10 Insane Stories From WWE Tryouts
1. Athena Tells You That Nothing Has Changed
In 2015, Stephanie McMahon had a great idea: the women should wrestle.
Why were you perving on them the whole time, guys? Shame on you.
Not remotely influenced by the success of Ronda Rousey or a social media backlash, Steph launched the 'Women's Revolution'. No longer would the women of WWE receive opportunities based on how they looked. A new era of competition and quality was upon us all.
Except this didn't exactly happen. Well, it did and it didn't. Actual parity exists between the men's and women's division to a far greater extent these days, and an argument can be made that the women are subjected to the same tedious clichéd booking as the men - that's a sort of equality! - but, as revealed by Athena, WWE is still institutionally a bit d*ckheaded.
Athena, whose awesome heel run in Ring Of Honor is far better than anything happening in AEW or WWE incidentally, disclosed to Chris Jericho on 'Talk is Jericho' that the tryout process was even more dismal than you'd expect. She was told she didn't have what was then the mandatory "Diva" look, and it was suggested to her that she should change her hair and attire. When that didn't work, but she secured another tryout a few months later, she was told, allegedly, to lose some weight - following which she felt guilty about eating anything other than strawberries.
But wait - didn't Athena try out before everything changed? And didn't she subsequently sign with WWE?
Correct, but whilst in WWE, per an interview with Chris Van Vliet, she was told to "dress sexy" and be more like Mandy Rose when Triple H was removed from developmental.