Jim Ross recently spent some time with Conrad Thompson talking about an episode of RAW from 2001 on his Grillin JR podcast. During the conversation, Ross offered up his opinion on Stephanie McMahon as a performer.
“Stephanie was a great heel, by the way,” JR said on the show. Conrad then asked Ross if there was any hesitation to putting Stephanie on-screen in such a role.
“She’s got a lot of the old man in her and I had no issues whatsoever because she worked very diligently to improve,” Ross said. “And because she had a major name to carry. She was more like Vince than Shane was like Vince, in my view, and Vince has even said that to me.”
“But she became a great heel and just followed in the footsteps of her old man who was the hottest heel we had in the Attitude Era.”
Stephanie’s first appearance on WWE programming came in 1998 when she was 22-years-old. By 2001, Stephanie was the storyline new owner of ECW and one of the major figures in the Invasion angle.
JR’s comments can be heard in the player below:
