out different approaches.”
Those approaches led her to try just about every therapy and treatment that she could, including some that seemed a little off the wall.
“They gave me some crazy teas to drink. It was witches wort. ‘Put this in there and put that in there.’ It made the house stink and I would drink it twice a day. I did a lot of different things gathered from a lot of different sources,” she said. “It kind of became my job.”
Stratus, whose real name is Patricia Anne Stratigeas, is a selfdescribed workaholic. She started her career as a fitness model before getting noticed by scouts for WWE. She was brought into the company around 2000 and was used as a manager for male wrestlers. She would escort the brawny fighters and cheer them on from outside the ring.
But that wasn’t enough for her. Trish ramped up her training with a goal of helping to push women’s professional wrestling to new heights. At the time, the maledominated programming used women for bikini brawls and gimmick matches.
With the help of other likeminded women in the organization, Stratus pushed the envelope. She jumped from top ropes. She performed power moves that were traditionally only done by men. She appeared before crowds on hundreds of nights in cities all over the world with little rest, and she quickly became a fan favourite, winning a record-setting seven women’s championships during her six-year career. She retired as a champion in 2006.
In 2013, WWE inducted her into its Hall of Fame, making her the youngest inductee in history.
When her professional wrestling career was over, Stratus focused on building a business called Stratusphere Yoga near her hometown just outside of Toronto in 2008. Then came a clothing line. “I was sleeping five hours a day and people used to joke with me, saying, ‘Wow, you are like Margaret Thatcher.’ She was famous for that. I was kind of proud of it,” she said. “Free time was time for me to get back on the computer and work. I’d work until 3 a.m. or 2 a.m. I’d sleep for five hours and then I’d get up. I did that for years.”
Despite all of the strange therapies that she experimented with, Stratus’s doctors quickly realized that her supercharged lifestyle was likely a contributing factor to her infertility issues. Stratus was encouraged to take a step back from her efforts.
“I took a break from life for a while to focus on myself,” she said. “I started sleeping eight hours a day and the stress was reduced.”
Taking a break from her workaholic lifestyle ultimately seemed to prove helpful with her fertility issues; she gave birth to her second child last year. It also taught her to re-prioritize, she said.
“I ran at 90 miles an hour for the last 20 years. This was the first time I slowed down. I’ve got to be honest with you, I’ve just discovered Netflix for the first time. I never watched TV,” she said.
Even though she shunned the spotlight while she worked through her challenges, Stratus
has remained at the forefront in the minds of fans of professional wrestling, which is why when WWE decided to hold its first Royal Rumble match featuring women in February, they insisted Stratus be involved.
The Royal Rumble is an annual event featuring 30 WWE wrestlers. Two wrestlers start in the ring. Another enters every two minutes. The final wrestler standing in the ring wins the match. This year was the first time a women’s-only version of the event was held as WWE continues to work to put women’s professional wrestling on an even footing with men’s wrestling.
Stratus said she was initially hesitant to get involved.
“I’m a perfectionist. If I’m going to do something, it has to be 110 per cent,” she said.
With a little coaxing from her husband and family, who promised to help her with work and her kids, she agreed to be a surprise entrant in the event.
“They were supporting me and I really needed that support,” Stratus said. “I called my trainer and I said, ‘We’ve got to set up a ring somewhere because I need to see if I can still do this.’ ”
She entered the match as the 30th entrant. Stratus eliminated five other competitors before getting tossed out herself. Fans went nuts and the appearance helped to put a spotlight back on Stratus.
“The phone started ringing off the hook that night,” she said. “I could be working as much as I wanted.”
But with her two children, things are different now, according to Stratus. She said she’s determined to rein in her public persona and, where possible, find a way to blend her appearances with family time. As an example, she said, her appearance at Ottawa Comiccon allows her to tack on a family visit to the nation’s capital. She’s particularly interested in taking in some of sights at the Canadian Tulip Festival.
“I’ve adjusted my life. I really work when I need to work. I trust my team. I lean on my team. I lean on my husband. It’s made for such a better life, I am more relaxed and I’m just as productive as I was before,” she said. “It’s got me to a good spot.”
Stratus will join other celebrity guests, including Jason Momoa, who played Aquaman in the Justice League movie, as well as Finn Jones and Mike Colter, who play Iron Fist and Luke Cage, respectively, among others.
Comiccon aims to attract more than 40,000 guests this year. The three-day exhibition will take place at th e EY Centre between Friday and Sunday.