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Stephanie Marie McMahon-Levesque is certified pro-wrestling royalty. The daughter of promoter Vince McMahon and granddaughter of WWF/WWE founder Vince McMahon Sr., Stephanie has worked in the wrestling business since she was a teenager answering phones at Titan Tower. She has worked both in front of and behind the cameras, as a wrestler, a Heel manager for her storyline-husband (and eventual Real Life husband) Triple H, a General Manager for the Smack Down brand, and her current role as Executive Vice President of Creative Development and Operations (i.e. head writer).
That Other Wiki has an article on her life and career here.
Tropes associated with Stephanie McMahon:[]
- Abusive Parents: In-character only, but pretty thoroughly in-character. Vince has actually wrestled Stephanie (in a match that took place only a few days before her wedding).
- Alpha Bitch: Could slide into this when she was with DX and the early McMahon-Helmsley Regime days.
- Arch Enemy: Chris Jericho, oh so much during the Attitude Era. It really went into Foe Yay territory.
- Badass Family: The McMahons.
- Big Screwed-Up Family: What they tend toward in-character.
- Battle Couple: With Hunter, occasionally.
- Becoming the Mask: She and Triple H fell in love with each other during their storyline.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Chris Jericho, so much so that the fanfic writers went bonkers. Every fangirl who ever wrote wrestling fic has a Smoochy Dreamer fic in her past.
- The Wrestlemania 18 feud between Jericho and Triple H was originally planned to involve Jericho and Stephanie having an affair to spite Hunter. Unfortunately, that idea got nixed.
- Black Comedy Rape: When Triple H kidnapped, drugged and married Stephanie in Vegas. She also fell in love with him after that. Of course, it's entirely possible he was lying to mess with Vince's head.
- Brainy Brunette
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Played it in her 20's, but otherwise played it straight.
- Brother-Sister Team: With her brother, Shane, as owner of ECW during the Alliance storyline.
- Butt Monkey: Much like her Dad, Stephanie was on the receiving end of hilarious abuse during the Attitude Era, typically from Chris Jericho or The Rock.
- Special mention needs to be made of Kurt Angle and the Milk Wagon, when the Billion-Dollar Princess became a Dairy Queen.
- The Caligula: During the first few months of the McMahon-Helmsley Era and later the Invasion angle.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Towards Triple H during her Heel run in the early 2000s.
- Complexity Addiction: One immaterial thing she's inherited from her daddy is this pathological vindictive need to torment top-level employees that cause the family trouble rather than fire them on the spot. Clearly demonstrated in this exchange with Randy Orton in 2009, right before bringing out her brother Shane to attack him for punting Vince in the head:
Randy Orton: "FIRE. ME. NOW." |
- Control Freak: Also seems to be inherited from her father (during her heel runs, anyway). And much like her father, this often came to bite her back, due to overestimating just how much crap particular employees would take from her. It was her berating of Randy Orton that kicked off the horrific feud mentioned above, for example.
Stephanie: This is MY show! |
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Most definitely when she's in-character. Some of the rumor mills have painted her as this in real life, due to her yes-man status for her father and the high turnover in the writer's room.
- Creator Couple: Stephanie handles most of the writing for WWE, Hunter is more active in front of the camera as well as with the showrunning aspect.
- Daddy's Little Villain: Almost as good a heel as her father. It's just hard to top the guy frequently called "Satan" by commentators.
- Distressed Damsel: During the Ministry of Darkness storyline in which she was kidnapped by The Undertaker, and later, in the "Love Her or Leave Her" storyline between her brother Shane and Test.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: As Heels she and Triple H are usually shown to genuinely care about each other. She often helps her husband in matches and shows concern for him whenecer an opponent does something particularly brutal.
- Even Evil Has Standards: In the McMahon DVD, Stephanie confirmed that Vince wanted to write her pregnancy into an angle, with Vince himself as the father. She immediately rejected it. Then he pushed for the father to be Shane. Both his kids subsequently protested.
- She also can sense someone trying to get out of a match, especially from another heel. When AJ Lee had a match up with Vickie Guerrero, Guerrero tried to get out if it by faking injury. Unfortunately, Stephanie wasn't buying it, guess what happens.
- She berated Randy Orton for attacking John Cena's father, saying his actions were unbecoming of a WWE Champion.
- While she’s just as a Jerkass like her husband, especially towards Daniel Bryan, but she looked on in horror as she saw Kane attacked Bryan in front of Brie Bella. She even went as far as warning Brie to run as Bryan did what any gentleman would do, protect his lady from a brute that wanted to hurt her.
- The way Charlotte Flair treated her father was so cruel and self-indulgent it actually made Stephanie read her the riot act, calling her an embarassment to the chmapionship.
- Stephanie was also disgusted by Brock Lesnar attacking random people at ringside after Seth Rollings refused to give him a championship match. She tried to talk him down and when that didn't work she didn't heistate to suspend him despite him being a huge draw. She did not let Brock return until he agreed to apologize to those he'd hurt.
- Executive Meddling
- Fan Nickname: Nipple H.
- Ms. Fanservice: While she only showed off her body once (when her shirt was ripped off), there is still an aura about her that makes her more appealing than some of the Divas.
