Original subtitles

Got the slow motion yet? No, we're going to... One second.

All right.

My

experience

is really difficult to put in words because it's so far from...

The norm, and it's so far from any other female that I've met.

It was just so totally unaccepted at that time. I got shot down every time I

tried to do something. It was always two steps forward, one step back.

I knew in my heart that I was going to end up doing something because that, I

felt, has always been my destiny. I would have to do that or I'd be a very

unhappy person.

But I knew that I was going up against a lot.

She was living, breathing Wonder Woman.

Just unbelievable sight to see. Look at the size of this woman.

She was the ninth wonder of the world.

She was a true superstar.

Where did she come from anyway? The glass you hear break when Austin's music

hit, that was the ceiling that China busted through.

China, perhaps the most physically talented woman ever here. You know, I

want to just rise to the top of what the women are doing. That's not why I

joined the business.

She knew how to stand

there and let you drink it in.

When she came out and she was as big as the dude and could beat the dude up,

like, holy mackerel, this is a whole new thing. We haven't seen this before.

Women can do it.

What else?

She did things in the ring that females had never done.

And it took her to another level.

First female Intercontinental Champion, first King of the Ring female

participant, first female participant entrant into the WWE Royal Rumble.

I feel that it's time for a new breed of female pro wrestler.

You don't slow that train down. You let that train pull into the station and

blow people's minds.

She was a sought -after sex symbol, someone you'd make a movie about.

She is the ninth wonder of the world. To readers of Playboy, she is the November

cover girl.

From the time when a little girl wanted to be the famous larger -than -life

woman. She shot up to fame like a meteor that just kind of disappears,

and it's gone.

I want to be...

top of what I'm doing, and even though I feel like I have the ability to do

that, I can't. The downward spiral was so dramatic that that's what people

remember.

Towards the end, drug use sort of escalated.

She tried to drink away that hurt, and she tried to snort away that hurt, and

she tried to smoke away that hurt.

It's one thing to get to the top of the mountain. It's another thing altogether

to stay there, and it is lonely at the top.

I'm Tyna.

I'm a champion.

One of the greatest days I ever had was when Johnny was born.

I remember her being delivered very quickly. I was kind of hoping maybe she

would be a Christmas baby, but as usual, she had to do things a different way.

Right out of the gate, she was a very happy baby.

Always had a smile on her face. She was giggly.

She was just so stinking cute. She really was.

She was a cute baby.

She and Sonny and Kathy, when they were all... They would play a lot together.

At an early age, you could tell that Joni was really enjoying being in the

spotlight, always wanting to entertain people.

Joni was always a great self -motivator, but if there was an outside factor that

was motivating her, it was to impress her big sister.

We used to play charades an awful lot, and my grandparents were a really good

audience, and she fed into that.

She put on these puppet shows, and she'd have the little puppets, and she'd do

this, and she'd do that, and she'd be coming out the side and smiling and

blah, blah, and she'd have everybody in stitches.

So we moved an awful lot as children.

I can't even tell you how many apartments we moved around in the city

was always usually a financial struggle going on of some sort.

Most of her memories from childhood were negative. Her family struggled

financially. They were on welfare.

They bounced around from one low -rent apartment to the next. They depended on

food stamps a lot of times.

There's one thing to be struggling with, not being able to buy the kids clothes,

but there's another thing about the tension and the fear and the horrible

feeling that you feel all the time.

When you're put in those types of circumstances, that you can't hide.

Whenever Joni would talk about her life before she found pro wrestling, it was

always one person, and that was Kathy. Not only did they have that sisterhood

bond, Kathy was very motherly in a lot of ways, looking after her and being a

protector.

I remember that my father was a heavy...

He was an alcoholic.

He would go in the hospital and going to visit him and his eyeballs were yellow

from his liver failure.

I remember a time that he chased my mom around with a butcher knife.

He picked up this, it was a butcher knife, and he started chasing me with

And the cops came.

It was terrible. And you've got three little kids, you know, and they're

screaming and, oh, those are...

Bad days.

It was not good.

It was really scary for little kids.

There was a lot going on at home, which didn't allow us to really feel secure

there because my brother left home at 16.

Luckily, I was going into college, so I was out of there.

And I think Joni, unfortunately, was sort of abandoned by Sonny and I, and

was stuck there.

