| IRONMAN MAGAZINE |
| Great Wall of Chyna |
| Chyna is to the World Wrestling Federation what golf clubs are to Tiger Woods. So, when there's an opportunity to stick a tape recorder in her face, you don't question the timming. Even if it means interviewing her in the midest of a makeup session. Sure, the charismatic damsel is the current womens champion and has won the Intercontiental title on three occasions. Yes, she was the first women ever to compete in both the Royal Rumble and King of the Ring tournaments. True, WWF fans voted her Diva of the Year. Not bad for starters. Her book, If They Only Knew, was second on the best-sellers list in mid-April. She shoots commericals. There's her wildly popular poster. Comic T-shirts, jackets and shorts. Pendants, lighters and calanders. Hey, there's even- are you ready for this?- a Chyna sports bra. Slip one on and you, too, might have big, shapely muscles. As the makeup artist Yvonne Ouellette shows Chyna to the dressing room of Michael Neveux's Gardena, California Studio, I show her my microcassette. In about an hour and a half she'll be playing Neveuxs lenses as she plays to millions of fans world wide who worship her every move. In go the curlers. Down goes the record button. LT:When did all this begin? Where were you born, and who were you born as? C:My name is Joanie Laurer, and I was born in Rochester, New York. I became the character of Chyna-and that's a totally different thing. You noticed when I walked in the studio today, I introduced myself as Joanie. People always gigle when they hear that, but the reason Chyna has been very successful is that the women behind Chyna is Joanie Laurer, who has been physically fit for 16 years old. LT:Were you raised in Rochester? Were you always athletic? bigger, stronger than the other girls? C:I was pretty average. However, I always had a lot of energy. I didn't have a lot of friends; I wasn't very social and didn't fit in. When the rest of the kids started going out on the weekends, going to the movies, playin Spin the Bottle, I was starting to do the Jane Fonda fitness videos. I was around 14, 15. My mother was following the videos, and I kinda wanted to jump around and do something with her. I'm very musically oriented, and I used to have so much fun. It was a great way of combining music with exercise without really knowing what I was doing. I would spend my babysitting money buying more fitness tapes; I used to go out on the front porch, jumping up and down to the music. I wasn't big then, about 5'8 and 135 pounds. I wasn't athletic at all. In class in high school you do pretty much all sports, and I stunk at everything. But I enjoyed them. Eventually, when I was around 16, I started looking at bodybuilding magazines and getting into lifting weights. A lot of guys started to want that beefy look; in order to take notice of the guys and have them take notice of me, I began entering the gym world. I had a lot more guy friends than girlfriends, and I started hanging out with them. In the beginning it was more for social reasons, but when I began going to the gym, I realized I was good at liftng weights. I was really strong, had good form-my genetics started to shine through. The guys were intrigued by me. I worked out at Bally's, and I loved it. They had all the neon lights, with a bunch of fun equipment. It was almost a disco atmosphere, with loud music and stuff. I could dress in my horrible headband, striped leotard and leg warmers. I was thin, but I had wide shoulders, a small waist, strong thighs, big calves and wasn't very hippy. LT:What's your background? C:German[follows with a sentence in German]. As my mom used to say, strong like bull. It became a lifestyle, and the more I saw my body develope....At that age you really want to be accepted. Kids can be very creul-puberty, pimples, druds and sex, all these things are comming into play, and you are really searching for an identity. One minute you're with punk rockers, then the drugie crowd, then the preppies. It wasn't hard for me to figure out where I was. When people started noticing me for my body, it singled me out. Sometimes in a vey bad way. Not too many women were working out to get big muscles back then. Even so, I loved the attention, so I kept with it. LT:Any brothers or sisters? C:Yes, I have one older brother and one older sister. My brother was in the Army and used to be very much into weightlifting. He was a wrestling fan when I didn't even pay attention to the sport. I remember he used to invite his buddies over, and they would wrestle around the house. I'd even make them wrestling belts out of foil and beads. They were imitating all the stars of wrestling, Walter Kowalski, Sergeant Slaughter, Bruno Sanmartion. I thought they were just being a bunch of idiots, but I made some fabulous belts[laughs].Little di I know that later on I would be working with one of my brother's idols. My sister is very close to me. She is also genetically gifted. I consider her to be a wine glass among beer mugs. Very beautiful, a presence. There's a presence, I think, in both of us. She was actually a little over weight, and I started training her. Then, about five years ago, she really started training hard and compleatly changed her body. Her goal was to do a bodybuilding contest, and she eventually did. She still has that picture on her wall. LT:You went to college in Florida, right? C: Yes, the university of Tampa. I had spent my last year of high school in Madrid, Spain, then got my college degree in 2 1/2 years. I was in a big hurry to do nothing. I majored in Spanish literature. I loved foreign languages and studied Spanish, French and German. There was a large Puerto Rican population in Tampa, and I took all the bilingual courses. I got a literature degree but took all my courses in Spanish. Stay tuned for the rest of the article........comming soon! (actually this article is super long so who knows!) Thanks, Woggs 4-16-02 |