Poll: Chyna. Worthy or not?

[The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh]

Professional wrestling career
Training and independents

Chyna in the ring at the USAir Arena on September 15, 1997
Joanie Laurer trained at Wladek "Killer" Kowalski's professional wrestling school in Malden, Massachusetts. Her first match was in 1995 against a male wrestler dressed as a woman. While attending the school, she also worked for various independent promotions as Joanie Lee. Some of her earliest matches were set up by The Fabulous Moolah.

Laurer met World Wrestling Federation (WWF) performers Paul "Triple H" Levesque and Shawn Michaels after a professional wrestling show in 1996. After watching tapes of her matches, they decided to bring her into the WWF as a bodyguard. Vince McMahon, the owner of the WWF, initially did not want her to join the company because he did not believe the audience would find a woman beating up men believable. While waiting for the WWF's decision, Laurer was approached by World Championship Wrestling (WCW), who wanted her to be the sole-female member of the New World Order. She initially accepted the offer, but later turned it down when Shane McMahon, Vince McMahon's son, informed her that she was about to be hired by the WWF. Kowalski, her former trainer, however, maintains that he got her hired by the WWF after introducing her to Shane McMahon and telling him of WCW's interest in her.

World Wrestling Federation
D-Generation X (1997–1999)

Vince McMahon later changed his mind by hiring Laurer, and she made her WWF debut on February 16, 1997 at In Your House 13: Final Four; her character emerged as a plant from a ringside seat, choking Marlena while Goldust was in the ring with Triple H. Her original role in the promotion was as the laconic enforcer/bodyguard for Triple H and later, his D-Generation X group (which included Sean "X-Pac" Waltman). She often helped Triple H (then, a rising villain) cheat to win by physically interfering in matches by executing her trademark low blow to the groin. She was later introduced as Chyna, a play on words; fine china is delicate and fragile, which was a sharp contrast to her character. Off-screen, however, the male wrestlers were hesitant at first to let a female over-power them on-screen.

In January 1999, Chyna was the thirtieth entrant in the Royal Rumble, becoming the first woman ever to enter the contest. The day after the Royal Rumble, Chyna became a villain by betraying Triple H and aligning herself with his enemy Vince McMahon and Kane. Laurer teamed with Kane at the St. Valentine's Day Massacre pay-per-view against former allies X-Pac and Triple H. At WrestleMania XV, Chyna turned on Kane in his match by helping Triple H defeat him, appearing to rejoin DX. Chyna and Triple H, however, turned against DX later that evening when they helped Shane McMahon defeat DX member X-Pac. The duo became part of The Corporation and later Shane McMahon's Corporate Ministry. Following the dissolution of the Corporate Ministry, Chyna remained at Triple H's side.

Intercontinental Champion (1999–2000)

In June 1999, Chyna became the first woman to qualify for the King of the Ring tournament. She was also the first female to be the number one contender for the WWF Championship, but lost the spot to Mick Foley before SummerSlam in August. Later that year, Laurer became a fan favorite again during her long feud with Jeff Jarrett. At Unforgiven, she had a match for the WWF Intercontinental Championship against Jarrett, which she lost. She defeated Jarrett for the title at No Mercy in his last WWF match, a Good Housekeeping match, on October 17 at No Mercy, in the process becoming the only woman to win the Intercontinental Championship. She also gained the services of his valet, Miss Kitty. Laurer claims that Jarrett demanded (and received) $300,000 from Vince McMahon in order to lose the title cleanly to a woman. His contract had expired on October 16, and he was therefore not contractually obligated to appear on the pay-per-view. If he had not appeared, the WWF would have been criticized for false advertising, and the lineage of the title would have been broken.
Chyna then feuded with Chris Jericho over the belt, defeating him at the Survivor Series, but losing the title to him at Armageddon. The two faced off again in a match on the December 28 edition of SmackDown!, which ended controversially with both wrestlers pinning each other. As a result, then "head of authority" Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley declared them co-champions. At the Royal Rumble, Jericho and Chyna defended the title against Hardcore Holly in a Triple Threat match to determine the Intercontinental Champion, which Jericho won. Afterwards, Laurer briefly teamed with Jericho.