Eventually China's birth parents divorced, and by the time she was 16,

was on her third husband.

If I did ever come home from college or we talked, there was just a great sense

of unhappiness. There was a lot of arguing going on. They were accusing her

doing drugs or hanging out with bad people.

That's when I found what I thought was marijuana.

There was a drug rehab building just down the street from us.

And so I told her, I said, come on, we're going to go.

And we went in, and they wanted to take a sample of her urine. So they sent me

into the bathroom with her, and she went in the cup and threw it at me.

Just threw it at me. It was very, what's the right word, defiant.

Like, all right, take that.

She caught her with some marijuana and just basically picked her out.

Give me a break.

I mean, what kid doesn't smoke pot, right?

I just don't like the way that whole thing was handled.

I'll go live with my father.

Well, at that time I couldn't stop her. When her mother kicked her out of the

house at age 16, she never saw China again.

One thing that really saved China was when she was in high school.

She became interested in lifting weights, and she kind of found a safe

the gym. Every day after school, she would pretty much race to the gym and

there until it closed.

I think she felt very comfortable in the gym. It was a place where she could go.

She felt safe. She felt that she wasn't being judged on her appearance.

based on other places where maybe people would say she's too jacked or she looks

weird, she's trying to look like a guy or, you know, whatever.

I think being at the gym was really sort of her safe place.

When Joni left home, she moved in with my father, Joe Lauer, and I think he

encouraged her to go be her best self.

There was really not a lot of control going on in that house. He sort of said,

go do whatever you want to do.

Two years later, she was in college.

She attended the University of Tampa. She graduated from there in 1991, and

definitely was trying to make something of herself.

But at the same time, once she graduated, she still didn't quite know

wanted to do. She was kind of drifting along in life, trying to find her place.

She was working all sorts of odd jobs. She tried selling cars at one point. She

went and joined the Peace Corps.

She was doing singing telegrams. She was a cocktail waitress at a strip club

called Melon.

I don't know exactly what she did. She told me, as her sister, that she was the

hostess. And I took her at face value on that.

And then she got a job. She was hired to work as an airline attendant.

She called me up one night and said, Kathy, I got my first gig. I'm flying

of Miami tonight.

She drove to Miami, didn't even get out of the Keys, and she was hit head on.

She landed in the hospital.

You know, her car was ruined.

Basically, her job was now down the toilet.

And I said to her, Joni, that's enough. Come to New Hampshire. I'll get you a

job. We'll live together.

Let's just have you start over again here, and let's do it together as

The childhood China experience really could have depleted a lot of people. It

could have really set a lot of people back, but I think she was determined not

to let that get the best of her. I mean, she stared adversity in the face, and

she could have floundered, but instead she flirted.

Met Joni 25 years ago. It was a typical day of work. A good close friend of mine

was the manager of a gym in New Hampshire.

He gave me a call and said, hey, I got one of my aerobics instructors that

help. She wants to do her first fitness show.

She comes around the corner and she had this big, huge smile, this red hair,

full of energy.

I walked away from that interview that day and I couldn't stop thinking about

her. And I know that was very unprofessional of me, but I ended up

few days later and I said, listen, I have your plan.

I'm very excited for you. We're definitely going to do really well in

competition.

But would you like to go to the movie with me?

And then it blossomed into a relationship.

And their relationship really was centered around fitness, physique,

out.

diet, their food.

I mean, it was all -encompassing in their lives, and they both loved it.

As the relationship evolved on a romantic standpoint, on a preparation

just kept going at it harder and better and harder and better. And she was all

in.

I'm 5 '9". I'm 170 pounds.

And this is what I have to offer.

We would go to the gym.

Whatever idea I had in my head that week, I would try it on her, and it just

kept working and working and working.

She responded like that.

The numbers that she was putting up in the weight room were just insane.

She could bench press 315 pounds, four reps.

She was instantly getting stronger, instantly growing.

Squatting 450 pounds.

10 to 12 reps.

Hard to fap for a female.

People in the gym didn't know what they were looking at. They were doing double

takes. Where did this girl come from?

In retrospect, she really was ahead of her time because when I remember the two

of us going to the gym, there were no jacked women in there. It wasn't a

If we would go out to a public place like the mall or we'd go out to eat,

people's heads turned. People noticed she was different. She loved that.

