FATHER VERSUS DAUGHTER
By Michael Zitz

The following was posted on the FreeLanceStar.com web site on 10/10/2003.

Father and daughter Vince and Stephanie McMahon face off on pay-per-view in a SmackDown! 'No Mercy' match set in Baltimore Oct. 19.

Stephanie McMahon uses the words "quote-unquote" a lot when she's talking about her world.  Sometimes even she has a little trouble separating what's real and what's not real.  In grade school, she used to kick other kids in the shins when they made fun of her famous father.

But on Oct. 19, 20 years later, she will be kicking her father around on national pay-per-view television in a SmackDown! "No Mercy" match at 1st Mariner Arena in Baltimore.  She says it will be painful in more ways than one to wrestle her father, WWE czar Vince McMahon.  "Certainly, there's a lot of pressure," the 27-year-old who's been called "the Billion Dollar Princess" said this week in a telephone interview. "Neither one of us are quote-unquote 'wrestlers.' It's going to be challenging physically." Even more challenging, she said, will be the emotional part of it.

WWE plot lines, which she and Vince help write, have had them at odds for quite a while. But up to this point, she's just been trying to hurt his feelings in the plots.  On TV, she has become a femme fatale, to put it nicely--something that supposedly enrages dear old Dad. Stephanie said she doesn't mind being called a "slut" at SmackDown! events. After all, it's make-believe.

But the father-daughter feud has been merely verbal up until this point. Her brain knows it's all an act.  But her heart may have a difficult time determining what's real and what's not, once the adrenaline starts flowing and the crowd starts screaming for blood.

So how is this different from other WWE performances in which she's been involved?  "Well, he is my father," Stephanie said succinctly. "Even though it's not quote-unquote 'real,' he's still him and I'm still me," she said.  She said she will be a nervous wreck before entering the ring and putting on a cool facade. "I'm always really nervous," she said. "But before I go out to do this with my Dad, it's going to be unbelievable how nervous I get."

Asked who came up with the idea for a match against her father, Stephanie said: "Let's just say I was pretty surprised when the idea was presented to me."

On television, Vince McMahon is a bombastic jerk.  Not so at home.  "Fans might find this difficult to believe," she said. "But my Dad is one of the most loving, caring individuals I've ever met and I love him very much."

Then she laughs with a sort of shyly wicked delight while revealing part of the plot.  "My mother is gonna be in my corner and [bosomy blonde WWE Diva] Sable is gonna be in my dad's corner--just to make things a little more interesting."

Of course, that will reinforce the story-line rumors that Vince is having an affair with Sable. Actually, parent-child scrapping is nothing new to the WWE. 

At a 2001 SmackDown! event, Stephanie smacked her mother, Linda, on camera. Again, it was all for show.

Pro wrestling has been the family business for two generations. Years ago, it was broken up into territories and Stephanie's grandfather ran the Northeast one.  But granddad never could have envisioned the heights [or some might say depths] to which son Vince would take pro wrestling--how popular he would make it and how many millions he would make by turning it into an athletic soap opera/jiggle show.  "My father had the vision to make the WWE syndicated nationally as well as internationally on television," Stephanie said.

There has been speculation that the steadily increasing roles that Vince, Stephanie and her brother Shane play on telecasts is a result of the WWE being burned by losing stars like Hulk Hogan, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and The Rock before.  The talk is that the more the WWE centers around the family, the less likely it is to be vulnerable to defections or holdouts.  Stephanie said that isn't true.  She said the family simply can't resist participating.

She insisted that, when she was 21, out of the blue, another writer suggested including her in a plot. Then she became a regular character and a wrestler because she enjoyed it, despite the jitters she gets before performances.  "Getting in the ring is something I've always wanted to do," Stephanie said. "My father and brother forbid me to do that for a while, until I convinced them otherwise. I wanted to see what it felt like to get bounced around. It doesn't feel good, but I can't help loving being in the ring."

Getting seriously hurt is something she tries not to think about.  "It's a part of the business," she said.

So is being hit in the pocket book.  The WWE has suffered setbacks in revenues and in TV ratings recently and she said she does feel under the gun to bring them back up.