Female star was given WWE WrestleMania match too soon, Jim Ross says

Jim Ross was a play-by-play commentator when WWE held WrestleMania 21 at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, in 2005. In a recent podcast episode, the Hall of Famer addressed critics of Christy Hemme's match against Trish Stratus.

Hemme worked for WWE in 2004 and 2005 after winning the Diva Search contest. With Lita by her side, the then-rookie unsuccessfully challenged Stratus for the Women's Championship in a five-minute bout at WrestleMania 21.

On his Grilling JR podcast, Ross agreed with host Conrad Thompson that the WrestleMania spot came too early in Hemme's career:

"She wasn't a great worker, and Trish was a great worker, so that's what we had in that scenario. Christy looked great and she tried, but she wasn't at Trish's level." [1:32:17 – 1:32:33]

After leaving WWE, Hemme worked for TNA between 2006 and 2016 as a ring announcer and wrestler.

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Jim Ross compares Christy Hemme and Trish Stratus

By 2005, Trish Stratus had cemented her status as one of the greatest female wrestlers of her generation. Christy Hemme, by contrast, was new to the wrestling industry and was best known as a model rather than a serious in-ring competitor.

Jim Ross believes WWE's higher-ups were wrong to book Hemme in a WrestleMania match to promote her modeling shoots:

"There had to be a better way of doing it because I thought Trish did a great job of what she was expecting to do. It was just inevitable it wasn't going to work." [1:33:22 – 1:33:36]

Hemme's final WWE match ended in defeat against Melina on the November 25, 2005, episode of SmackDown. Two weeks later, the company released the former Diva after sending her to train in the Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) developmental system.

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Please credit Grilling JR and give an H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription if you use quotes from this article.