For another time, Joni said, let's go to Boston. We're going to go to a

wrestling match.

And she said, you and I are going to dress up, and we're just going to go,

we're going to see what people say about us.

We had our costumes on, and we went in.

were looking at us thinking, should I know who these girls are?

And people were turning away from the ring and pointing at these girls in the

stands because their biceps were showing, they looked jacked up.

Anybody that was sitting near us was watching us going, are they going to do

something?

Joni loved it. She was just soaking it up. And Joni would say, isn't this

awesome? People are looking at us.

Someone said to us, you guys really should.

Think about being tag team wrestlers. You know, we kind of laughed it off at

time. And on the way home, we were talking about it, and Joni said, you

what, there might be something to that, Kathy.

And I said, hell no, I'm not in.

And she said, okay, well, I'm going to do it. And at the time, I kind of

laughed, and I'm like, sure.

Okay, go ahead.

And, boy, did she prove me wrong.

Chyna, within days, had looked up Killer Kowalski.

Professional wrestling is the most brutal sport of all, or is it? Believe

not, there's a secret school for pro wrestlers, and we got inside.

To learn the secrets of wrestling, you need to go to a place like this, Killer

Kowalski School of Professional Wrestling.

He had the reputation of being tough, hard -nosed, physical -type guy.

Killer Kowalski learned his secrets the hard way, in the ring.

He earned his name Killer by knocking an opponent's ear off, then laughing at

him. There was no nonsense in any of his matches. It was just go in there and

grab a hold and grind your opponent down to the ground. Now, Killer imparts his

secrets to a willing audience of Hulk Hogan wannabes. He couldn't stop staring

at Joni. He got up, walked right up to it.

And he says, can I help you?

And Joanie's like, well, you know, we heard about your school, and we want to

come in and see what it's all about. And he goes, all right.

So then he jumps in the ring, and he starts doing this claw thing.

He goes, this is what you do. And he, like, puts the claw on some guy, and

he body slams him.

And Joanie was just shaking her head. She didn't know what to make of it.

She approached him and said, well, what do I have to do? I'd like to do this.

He goes, all right, $2 ,000.

When we graduate from this school, we are professionals.

Come in here as novices, absolute amateurs, and when they get through,

mean.

You know, sign the waiver.

Pay the money. Sign the waiver. Pay the money.

And she was like, I don't have that kind of money on me.

I said, Joni, please, please do this. This will be the greatest thing you ever

do.

And he said, OK, I think you're legit. I think you really want to do this. He

said, but I want you to know I'm not going to give you any preferential

treatment.

You're going to go into the ring. You're going to wrestle the guys.

They're going to throw you around. You're going to throw them around.

And it's going to hurt.

When guys get in the ring with a female, there's a little bit of hesitation of

what are you going to do? How hard are you going to swing?

What if you miss?

And you catch one or two potatoes from Joni.

and you realize she's tough enough and she can handle it.

Come here.

You see that?

Stay at home.

Do the laundry.

Make some meat, huh? She used to come home with all sorts of bruises, black

blue everywhere.

I can manhandle any guy in here.

In a sadistic sort of way, I think she thrived on that, not backing down.

Right here. Get a close -up of that. I want everybody to see that.

I got caught by the best.

Now I've wrestled men, I've wrestled women, okay? And I beat them

all. Word started getting around that this girl is crazy.

Anybody else that steps in that ring is going to do the same thing because I'm

going to leave them behind me like the trash I left out yesterday morning.

Joni quit her job and she chased wrestling.

She started collecting all the video footage.

pictures. She made her own portfolio.

She spent hours upon hours on a VHS machine with a camcorder making her own

promotional video.

I spent a lot of hours in the gym bodybuilding and now I'm putting that

bodybuilding to use in the wrestling ring.

Joni right away started making sure she looked television ready and

presented herself as a professional before she got to that level.

And if you're hungry enough and you keep scratching for that food, you get it.

Like pretty much everybody hanging around the wrestling business at that

you know, Joni's goal was very simple. She wanted to be in WWE.

She ended up getting in a car with promotional tape, portfolio, everything,

driving down in Massachusetts.

We were coming back from a show.

and we were staying in a hotel at the Springfield Airport, Massachusetts.

One of the agents that I respected most was in there talking to her, and Sean

and I see the sides of her, and we're like, holy... 200 -pound, just jacked

woman. I mean, just had such a stunning presence.

