WWE Hall of Famer Lita looked back on a career built by taking chances during her FanX 2025 appearance, from discovering professional wrestling as the perfect mix of athletics and rock ’n’ roll to main-eventing “Raw” with Trish Stratus and returning years later to win championship gold with Becky Lynch. She also reflected on the responsibility she felt to make opportunities count for the women who followed her, the growing representation in today’s wrestling landscape and a few current stars she wouldn’t mind stepping into the ring with.
I also had the chance to meet Lita for a few minutes during the convention and chat with her briefly, and she could not have been nicer - personable, gracious and remarkably humble for someone with such an accomplished career.
Here are a few of the highlights from her panel:
On how much notice she had before unexpectedly wrestling on “Raw” and winning the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship with Becky Lynch in 2023:
Lita: Let’s just say we were on the East Coast, right? So live at 8? Yeah, okay.
I don’t know if we were, but I’d say for sure the doors were open when I was told that day - maybe 5, 5:30, something like that.
The plan was to come back for WrestleMania, but not to have a match before WrestleMania. So I had set up my training to get ready and still give myself a month of training, but that had not started before that day.
So my first training for my WrestleMania match was winning the tag titles that day.
Much like the very first Royal Rumble, you got to see the first time I touched the ring after a large gap.
Not ideal, but you just kind of cross your fingers and hold your breath and go for it.
I made a career out of it, so why should it change now?
On how she first decided to become a professional wrestler:
Lita: My origin story is not very orthodox. I do not recommend it.
When people ask me how I got into wrestling because they would like to wrestle, my answer is: Google a wrestling school near you. That is going to serve you much better.
But my origin story was, I was playing in bands as well as competing up and down the East Coast in judo. Both were just passions of mine, and both were taking up my free time.
I did not grow up with wrestling, but when I happened upon it, immediately I was like, “Wow, this is magical.” It’s like being a rock star and an athlete in one gig.
So I thought I would combine the two - combine my judo competition with playing in bands - and try to figure that out. And how little I knew about it. We did not have the internet. You couldn’t just ask Siri or Alexa or Jeeves. Even Jeeves wasn’t around yet.
It was almost like when you’re in elementary school and you have career day and you’re like, “These are the career options you can have.” It was like I had just discovered a new career.
And as an adult - I’m in my early 20s here - people would be like, “How’s it going?”
I’m like, “Great. Do you know what? I’m going to be a professional wrestler.”
And I’m saying it like Mighty Molly, like, you know, “All right, whatever.”
So, yeah, it was basically starting from a foundation of zero.
I will say the rock-star background and the judo did kind of come into benefit, but I had zero background other than that as far as how to infiltrate the - at least then - very secret society of professional wrestling. I did all right.
On main-eventing “Raw” with Trish Stratus in 2004 and feeling responsible for making the opportunity count:
Lita: Steph [McMahon] and I had the first main event when I won the first title, but they don’t call it that.
The reason they call Trish and I the first main event is because [the Stephanie match] had all the bells and whistles. The Rock was our special guest referee, Hunter [Paul "Triple H" Levesque] was down there, Kurt Angle was down there, the Hardy Boys were down there. There was a lot going on.
Whereas Trish and I, it was just Trish, just Lita, nothing else, closing out the show.
Moderator: So how was it when creative came to you and was like, “We have something for you. You’re going on last”? Tell me about that experience, what it meant to you then and maybe what it means to you now.
Lita: If you’ve been a fan of WWE for any length of time, you know things change at the very last minute all the time.
I had already conditioned myself to never think something was happening or get excited about something until it was in your hands.
So even when they told us, “You’re closing out the show,” we’re like, “Yeah, cool. The match will get cut. It’ll get moved. They’re going to do something else.”
The show gets rewritten five times a day, sometimes from scratch. That was not out of the ordinary.
So we were cautiously optimistic that it might be a cool night at work, but not really able to be excited.
[She explains that “Raw” was two hours at the time, with important matches usually positioned to open the show, bridge the two hours or close the night.]
Once we got through the first hour, I was like, “I don’t think there’s anywhere else they can put us. There’s no other match left on the card that they’re going to want to close the show with. I think we’re getting this.”
So it was exciting, but throughout the day I almost felt this duty to play it cool for my own mental capacity, but also... this has got to be solid.
It has to be solid so that someone else can get the main event later.
Throughout our careers, we had always kind of pushed it a little bit. We’d be like, “Just let us - we’ll be off the ladder. It’s fine.” And they’re like, “Ah, it’s fine, it’s fine.”
I felt like that’s kind of how we kept getting our opportunities - sneaking them.
So I did feel a duty. This has got to be solid so that someone else can get the main event later.
And it wasn’t until afterward, coming back through the curtain, that the guys from the locker room were there clapping for us in gorilla position.
That was when I was even remotely like, “Oh wow, we did a thing.”
Even beyond that, they were cutting our time mid-match. So to be able to navigate the production end of things as well, and give them faith that we could handle ourselves out there, was important. It was nice.
On current WWE wrestlers she would be interested in working with:
Lita: Oh, it keeps being more each time I don’t watch for this long, and I’m like, “Oh man, there’s more.”
I mean, come on, Giulia would be the obvious choice, number one, because she does have a modern-day similar story.
First of all, [I was] very inspired by Rey Mysterio, who is, if I had to single out one person that I was attached to, Rey Mysterio.
And so all these years later, for him still to be doing that and having that way to connect with the fans on such a deeper level...
And then, obviously, coming in and cutting your teeth the hard way.
But gosh, I could just start telling you a list of the people that are in the locker room right now.
I loved working with IYO when we did me, Becky and Trish versus Damage CTRL, and I would love to interact with her more, too.
Moderator: AJ [Lee] just came back.
Lita: Yes, yes. Definitely some crossover there with Trish.
On the growth of representation in women’s wrestling and how it can inspire future wrestlers:
Lita: I just knew what I wanted, and I couldn’t even really visualize it because it didn’t exist.
And that was okay to me. It was like, “I just want to do this thing.”
What I love about now is the representation across the board is so much richer, where so many more different types of people can find inspiration in different faces or different stories.
Yes, the time they’re getting on TV. Yes, the matches they’re getting to do. Yes, showcasing their athletic ability.
But the representation - the diversification of what it looks like to become a female athlete, or specifically a professional wrestler - I love that, because I didn’t see that.
And while I didn’t see that as a barrier, I just think it makes a clearer path for people to go after something.
On choosing four women for a wrestling “Mount Rushmore”:
Lita: It’s really difficult.
Normally when I’m with Trish, we just go ahead and both put ourselves on there, so then we take out two spots.
It feels a little weirder when I’m by myself to be like, “Well, so me and Trish.”
But we’ll just stick with it: I’d say me, Trish, Chyna and Charlotte [Flair].
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