- Baby Got Back: Her butt isn't quite pronounced and well known like her boobs but in her GM role a pan up Stephanie's legs followed by a close up of her rather large rump as she's bending over her desk backstage. As of 2014; now her butt is well known according a Twitter account with pics, videos and gifs that are dedicated to her plump rear. Now that's Power & Booty.
- Buxom Is Better: When she got implants in 2001. Even after removing them upon the birth of her first child, Stephanie is still the most naturally well-endowed woman on WWE TV.
- Distracted by the Sexy: She's the breast- I mean best.
- Face Heel Turn: When she first appeared, she was the innocent little girl that somehow remained as such while having a Complete Monster of a father. Then, she turned on him and got with Triple H as revenge for the Ministry of Darkness Break the Cutie plot, causing Vince to leave the company for months in a Despair Event Horizon, leaving her and Triple H as the head of the WWF. She turned out to be much more capable a heel than she ever was as a face.
- Family Business
- Faux Action Girl: Was technically capable of wrestling (as in, could take bumps, had a few offensive moves), but mainly stuck to taunting opponents, bitch-slapping, and hiding behind Dad or Hunter or Shane when things got bad.
- Foe Yay: With Chris Jericho in the early 2000's. While a lot of the wrestlers mocked her, Jericho was obsessive about it to the point where fans were wondering when the two were just going to have planet-cracking hate-sex and get it over with.
- When you think about it, Jericho's hate for her made a lot of sense. He would always mock her for being easy… for everyone except him.
- Jerkass: Consider her family and who her husband is. If she didn't start out this way, she grew into it.
- Mama Bear: Don't make any kind of insults involving her children... we're looking at you.
- Fire the Hypotenuse: What Chyna claimed that Stephanie did to her in 2001, if she's to be believed.
- Gag Boobs: Went from being flat-as-a-board to a D-cup almost overnight.
- Hilariously lampshaded by Chris Jericho when she got her first boob job (she's had at least two more since then).
- It Runs in The Family: Paul Heyman, in a 2008 interview, referred to Stephanie as "The Vincess".
- Hollywood Pudgy: Her weight was commented upon when she made her last few appearances. Of course, that's post three children.
- Hot Chick in a Badass Suit: In her GM role.
- Large Ham: Pretty much invented the screechy-heel character that Vickie Guerrero now plays to the hilt.
- Nepotism: She is the boss's daughter.
- The Maiden Name Debate: Kayfabe forced her to dance all around this. She went by Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley while she and Triple H were Kayfabe married and goes by Stephanie McMahon-Levesque in real life, but since Hunter doesn't go by his real name, she just goes by Stephanie McMahon any time she appears in-character.
- Morality Pet: Zach Gowen
- Nice Hat: Wore an ECW motorcycle cap during the InVasion storyline.
- Rape as Drama: Implied when The Undertaker kidnapped her and held her in a seedy motel.
- Happened again in Lighter and Softer form when Randy Orton cuffed Hunter to the ring ropes and kissed an unconscious Stephanie.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: By 2005, everyone and their brother knew she was married to Triple H. This lead to various angles - most notably DX making rampant and gleeful speculation on who the father of her baby was - and references to their marriage and family.
Triple H: (dressed as Vince) When I pass, I'm gonna hand my company to my beautiful daughter, Stephanie...and to whoever that guy is that knocked her up! |
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Later into her stint as Smackdown GM and her appearances on Raw.
- Red Baron: The aforementioned "Billion Dollar Princess".
- Rich Bitch: Her early character. She seems refreshingly normal outside the ring.
- Romance on the Set: How her relationship with Hunter started.
- Sanity Slippage: That time she and Triple H (in-character) wanted to renew their wedding vows, Hunter found out Steph had lied about her pregnancy and trashed the ceremony. Steph Flipped. Her. Shit.
- Screaming Woman: Good god, listen to some of her heel promos.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them
- Self-Deprecation: She allowed Chris Jericho to take shots at her, and even made note of her breast size increase in 2001.
- And she's been willing to let audiences chant "slut" at her for years.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Stephanie likes the spotlight, Shane plays it cooler.
- Smug Snake: During her heel phase as Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: When she was with D Generation X.
- "Take That!" Kiss: A number with Triple H, the crowner probably being their in-ring smooch during the "McMahon Family Reunion" segment (before their marriage was official on-air canon).
Stephanie: Dad, you have serious problems. You've embarrassed this family long enough. It's time I embarrassed you. (makes out with Triple H) |
- Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: She stands 5'9.
- There Are No Female Wrestling Bookers: Subverts it, but she's the only one. And that's probably due to Daddy's intervention.
- Vocal Evolution: While she might be forever known for that whiny screechy harpy voice, in recent years, her voice has seriously mellowed out, with her voice becoming smoother and more authoritative as time has gone on.
- Warrior Princess: Being the daughter of WWE's owner, she can be considered as such.
- Wrestling Family: Fourth-generation and proud of it.
- Younger Than They Look: While Stephanie has always looked fairly age appropriate, her voice radically changed around early/mid-2002 (most likely due to her role as the Screaming Woman during the McMahon-Helmsley era). By early-2003, she sounded more like she was 46 than 26 (her actual age at the time).
- Yandere: If she's a heel.