I'll be honest, that was her sales pitch.

So those guys had an eye for talent back then, and when they looked at Joni,

They saw talent.

The more opponents that I can meet, the better I'm going to be. And that's what

my goal is, to be the best.

We had all seen beautiful women, as ballets, as seconds, but no one had ever

seen the likes of Joanie.

I'm not sure who that was supposed to hurt.

All these girls can really take it. Here she comes running right over the road.

You know, before China came on the scene, female wrestling was like the

match. And they called that the match that they put on the card when nothing

really going on, when people would go to the bathroom or go buy popcorn.

That's shampoo in the eyes.

Back then, it was, you know, stupid, silly, paddle on the pole match, bra and

panties match, hard and feathered match.

I mean, like, stupid.

China came through and busted that glass ceiling and kind of said, you ain't

putting me in a bad light.

I'll take your light and shove it.

Shawn Michaels and Triple H, they were at the top of the pecking order at that

time in the WWE.

So for them to put themselves on the line for Joni, she had to produce.

No one's ever done that in the business before. Big jacked up female heater. I

know both of us at the same time were thinking like, ooh, female bodyguard.

We brought it to Vince and he hated it.

Oh, come on. No one's going to buy that.

Nobody's going to want to sell for a girl.

You guys are morons.

This was something we both really believed in. We just knew it would work.

if she's a screw -up, if she's a ped case, it's on you. It's your fault.

You can have all the credentials in the world if you're a football player, and

they hand you the ball, you better not fumble.

Well, Joni didn't fumble.

Who the hell's that?

Who is that in the world? Is that a woman?

She was an anonymous figure first coming and grabbing Marlena from the crowd and

just this...

physical specimen of a woman, unlike anything I'd ever seen before.

I vividly remember the first time I saw Joni. I was actually in the audience,

kind of in disguise.

And we saw Joni come out of the crowd and shake Terry Runnels like a rag doll.

She shook the living dog caca out of me. The smaller I was, the larger

Joni was, the more amazing it looked.

I remember telling her, don't go easy. I would much rather it hurt me tomorrow

than it look like on live TV.

The next morning, we were in the hotel, and I went to turn, and I was like...

It was like I had been...

and some god -awful car crash.

She arrived.

Welcome to the party, girl. You are now officially one of us.

Talk about your psalms. Talk about John 316.

Austin 316 says I just whipped your ass.

If you smash...

Everywhere I go somewhere today, somebody will come up to me and talk

Attitude Era.

There was never anything like it to that point, and there will never be anything

like it in the future.

WWE had traditionally been a pretty conservative company, but by the late

90s, the presentation had changed.

Limits were being pushed.

The Attitude Era pushed every envelope across every line possible.

But that was by design.

WWE was going hard head -to -head against WCW. And at that time, WCW was

winning. They were stealing left and right, taking our superstars. And WWE

to come up with something special, something unique.

As WWE was becoming edgier, I think DX was at the forefront of that.

Hunter and Shawn are pretty much at the top of this thing.

That's how she was coming in.

You'd see Hunter and Sean out there acting like immature schoolboys that

be sent to the principal. And then in the back was Chyna.

No nonsense, staring straight ahead at the camera with her arms folded.

She was the straight man that DX needed. Like in comic terms, there's the

straight man, right? Like we needed to have somebody that was like the rudder

for all of the other immaturity to kind of bounce off of and bounce around.

Show us what you're bringing to the barbecue, girl.

Before Joni even debuted in WWE, the company wanted to come up with a name

her, and they pitched a bunch of names her way.

Venus, Fallon, She -Ra, and she didn't like any of those names.

And then she remembered she had known a stripper who called herself Chyna, and

she described that Chyna as exotic and intoxicating, and that was kind of what

she was going for.

If Joanie was at ringside, you're watching her as much as you're watching

match. In the beginning, all she had to do was just stand there, and people were

like, well, what's going on with that person right there? What is that?

When she would move, the crowd would react because she never moved. When she

stood there with her arms crossed and those biceps and those delts.

197 pounds.

The woman has a 320 -pound mid -trap.

She's got muscles in places I don't even have places.

That's how she got the name the ninth wonder of the world.

So, of course, Andre the Giant was the eighth wonder of the world.

