Trivia / Chyna

• Contractual Purity: It was theorised that the reason Chyna has never been asked to do any appearances on Raw, or inducted into the Hall of Fame, was because of her porn career. Triple H eventually came out on a podcast and said that was the reason.^note  This may have not been the full truth, however, as a more likely reason is that they didn't want an unstable person with a 15-year grudge against the company to have a live mic, especially in the current PR-heavy, PG-friendly WWE. Also, Triple H's comment initially wasn't specifically about her porn career, but that kids could google about her, seemingly lumping her porn career and her grudge against the company together.
• Creator's Apathy: Chyna didn't put much effort into her matches in the women's division, with Jim Ross stating that she felt it was beneath her. Notably when she won the Women's Championship, she pinned Ivory by draping herself over her as if it were a Playboy spread - which many of the other workers found extremely disrespectful. Lita says that Chyna admitted to her she hated being in the women's division but said If It's You, It's Okay.
• Creator Backlash: According to Ivory, Chyna really did not want to become Women's Champion. She had said as much in a 1999 interview on a talk show and got into an argument with Sable over it. At that point in time, the Women's Championship was still looked down upon in WWE, and it wasn't too long ago that it was defended in bra and panties matches and slop matches. It wouldn't be until Trish Stratus and Jazz feuded over it (ironically right after Chyna left) that the title would start getting respected again. It was later clarified that she felt it set her character back after years of being built up as strong enough to wrestle the men.
• Creator Breakdown:
  • After splitting up with Triple H behind the scenes, Billy Gunn said that Chyna just really couldn't deal with the repeated sadness of going to work every day and seeing him with Stephanie McMahon. (The two later married.) She ended up taking time off TV for months, while she was still Women's Champion, and released when her contract expired.
  • The planned Reconstructing Chyna documentary resulted in this. She had been living a somewhat more peaceful life in Japan, and her manager pushed her into doing the film and returning to the USA. The footage showed her being pressured into things that would make for a good story, such as returning to WWE headquarters or participating in a celebrity poker tournament. Not helping matters was the director being addicted to heroin at the time as well, and in no position to help her.
• Dye Hard: Dyed her usually brown hair to blonde◊ while in NJPW.
• Friendship on the Set:
  • Stone Cold says he and Chyna hit it off right away and shared a love for silliness and goofiness. He was one of the first people to be told about her passing, and recalls repeatedly checking to make sure he wasn't being ribbed.
  • Terri Poch and Chyna travelled together, and were good friends. In the former's shoot interview for RF Video, Chyna comes into the room and the two catch up, making arrangements to practice yoga together later.
  • Eddie Guerrero and Chyna were quite close, with Chyna calling the period of working him one of the favourite parts of her career. They reportedly had great chemistry instantly.
  • She and Mick Foley were friends when she first came to the WWE, but she instantly bonded with Foley's daughter Noelle: as Foley wrote, "I may be Big Daddy-O at home, but when we get to the arena, Noelle wants nothing to do with me: it's her and Joanie going off to gossip and paint each other's fingernails." They lost touch over the years while Chyna was battling her demons, but reconnected in 2015 at the Long Island Comic Con; by all accounts, Chyna was incredibly hesitant to approach Mick, but when she did, Mick warmly welcomed her and after the convention ended, took her to his house where she was able to reunite with not only Colette, but Noelle as well.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • Ivory disliked working with Chyna, finding her condescending when they worked together (describing one incident where Chyna asked if she knew how to do a hair-pull slam) - and was furious at the way Chyna covered her in their match at WrestleMania X-Seven. Ivory also recalls years later being tempted to get back in touch with Chyna, but thinking better of it because of said hostility. After Chyna's passing, she shared some more positive stories about her - such as Chyna reassuring her when she was feeling discouraged after a match where the crowd chanted "we want puppies" throughout ("you wouldn't be here if you weren't good").
  • A segment on a talk show with Sable and Debra Marshall saw Chyna get into a shouting match with Sable after the host asked if she would ever fight for the Women's Championship. Chyna said she had no interest in the women's division, as any fight with Sable would be a Curb-Stomp Battle. Sable then accused Chyna of using performance enhancing drugs, and both traded insults about plastic surgery. It was unknown if this was a Worked Shoot for a program that never happened (as Sable left WWF shortly after), but Jim Ross and Jim Cornette confirmed it was legit years later.
  • Stacy Carter (The Kat) says that she and Chyna were initially close friends when they were paired together in 1999-2000. But after Chyna posed for Playboy, she distanced herself from her former friend. Stacy claims she was asked to pose for Playboy as well, which would have meant Chyna's next shoot being pushed back, and Chyna took offence. Stacy strongly suspects that this led to Chyna pulling strings to get her fired (as the only reason Vince McMahon could give for firing her was "attitude problems").
