Stephanie McMahon vs AJ Lee 2015: What Really Went Down
Stephanie McMahon and AJ Lee’s rivalry didn’t end with the storyline—it spilled into the locker room, igniting real tensions that helped redefine the power and profile of women in WWE.
Every now and then, Hollywood bumps into wrestling and something real happens. In 2015, an Oscars speech from Patricia Arquette did exactly that, accidentally lighting a fuse in WWE that Stephanie McMahon and AJ Lee were more than happy to hold a match to.
The post that lit the fuse
Right after Arquette used her Oscars moment to demand equal pay for women in film, Stephanie McMahon jumped on Twitter (now X) to cheer it on, tagging it with #UseYourVoice. On paper, great message. In practice, coming from the daughter of Vince McMahon, the former head of WWE, it bumped up against how WWE was treating its own women at the time.
AJ fires back while still under contract
AJ Lee, then still under WWE contract and already a former Divas Champion, called out the gap between the message and the company’s reality. Publicly. To her boss’s boss. In wrestling, that almost never happens, which is why the tweet hit like a chair shot.
'Your female wrestlers have record selling merchandise and have starred in the highest rated segment of the show several times'
- AJ Mendez (AJ Lee), Feb 25, 2015
She didn’t stop there, pointing out that despite the popularity and sales, WWE’s women were getting a fraction of the screen time and pay. Fans rallied behind her, and the wider wrestling world treated it as someone finally saying the quiet part out loud.
Why the timing mattered
Context: WWE women’s matches were often blink-and-you-miss-it short back then, and audiences were fed up. Internally, the company knew this was a problem. AJ’s very public pushback, paired with the fan frustration, made it impossible to ignore.
What changed after 2015
- Stephanie McMahon helped drive a reset: WWE brought up NXT standouts Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, and Sasha Banks to the main roster, which immediately shifted the division’s direction.
- The company dropped the 'Divas' branding and rolled out championships designed to mirror the men’s belts.
- Women began headlining shows and pay-per-views, not just filling time.
- Milestone matches followed: the first women’s Hell in a Cell, the first women’s Royal Rumble, and, eventually, a WrestleMania main event.
The bigger picture
On screen and off, the tension between Stephanie and AJ didn’t fracture the division; it forced an evolution. What started as a social media clash helped push WWE to rebuild its women’s wrestling from the ground up, with ripple effects felt across sports entertainment. Whether you credit the tweet, the fan pressure, or the talent kicking the door down, that moment with AJ and Stephanie is one of those rare times a storyline-adjacent rift actually changed the business.