I mean, he turned heads. He caused you to drop your jaw and say,

wow, I heard he was big, but I didn't know he was that big.

And when you saw China, you did the same thing.

China was dangerous.

It wasn't throwing Miss Elizabeth in front, who's, you know, delicate, and a

chivalrous man would never touch Miss Elizabeth.

But, like, you throw Chyna in front, there's a new dynamic, there's a little

confusion. Oh, my God, this woman hit me, and it feels like a man hitting me.

I supposed to hit her back?

In the formative years of Chyna with DX, nobody laid a hand on her.

Striking Joanie was off the table, so we had to be creative.

There's a concern always with your top male wrestlers. Just from a presentation

of a character, you don't want to emasculate them. There's a way to do it

the female star can be elevated, but the male star doesn't have to be brought

down a notch.

A lot of the pitch was designed around we would make sure that we would take

care of those guys so that when she did show offense or look to be beating up a

man, so to speak, we would put them in a vulnerable enough position.

that it seemed plausible for her to be able to do that.

I

remember

one major star just flat out saying, no, I'm not going to let a woman do that to

me. He actually used a more colorful language.

And I kind of stepped up as soon as I had the chance and said, let's... Let's

something.

Triple H reversed an Irish whip outside on the floor, and Joni power

slammed me into the stairs.

And I believe that opened up a discussion among my colleagues who

Mick will do it, then I guess we can.

The thing is that I get paid to not so much to talk, but to...

Kick guys in the nads tomorrow.

At the end of the day, you want to make the best impression you can with your

time in the ring. And I think all of us were well served by having Joni get

involved in our matches. I loved it. China's ring debut came as a bodyguard

Hunter Hearst Helmsley. But now she's one of the stars of the show.

Most girls shouldn't be wrestling guys, and most girls aren't China. And if you

can find another woman like me, then we'll talk about it.

I don't think anything could have prepared her for...

The speed with which her career took off, it was like the Millennium Falcon.

They're driving through space, and Han Solo hits the pedal, and all of a sudden

they're in warp speed.

Gosh, it was like my head's spinning, getting ready to go on the road again

tomorrow. So this has been a lot of work and a lot of fun.

She was overwhelmed and excited and giddy. She couldn't believe it. She

to just pinch herself.

I can't believe I'm actually doing this.

One of the things that a lot of fans don't realize is the camaraderie that is

inside a wrestling company like the WWE.

She found some relationships in DX that she hadn't had as a kid growing up.

When Joni was traveling with the WWE during the height of her fame, Joni

often tell me that these were the people that she could bond with very easily.

I think the acceptance that Joni found in the WWE dressing rooms meant a lot to

her. It was very laid back. It's really like you were at home with your family.

It can sound like a cliche, but in this case it was true. Joni was one of the

boys. We really accepted her. We loved her. We loved having her around.

Like you could be in awe or enamored by her physical appearance.

But when you fell in love with Chyna was when you got to know her. She was very

motherly with me.

You know, you're Chyna.

You see this, but you meet her and you just see this. You know what I mean? And

it's just, you just want to hug her. You were enamored by this body, but then

she would giggle and laugh. And it was just like she was this little girl.

For a period of time, my daughter, Noelle, who was four at the time,

Joni to be her very best friend.

So I would be backstage a lot, and my dad would go off and do his thing. So

was always the one that would take care of me, hang out with me.

She would do my hair and my nails and just hang out like two best friends.

And it was just adorable.

This magnificent woman who was one of the most popular people in WWE, one of

most... recognizable faces in popular culture at the time, is her best friend.

I don't think people realize what it is that we actually do.

The part that we're in the ring is not really where the work is.

The work is traveling 250 days out of the year, trying to keep your body in

shape, trying to deal with life outside the ring.

That's a lot of work.

Joni and Paul were together all the time because they were traveling on the

road. I think they had a lot in common as friends, and it blossomed into a

relationship.

Eighty percent of our relationship encompasses wrestling.

When it all happened, it happened fast.

Me and her were in a serious relationship.

She started going on the road with Paul.

She would go away for four or five days. She would come home for a day or two.

She'd go away for ten days.

She'd be home for a day or two. And it started ripping me apart.

So at some point, we had to have the sit -down, and we just decided, okay,

that's it. We'll go our separate ways, and if at some point 20 years down the

road we can be friends again, we'll do it.