  "The person that was...that was not the person that I knew."
  • Chris Jericho hated working with Chyna, and they mutually disliked each other. Neither of them were happy to be paired together as part of the co-champions storyline in 2000. He was actually happy when he dropped the European title to Eddie Guerrero, and Chyna was paired with him, relieved that "she was his problem now".
• In Memoriam: The fourth episode, season 3 of WWL show High Voltage contained a tribute to her.
• Lying Creator:
  • Her trainer Killer Kowalski said of her autobiography "she's the biggest liar", and X-Pac has also spoken up about it. April Hunter mostly had good things to say about Chyna, but did say she couldn't reconcile how Chyna's book described Killer Kowalski with how she knew him.
  • There's also an interview that contained claims from Chyna go from disputed to unlikely or contradictory with each other, such as claiming that X-Pac released their sex tape against her will (the interviewer's rebuttal that she needed to sign a release is ignored), and claiming that she had never taken drugs, against what her repeated erratic behavior and stints in rehab might indicate.
• Money, Dear Boy: She says Playboy paid more than the World Wrestling Federation did.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Chyna's getting phased into a member of the women's division came about partly because the rest of the men didn't like working with her, and also because a few found it hard to treat her as a member of their division after she had posed for Playboy.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: New Japan released her after her drug and alcohol problems became too much for them to ignore.
• Romance on the Set: Used to date Triple H and, if she was to be believed, got the shaft because of Stephanie. Subverted with Sean Waltman — while they worked in the WWF at the same time (even being together in the same Power Stable, D-Generation X), their relationship started and ended long after both had left the WWE, and after Chyna left wrestling in general.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Before she got into wrestling, she had wanted to be an actress, and was in the process of auditioning when she started her wrestling training.
  • WCW first courted her and they wanted her to become the sole female member of the New World Order. Chyna chose to join WWF instead. WCW would later introduce their Alternate Company Equivalent, bodybuilder and fitness model Christi Wolf, as "Asya".
  • Chyna herself actually didn't want to wrestle the men originally, and didn't think it would work.
  • There were hints of a Chyna vs Jacqueline program a couple of times in 1999 but it never amounted to anything. Ditto for Nicole Bass, as the latter left WWE abruptly in mid 1999.
  • Stacy Carter (The Kat) claims that Chyna's feud with Jeff Jarrett was meant to continue past No Mercy 1999, but Jeff's contract expired the day before the PPV and he jumped ship to WCW.
  • Supposedly, Tori and X-Pac were going to feud with Chyna and Eddie Guerrero in the summer of 2000. Tori's shoulder injury meant that she was written off TV by being put through a table by the Dudley Boyz, and Val Venis and Trish Stratus were put in that position instead. When Tori returned from injury, there were supposedly plans to rekindle this feud, with Billy Gunn in Eddie Guerrero's place, but nothing came of it.
  • Chyna's title match against Ivory at the 2001 Royal Rumble was supposed to end with Steven Richards attacking her as she was doing the handspring elbow - causing kayfabe whiplash to her neck. He messed up the timing, so Chyna sold the whiplash anyway - with the Hand Wave that Ivory's chin may have caught the back of her neck.
  • Chyna and Lita were in the middle of a storyline prior to Chyna's departure. Eddie Guerrero had shown interest in both of their matches and appeared on stage at Judgement Day to scout them. Although Chyna shook Lita's hand afterwards, she acted very heelish during the match - which suggests that she would have turned heel eventually.
  • Stacy Carter says that they talked about doing a sexy photoshoot together for Maxim or a similar magazine. According to Stacy, Chyna had a second Playboy cover scheduled while she was still in WWF, but it was postponed until 2002 because they wanted The Kat to have one too. Stacy suspects that Chyna disapproved of this and pulled some strings to get her fired.
  • She was being considered for the lead role in the Wonder Woman movie that was eternally stuck in Development Hell around 2001.
  • She was an early named bandied about for the part of the T-X. If you believe her, WWE actually tanked this deal for her by calling up the studio shortly before filming to tell them that she'd left wrestling and they may as well hire a good actor rather than aim for fading star power.
  • Towards the end of her life, Chyna was slowly making amends with WWE, starting with quietly apologising to Triple H at Roddy Piper's funeral for some of her antics. What could have come from this will never be known.
  • Tragically, she had a camera crew filming her from 2015 onward - as part of a documentary hopefully to be the start of a Career Resurrection. Even after her death, a trailer aired for 'Wrestling With Chyna', but it was ultimately incorporated into a VICE documentary.

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