Jim Ross Shares Vince McMahon's Instructions For Building WWE Women's Roster: 'Find Athletic 10s'

Vince McMahon definitely had his share of missteps running WWE creative over his four decades in charge, but he did something that Jim Ross argues transformed the landscape of the business today, in a good way. Ross and Bruce Prichard were two of McMahon's primary confidants back in the Attitude Era, and Ross stated that much like Triple H, both he and Prichard knew how to "play the game."

"Vince says he wants to be more reality-based, but I don't know what we were doing wrong to follow the mandate of the owner," said on "Grilling JR." "That's like when we started to evolve the women's portion of the presentation. He wanted me to go out and recruit to find 'athletic 10s' so that's not easy and we did our best to find 'athletic 10s' and that has led to this women's division that we currently see on WWE or in AEW. AEW's women division is growing exponentially."

Ross specifically cited Trish Stratus and Lita as being two "athletic 10s," and the pair helped to usher in a new crop of female talent. Ross noted that around that time there was 11 segments in a two-hour show. Segment 10 or 11 were strictly used for "the boys" back then, but Lita and Stratus broke that mold. "Vince made a good call there and I think it gave all these young women a chance to see what could be accomplished if they applied themselves and took advantage of their 'break.'" Stratus and Lita continued that trend this past Monday on "WWE Raw," as Stratus helped Lita capture the Women's Tag Team Championship with Becky Lynch.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Grilling JR" with a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.