Their relationship just kind of formed, and I don't think any of us knew when

that happened.

I noticed they checked into one hotel room, and I was like, oh, okay, well,

maybe they, because I didn't think they were anything but workout partners and

friends.

It was just after a while, you sort of, you know, see them quietly chatting with

each other. It doesn't look like that's a business conversation.

I asked Hunter, and Hunter finally said, like, we get the same room every night,

dude. We've been going out for, you know. And I was like, oh, my God, I

even see that.

I remember the first time they came to my house as a couple.

They stepped into the back door, and they were like these two giants side by

side. They were larger than life, but they were so happy together.

I think that Hunter was the best friend that she probably never had as a child

growing up.

You could tell. They worked out together. They did everything together.

like, held each other accountable.

A little tiny, tiny bit.

Look,

we'd go to Denny's and I would get moons over my hammy and they would get 12 egg

whites and steamed so -and -so, you know what I mean, and dry wheat toast.

They just did everything together exactly alike. It was almost like, how

they ever have an argument? They both agree that we should do chest and

on Tuesday.

They're both muscleheads, for sure.

very much into bodybuilding.

I'd be on the recumbent cycle and I would just watch them do each other's

and chalk up and... They

worked out every day. They wrapped their knees and squatted until they threw up

and said, if you don't throw up when you're doing squats, you ain't doing it

right. I've never met somebody that can train as focused or...

Hard as China does. He was very respectful of Joni, very encouraging of

again, this is another man in her life that accepted her just the way that she

was. If it were not for Paul, she would not have made it as easily in

our industry because Paul marked her up and really taught her what to do, what

not to do.

That is a gift that he gave her.

Attention!

We are D -Generation X, and we will take no prisoners.

Who is the world in professional wrestling?

D -Generation X!

Hold a minute. Wait a minute.

I remember Joni saying she was tired of the guys always showing off their

butt. Sean and Billy and Hunter all had nice asses, so they would moon the

people. Like, I'm not mooning the people. I got a big zit on my right

like, hair.

Anyway. Did it ever occur to you guys that people are sick and tired of

at your asses every week? Everybody wants to see our ass. What's your point?

She's starting to...

moon people now. And of course, clearly she was in phenomenal shape.

My daughter turned to me and she said, why China's showing her peaches?

That was a father daughter talk that I rather would not have had.

It allowed the audience to see a whole different side of her personality.

And I think that's when she really started to get over individually because

there was so much there and they were finally getting to see that.

That was all by design, to go very slow, so that in the long run, she was her

own brand, her own commodity.

It's been real hard because I always wanted to break away a little bit. Now

there seems to be this discrepancy about whether we should stay together or

whether we should split.

It broke my heart a little, personally, when we split up. But in professional

wrestling, you don't stay a team forever.

When DX splits and goes its own separate way, China sort of does her own thing.

It's extremely frustrating sometimes.

I would have to stand outside the ring while Hunter did this great stuff.

Every step I take, I'll say, okay, let's try it, but it probably won't be that

good. And then I achieve it, and that will allow me to move to the next level,

the next step, do something else.

It's a marathon, not a sprint, to keep your head above water in WWE and to

really stand the test of time, which Joni did.

So I think it was really beneficial to her that she was outside the ring

destruction before we saw her actually set foot in the ring as a competitor.

And when she did, she knocked everyone's socks off.

From the very beginning, there were no opponents from a female perspective on

her side. But once she started putting together a string of matches, that's

her special athletic ability shined.

Power was at the forefront of

Joni's offense.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is now time for the 1990s.

You know, one of the most groundbreaking things that I can remember about Chyna

was she was the first woman to enter the WWE Royal Rumble.

The first woman ever to enter the Royal Rumble, man. The roof went off in that

place. It was crazy.

And the walk down that ring, it's just all purposeful, not cracking a smile.

Her statement was, I'm going to go for the biggest, strongest man in this ring,

and that is Mark Henry.

China gets in the ring, and she throws Mark Henry, the world's strongest man,

out of the ring.

And so it kind of kept being these series of tests.

Can China hang with all these guys?

255 pounds!

It's over!

It's almost like everybody would set me up to fail, but then when I didn't,

they'd be surprised and then want more of it.

You know, when I was a little girl, I only wanted to be a princess.

But now I'm all grown up, and tonight, I'm going to be a queen.