Aligning with Eddie Guerrero, Women's Champion and departure (2000–2001)

Not long after losing the Intercontinental title, Laurer became the on-screen girlfriend of Eddie Guerrero. Guerrero and Laurer, originally villains, later became fan favorites during the summer of 2000, with Guerrero dubbing her his "Mamacita". The couple faced Val Venis and then-rookie Trish Stratus in an intergender tag team match at SummerSlam with the Intercontinental Championship on the line. Chyna won the match, but lost the belt two weeks later to Guerrero in a Triple Threat match with Kurt Angle. They officially split in November 2000 after Chyna, in storyline, found Eddie cavorting in the shower with two other women.
At the same time, Laurer posed nude for Playboy magazine's November 2000 issue. Her Playboy modeling was also worked into a WWE storyline, in which it drew the ire of the Right to Censor (a group of morally conservative and self-righteous wrestlers). Shortly after, Laurer began a feud with Ivory, a member of the Right to Censor, over the Women's Championship. This culminated in a storyline at the Royal Rumble where Laurer appeared to reinjure her neck while performing a handspring back elbow. In order to better convince the audience that she was injured, color commentator Jerry Lawler left the commentators' booth and entered the ring to check on Laurer's condition, something he had not done since the in-ring accident that killed Owen Hart in 1999. When Laurer returned from the "injury", she won the Women's Championship from Ivory at WrestleMania X-Seven in a squash match, a short match where one performer defeats the other with ease. Laurer also defended her title against Lita at Judgment Day in 2001. Although she won the match, she soon vacated the Women's Championship, as this was Laurer's final WWF match. The relationship between Triple H, her former real-life boyfriend, and Stephanie McMahon (with whom Laurer claims he had an affair and then left her for), was a major factor in her departure. She left World Wrestling Federation on November 30, 2001, several months after she had been taken off of television. Jim Ross later claimed that she was not fired, but rather chose to leave for personal reasons.

Independent circuit, New Japan Pro Wrestling and retirement (2001–2004)

Laurer's in-ring career after WWE was limited. In 2002, Laurer joined New Japan Pro Wrestling and made her first appearance at the New Japan Thirtieth Anniversary Show, refereeing a bout between the Steiner Brothers and Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kensuke Sasaki. In September and October 2002, she wrestled four matches for the promotion. After losing to Masahiro Chono on October 14, 2002, Laurer performed her final match on October 26, teaming with the Fake Great Muta in a loss to Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kenzo Suzuki. Laurer also was scheduled to appear with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, but she did not appear due to having pneumonia.

Title wins:

IWF Women's Champion (1 time)
WWF Intercontinental Champion (3 times)-only female to hold the title in it's history.
WWF Women's Champion (1 time)
Only female entrant in the Royal Rumble

So i was checking out the Alundra Blaze poll, and thought, what other women could you possibly put in the HOF other than Sunny or Trish or Ivory....

And then i thought of the 9th Wonder of the World and all the ground she has broken in the world of pro wrestling.

Here's the key accomplishments for me personally

1) Was a founding member of DX. Sure it was HBK and HHH's group, started by them, but where HHH went, Chyna went and she was always there during the promos and matches.

2) When you think of HHH's rise to fame. When he stopped being Hunter Hurst Helmsley and became Triple H, can you honestly picture him without Chyna by his side as well? To me, she was an essential part of the Triple H character up until he became an established ME talent.

3) 1st female Rumble entrant. Yeah ok so she was #30, but at least she eliminated someone. That puts her above Santino and Tazz at least.

4) 1st female IC champ. Now THAT's an accomplishment. Something i doubt they'll ever let happen again.

