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Joan "Chyna" Laurer (1970-2016)


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1 hour ago, Eivion said:

She went to NJPW and probably could have done TNA early on if she tried.

She was in FirePro during that. It confused everyone, because the list first came out in Katakana, and people had to translate it phonetically. Everyone was like "Who's Johnny Roller? Do they mean Johnny Swinger? What an odd choice". Then the penny dropped: Joanie Laurer, not Johnny Roller. That pesky r/l/w being the same letter in Japanese.

I still maintain that Muto's elbow drop is the Thrashing Elbow, no matter how many people call it Flashing. I think the he named the Shining Wizard that just to troll those people.

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I hope Mick wasn't the only person from her time in WWF that reconnected with her and showed her kindness. This death really gets to me, not only because of her being part of a huge time in wrestling for me, but because she was so clearly in pain every time I've seen her for the last fifteen years. 

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NJPW wasn't meant to be a one shot deal, it was meant to be a long term deal, but it didn't work out like that. Where you lay the blame for that is up to you.

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I met Chyna at a mall autograph signing when I was 11 years old, and she was so unbelievably nice to me. I'll never forget that she took a moment to talk to my mom about how nice her nails were. My mom later told me that Chyna had the firmest handshake she'd ever received. Despite the fact that she was now aligned with the evil Corporation, that day, I became a secret Chyna fan once again.

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Very sad.  I was rooting for her to get ti all together. I feel terrible that it didn't work out for Chyna.  I just remember her debut squeezing the life out of Marlena. She was someone that you couldn;t turn away from and really helped to define HHH and DX later.  She lived a hard life, and hopefully at some point she realized that she entertained a lot of people, and dare i say it, put smiles on people's faces.   

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23 minutes ago, CreativeControl said:

yeah I'm sure she was supposed to be a big deal for NJPW and was working a programme with Chono but I don't have any info on what happened

What happened is Chyna/Chono turned out to be a horrible match at a Tokyo Dome where poor Joanie put on maybe the worst performance of her life.  She just was not remotely a good fit for NJPW, she needed to be able to script most of her match beforehand and obviously that's pretty hard to do with someone who doesn't speak the same first language as you.  

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Strange how my girlfriend saw some DX thing a few days ago and asked who the female bodyguard was. I explained her story and how she was pretty much blackballed by WWE. 

I guess I understand their reasoning in current day WWE why they wouldn't be putting her name out there too much. But she was just forgotten about by H & Steph, whereas I've always thought she was a huge deal in the attitude era. Ok, she was never a great worker but she was in the rumble and won the IC belt, and in that time of wrestling for a woman to do that was a big deal. She should've been celebrated earlier. 

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As far as WWE's reaction and future Hall of Fame possibilities, it's really unprecedented how deep the wedge was personally and professionally. I don't think anyone comes back from filming a porn with Vince and Stephanie dopplegangers. 

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I wonder what her career could have been like if she had come along now or in a few years when, optimistically, the women's division is more about athletics than centerfoldism.

Her training, ring experience with other women, and image could have been completely different and maybe her post-wrestling career wouldn't have been so inevitably in one unsavory direction.  There is a way in which, like some of the men as well, her problems were a part of the shitty ExTREMZ era she was born into.

The womens' wrestling revolution needs to stick.

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Perez Hilton (who I'm not linking to, because fuck Perez Hilton) is reporting that Chyna was dead "for a day or two" before someone found her.

She really was a huge part of the Attitude era, and it's a damn shame that things with WWE ended the way they did. She never really received the level of respect that she was deserving of.

I'm not sure what, if anything, WWE is going to do for her, but I hope that it has the level of significance that she deserves.

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If that's true, and she really had passed a day or two ago and no-one found her... that's my worse fear actually, for me. That's scary and heartbreaking, I don't even want to imagine it. This combined with the news about Prince dying... man, fuck today. Fuck 2016 in general, damn. I realize as the years go on and we all get older, that these performers do too, I guess it just doesn't feel that way. I'm hoping this was an accidental overdose and she just slipped into a coma and passed peacefully.

This is so sad. And not to play that game, but it seems really weird for Triple H to be saying now she deserves to be in the HOF, when he said different on that podcast on the Network. I don't want to think about that right now, though.

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I still can't shake the feeling that Austin never shoulda asked Triple H about her. Fuck his hard-hitting journalism bullshit, he does a damn wrestling podcast. Triple H talking about her publicly drove her right back into a bad place again...

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34 minutes ago, Casey said:

This is so sad. And not to play that game, but it seems really weird for Triple H to be saying now she deserves to be in the HOF, when he said different on that podcast on the Network. I

He didn't. He was just giving reasons for why it hadn't happened yet.

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3 minutes ago, The Comedian said:

I still can't shake the feeling that Austin never shoulda asked Triple H about her. Fuck his hard-hitting journalism bullshit, he does a damn wrestling podcast. Triple H talking about her publicly drove her right back into a bad place again...

If that's all it takes to drive someone into a "bad place", they're going to find their own way there sooner or later.

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Chyna showing up and manhandling Marlena like a shaken baby was the first time Hunter Hearst didn't seem like the blandest wang dang doodle on the roster. It was only when Chyna showed up that he seemed like any kind of a threat and that was only by proxy of his badass female bodyguard. It also occurs to me that there's never been two powerhouse types in the WWE's women's division at the same time. I believe Beth Phoenix was already done by the time Awesome Kong ever so briefly showed up. I don't know how well it would jibe with the rest of the division but I've always been interested in seeing a female take on the irresistible force meets the immovable object that would've been Chyna in her prime (or if she'd kept her powder dry) vs. Awesome Kong.

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5 hours ago, AxB said:

She was in FirePro during that. It confused everyone, because the list first came out in Katakana, and people had to translate it phonetically. Everyone was like "Who's Johnny Roller? Do they mean Johnny Swinger? What an odd choice". Then the penny dropped: Joanie Laurer, not Johnny Roller. That pesky r/l/w being the same letter in Japanese.

I still maintain that Muto's elbow drop is the Thrashing Elbow, no matter how many people call it Flashing. I think the he named the Shining Wizard that just to troll those people.

"Roaring Elbow"/ "Rolling Elbow" ahem

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In the big picture this doesn't matter, and I know it's stupid, but when I heard Prince died I felt bad for Chyna.  Kind of a Farrah/Michael situation where two celebrities pass on the same day but one totally overshadows the other.

 

Chyna was really one of a kind. I didn't care for her wrestling but thought she was excellent as a manager/bodyguard. She was seen as legit and able to handle the guys in a fight.

The circumstances of her breakup with Hunter and leaving the company and much of what came after was a real mess.  Hopefully fans can get past that and focus on the impact she had on wrestling.

 

 

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Chyna should have been in the HOF a long time ago for her contributions to wrestling.  I think HHH would say more but his wife will not let him.  

Chyna broke down walls and barriers for women's wrestling.  It is hard to list all of the doors she opened for today's competitors.  She blazed a trail like no other in the industry.  It was one thing to hold a belt for years but it quite another to compete and win nationally televised matches against men.

 

2 hours ago, ChrisM said:

Some of the angry comments on Triple H's tweet about her death are bizarre and frightening. 

We live in a period of time where the concept of boundaries and common sense are sorely lacking within the general populace.

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So I just started rewatching true life I'm a professional wrestler since Chyna and triple h are featured and I realized that Gene Snisky is Tony Atlas' opponent in Toms River.

Edit damn auto correct 

 

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