King of the Ring. That's the first woman ever to be in the King of the Ring

tournament, and I wrestled her. Road Dogg, you got big brass balls to step in

the ring with me.

It was about the spectacle of it, like it's a big muscular woman versus this

white trash dude.

She had hit me in a low blow several times in the build up to this.

So that was the infamous, I came prepared.

And as I had my back turned, she slipped in and hit me in the groin again. And I

pulled out the metal cup.

We had a competitive match.

And honestly, if a creative decision was made for her to beat me, she could have

beat me all day long. And people wouldn't have batted an eye because

believable she was.

I mean, she got to the point where she was.

a believable contender for a title. And there came a time when the evolution of

China had to happen.

Who's the heel?

Jeff Jarrett is scheduled to come out here. Well, Jeff Jarrett is scheduled to

meet China.

Double J stepped up to the plate.

My name is Jeff Jarrett, and I'm a man's man.

My side of the fence, the way I was handling the females and the women was

have their place, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.

Oh, Jeff Jarrett took that ball and ran with it. He's like, oh, you want me to

be a jerk? Watch this.

Women are only good for three things.

Cooking, cleaning, and making babies.

Oh, it was excellent.

All these antiquated stereotypes, like this is trash. This is absolutely

degrading to these ladies. Oh, come on now. It's supposed to make you mad.

You need a good villain to push all those buttons. And it made China the

What took it

to another level was I was the reigning Intercontinental Champion.

You're going to see who's wearing the pants, and then you're going to see

going to be wearing your Intercontinental title.

There was nothing like the build -up to that Intercontinental title match.

You're going to get your rematch all right, but it's going to be the good

housekeeping way.

And we just knew that he was going to get what he deserved, and he did.

A first -ever good housekeeping matchup, King. This was going to be history

-making.

There was that excitement, but I could see there was nerves.

I think she was having some doubts. Am I going to be able to live up to these

expectations?

What is that? Oh, my goodness.

You've been crowned with a seat from the throne. Joni kind of took up the torch

for all of womanhood in that moment.

They literally hit each other with everything, including the kitchen sink.

And I just remember the plethora of weapons being used in very unique ways.

You know, somehow the word had gotten out to the fans that it was his last

in the WWE.

So, naturally, everybody's expecting, well, Jeff's going to lose.

China's going to become the first female intercontinental champion.

But then comes the swerve.

Boom! He hits China with the belt. And to everybody's shock and amazement, one,

two, three, Jeff wins. I'll do it!

The place, you could have heard a pin drop. The crowd was shocked.

How dare that dastardly double J do that to us?

The referees determined that, wait a minute, that

championship belt is not a household item. The match should continue. And in

meantime, Chyna grabs Jeff's guitar.

I mean, China's standing there with an intercontinental championship.

She's holding it high above her head, and I could tell that she knew that she

was part of history.

I remember standing straight up, and truly the first thought that came to my

mind was, times, they are a -changing. I can only think that, you know, from her

story and how many mountains she had to climb to get to that point and how many

times she was told, no, you're not the right fit.

Of course you're not the right fit.

You weren't meant to be the right fit. You were meant to be bigger than that.

You're a star.

As the years have gone on and you hear little girls who are now adults say,

yeah, I watched child on TV.

She gave me hope because there she was, a woman succeeding in a man's

world. Right now, I'm the reigning intercontinental champion.

That belt means that she's the number two athlete in our industry. We don't

an Intercontinental Championship for women. She said, yeah, yeah, well, you

now, because I'm taking it. What I really think people want to see is a

like me taking some guys.

I'm China.

Welcome to my workout.

Don't treat me like a woman.

Don't treat me like a man.

Wrestling is not just a man's game anymore.

I'm probably one of the most recognizable female athletes in the

now.

If I go to India, people know who I am. If I go to Germany, people are there

with posters to sign.

Joni was really beloved.

But in the first couple of years, at least, that love did not extend to the

audience. So I remember on several occasions, she would come back and she'd

a spit that had landed on her. And she took it in stride as being part of the

job. But deep down, she was a woman who always wanted to feel beautiful.