5) Recovered from a broken neck and returned to the ring (doing less than half the work load she used to have to do mind you) and won the Women's title.

Now let's forget the whole Playboy shoots and the 1 Night in Chyna tape, and focus JUST on Chyna's contributions to WWF/E.

The only factors that i could possibly see keeping her out of the HOF is any animosity between her and Steph over HHH, plus all the crap that Vince and co. have said about her since, and her retaliatory remarks for them.

So guys, does Chyna deserve to be in the HOF for doing something no other woman has done in WWF/E?

Discuss

(NOTE: I'll have to post a picture later, my web browser at work is screwed up)

 

[Pimpin]

Yes she does deserve in. She did stuff that in my opinion no woman will ever be able to do again & those are mentioned above. She entered the damn Royal Rumble for crying out loud & she eliminated someone which is better than alot of people can do in that match. Realistically I doubt she will get in thanks to the animosity between her & Mrs. Triple H.

 

[psykohurricane]

Personally, i don'T think she is worthy at all. Let me explain, sure, she was the first female to win the intercontinental championship, but the first time she won it was because Jeff Jarrett was leaving the Company and they didn'T have somebody else to get the belt of him so they gave it to Chyna who pretty much did nothing with the belt until she lost it to jericho. Same thing happened for every other championship she ever won, she would win the title and then almost never wrestle or defend the championship so in my eyes, she was the worst intercontinental and woman'S champion in history.

Also, she pretty much was building her career on a lie, remember when she release here fitness video, at the beginning of the tape, she told everybody how she was happy with the way she look and she didn'T have to use plastic surgery to get here physic. But the truth is that she had more plastic surgery then every other divas on the roster combined.

Another thing that make me say that she not worthy is pretty much the fact that she almost ruin the woman'S division with here contract negotiations. She was trying to blackball Vince Mcmahon by holding the woman's championship hostage. She wanted more money then she was worth and pretty much ruin here career because of it.

Chyna never was a great wrestler, she wasn'T even that good but because she was big and strong, she got push into the man'S division and that pretty much why some people might think that she'S worthy of the HOF but let's face fact here. Chyna was and always will be an insecure person who needs to lie and get drunk to be happy, she had some talent in the ring and her look made here unique but she threw it all away with plastic surgeries. Then when her playboy issue came out and was one of the most sold issue of the history of playboy at the time, she got a big head and thought that the WWE couldn'T live without here and she found out that'S wasn't the case at all. The fact that pretty much every male or female wrestler had to carry here into a decent match isn't a mark of a legend. Sure she did a lot will in the WWE but the fact is that at the time, they didn'T know what to do with her so they threw here into the man'S division. If chyna was wrestling right now, she would probably be just another diva wrestling for the woman'S title and all the accomplishment she had, wouldn't exist.

 

[Slyfox696]

I wouldn't put her in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, she did some neat things, but did she do anything memorable? Being the "first" is overrated. In the end, she's forgettable, and anyone forgettable is not Hall of Fame worthy.

 

[klunderbunker]

No. Honestly, what did she do? She had a very brief run against males that for the most part wouldn't hit her so it just didn't look good, then decimated the women's division when there was one real opponent in Lita. Other than that, nothing much at all. Chyna is going to be remembered for a few moments in WWE but after that, she'll be the one that just left all of a sudden and is now a train wreck. Put Trish and Lita in, not Chyna.

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

I agree with all those who say that Chyna should not be in the Hall of Fame. This woman only really has three claims to fame: 1) Being a mannish bodyguard for D-Generation X; 2) Beating Jeff Jarrett for the Intercontinental Title before he defected back to WCW; 3) Posing for Playboy. As far as being an actual wrestler, Chyna sucked (let's not even talk about her mic skills).

If it wasn't for her sex tape with X-Pac and seeing how far she had let herself go on The Surreal Life, we wouldn't even be talking about this woman right now, as she would have been forgotten as soon as she parted ways with WWE.

