On December 27, 1970, little Joan Marie Laurer was born. She didn’t stay little for long, as wrestling fans around the globe are well aware. No, she definitely got larger, both in size and stature.
Joanie Laurer is better known to wrestling fans as “Chyna,” the female bodybuilder turned pro wrestler. Chyna first made a name for herself on a national basis as the female bodyguard of Hunter Hearst Helmsley, the former snobbish heel character in 1990s WWE who would later become the second most powerful personality in sports entertainment.
During her WWE run, Chyna picked up the WWE Women’s Championship, as well as three separate runs as the WWE Intercontinental Champion, a feat that only Laurer can boast having as a female. Also during her stay with WWE, Chyna put herself on the map to horny kids around the country as the cover-girl of the infamous November 2000 edition of Playboy magazine. This would only be the beginning of her career selling her naked body for cash.
Laurer famously dated Triple H in real life, a relationship that got ugly (no pun intended) when the bosses daughter, Stephanie McMahon, entered the picture. Long story-short, McMahon ended up with Hunter and Chyna was on her way out of the sports entertainment world.
Following her official WWE departure in 2001, Chyna appeared in a wide variety of different television shows and reality shows. In 2002, she famously fought Joey Buttafuoco in the main event of the second installment of FOX’s short-lived “Celebrity Boxing” shows. In 2004, Chyna was exposed in “One Night In Chyna,” a sex-tape released to the public with her at-the-time boyfriend, fellow former WWE Superstar Sean “X-Pac” Waltman. In 2005, she appeared as a cast-member of VH-1’s “The Surreal Life.” In 2008, she returned to the reality television world in the form of a stint in “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.”
Following that C-list-at-best run of television and “film” work, Laurer has descended into the porn world as a full-time porn “actress.” In 2011, along with a brief return to the world of pro wrestling with TNA, Chyna ended up turning into a full-blown porn “star.” She debuted with “Backdoor to Chyna,” in 2011 with Vivid Entertainment, before moving onto a larger “role” in the 2012 smash-hit, “Avengers XXX: A Porn Parody,” which as the name states, was the porn-version of “The Avengers” comic-book film. She was so good in her role as “She-Hulk” in that “film” that she received her own spin-off, “She-Hulk XXX: An Axel Braun Parody” in 2013. For what it’s worth, Laurer has reportedly given up her gig as a porn actress, and can be found teaching the English language to Japanese students these days.
Whether or not Laurer has washed away the sizable blemish she has besmirched her good name with, remains to be seen. If you take away all of her post-wrestling career ventures and look strictly at her credentials as a competitor in the world of sports entertainment, you would have to consider her for a spot in the WWE Hall Of Fame. Whether or not the “Ninth Wonder Of The World” will ever be considered for a spot, which is chosen by her old buddies Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, among other wrestlers and executives, is a question that will only be answered in time. If the company can bury the hatchet with Bret Hart, “Superstar” Billy Graham and Bruno Sammartino to add legitimacy to their version of the professional wrestling Hall Of Fame, one would hope Laurer would at least be considered as well. Then again, “The Hitman” never took it from behind on film for some quick cash.
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