 

[Mustang Sally]

In a business in which the results are scripted, I've always looked at a wrestler in terms of whether I thought he (or she) could legitimately win a championship. Take John Cena; he wins titles because management says he's going to win them, but I look at the guy and his abilities and figure that the company made the right decision. I feel this way about most of the people who have had success in wrestling.

Chyna is another story. Yes, she was big and strong but one can't forget one attribute she didn't have.....speed. She was as slow as molasses; I swear Andre the Giant moved around the ring better than she did. Plus, her ring repertoire was severely limited and she didn't have the timing and rhythm of a top-flight wrestler.

Chyna was a novelty and I did look forward to her appearances but it was more for entertainment value than for wrestling. I feel bad saying this, too, as I would love to see a woman get into the HOF for her in-ring ability. But not Chyna.

I vote no.

 

[Y 2 Jake]

It depends how highly you rate Eddie Guerrero because his character from 2000-2005 was all because of Chyna. In WCW he was deadly serious, in WWE he was a comedy heel. He still used the same mannerisms that he did with her when he was a main event wrestler.

 

[Doctor_What]

Aftyer giving it some thought I'm going to say yes. Ok in real life she's a fuck up but her wrestling career is unlikely to ever be bettered by another woman and she will always be the 1st female ic champion and royal rumble copetitor as well as a founder if dx

 

[NSL]

I say YES.

I've always thought that to be a Hall of Famer, in anything, you need to either be the best at what you do, while you do it, or you have to be a revolutionary. She was a revolutionary for her era. Besides being the 9th Wonder Of The World, she was there during Triple H's rise to the top, and was the "valet" of WWE's version of the Four Horsemen. Being the first female in the Royal Rumble is an accomplishment worth noting; whether she did anything of not, is of no consequence. However, being the first female IC Champ is. There's only one first, and if any woman does do it in the future, they'll be compared to Chyna. Like Jake said, she was also a big part of Eddie Guerrero's rise in the WWE, and gave him his most popular gimmick, "Latino Heat".

Of course, her legacy is tainted by homemade porn, and numerous trips to rehab, but her wrestling career was different from what any woman had done in history, and from what they probably ever will do in the future.

 

[OIL]

I'll say yes. Probably because to be a part of the Hall of Fame, you just needed to have an impact on the business. And she did, partly. She showed that women could hang with the men, well, probably because she was closer to a man than a woman; but still. She had numerous memorable moments, and probably did more than some of the current HoFers.

 

[The Rob]

I voted Yes.

Chyna as a person may well be a bit of a screw-up but, as several of you have said, she was one of a kind and during her prime, she was the best female wrestler on the planet. Being the 1st and so far only woman to enter the Royal Rumble is a big deal, so is her being the 1st and only female IC champion in WWE history. And then of course her posing for Playboy (not really something that helped her in-ring career). For a female wrestler she was freakishly strong and had a presense about her that not many divas have had.

Also because she was truly the first woman to really be a threat to some of the male WWE wrestlers, she did pave the way for the divas of today. If it weren't for her in-ring superiority, divas like Trish, Victoria, Lita and Beth wouldn't of been as talented as they are/were. She showed them all that they could be great wrestlers and sexy as hell at the same time (espescially Trish).

She won't be remembered for being the best Diva of all time, but she'll be remembered for opening alot of doors for todays divas and I reckon that deserves an induction into the Hall of Fame.

 

[HBK-aholic]

Usually, I'm not a fan of praise for Chyna because she was the "First woman to *insert achievement here*". But, that being said, she was one of the first women to help make the womens division exciting, and not just because most of the wrestlers were pretty. Note how I call Chyna, Lita, Stratus etc. wrestlers, but the females of today are divas.

Chyna should be in the HOF for being a part of the best womens division in history - and without her and a select few others there never would have been a good part of it. She deserves it.