You know, she also had a ton of insecurities and shyness inside and

negative self -image at times because of some of the...

criticism that she would take she'd walk down the entrance ramp and people would

say do you have a penis her fans say she's a great performer her critics say

looks like a pumped up i'm sure you've heard the rumors some people even say

this china used to be a man because you're so muscular have you heard this

before oh please you've heard all of us yeah been there done that before a

thousand times really so she's working incredibly hard to achieve this look and

then she's being knocked and teased she was seeing all these wonderful changes

in her body but she may not have been seeing the feminine things and some of

those things that could not have been changed without a little help from a

surgeon so she took some time off to have a little bit of work done that made

her feel better about herself i sometimes wonder if she knew how the

beauty that she had at that time far

exceeded what you might have seen on the outside.

Funny, the irony is Hunter fell head over heels in love with the first one.

I do not remember

the city we were in, but we were in the dressing room.

Her demeanor was just like, like she wasn't there.

Chyna had her suspicions that Triple H and Stephanie McMahon were in more than

just an on -camera relationship.

You mean the world to me.

I love you more than anything in the world.

So she had found a letter at their house in Hunter's stuff where it just came

out and Stephanie admitted that she had feelings for Hunter and it devastated

Chyna. I get out of control too.

Okay. I remember being on either the bike or the Stairmaster.

And she got on the apparatus next to me. We started talking and she broke down

in tears.

I mean, I can't fathom that.

Where I used to be like at the pinnacle and now everyone's whispering and

talking.

It clearly was going to make her future in WWE a lot more cloudy.

Once Chyna and Triple H.

Broke up, you know, in a way, she kind of got pushed down to the women's

division. She started having more matches with females, whether it was

Lita or Trish Stratus, all very accomplished wrestlers, some of the best

history, but also much smaller and not as physically strong as Chyna. Lita's in

deep, deep trouble. Look at the strength of Chyna, the number one winner of the

world. With the women, I think she was a little bit like, ah, this is a night

off. She's been up there a long time. Boom!

It wasn't personal, but she did see that as, like, I've earned this spot, and

I'm not looking to give up my spot lightly.

As much as I respect all of the women in the World Wrestling Federation, and I

do, I felt as of late that I really don't have a whole lot of competition.

So instead of pinning my fellow divas, from now on,

I'm just going to have to spank them.

How far can she go working with the men?

Were we going to eventually put her against The Rock or Stone Cold and have

beat her? Like, that's not good for her either, I don't think.

Or are we going to invest in, like we see today, this women's wrestling being

thing in the future?

WrestleMania 17, I think it's probably bittersweet for Chyna because, you know,

she had been used to wrestling men and being in some real high -profile

and now she was wrestling Ivory for the women's title.

Ivory was, like, the most annoying thing on your television at the time.

Ivory didn't stand much of a chance, but it was the way to get the title onto

Chyna.

She did kind of have a lackadaisical pinfall on Ivory, and you almost wonder

she did that on purpose to kind of show the WWE, like, hey, I'm better than

this.

But I just think that was a time in Chyna's life where for the first time

could sense that men were looking at her in a sexual way. They were looking at

her thinking, wow, that lady is hot. And I think she loved it.

She was the double -headed sex symbol. One minute she's picking up and scowling

as she body slams someone, and the next day she's in Playboy.

Joni was approached by Hugh Hackner. There was some talk about her doing

Playboy, and she was all in right from the get -go.

By doing this, and especially by getting the cover and such a big layout, it's

really such a unique opportunity because it shows a very strong, sexy, powerful,

millennium woman, and I believe it's me.

When people told me...

That I was ugly and could never grace the cover or be Playboy material.

Well, I guess that I had to prove them wrong.

Oh, yeah.

And you did it, young lady.

And we're damn proud of you. You ready?

Yes, I'm ready. I was so proud of her because I thought she was just

beautiful.

She was feminine. She was athletic looking, confident.

Isn't that what all women want, right?

The Playboy cover that turned out to be the best -selling issue in 10 years.

Now she's being embraced as one of the sexiest women in the world.

It's just one other example of so many of the things that I've been able to do.

I don't know if she could go any higher. You know, on the late -night talk show,

Jay Leno, cover of Playboy, cover of TV Guide.

There's China, the perfect combination of brawn and beauty.

I am China, the superstar. I wrestle in the ring. I am able to do other TV

shows. I've done movies, and I have an autobiography coming out in January.

So she was at the pinnacle of her career.

And unfortunately, when you're at the pinnacle, there's really no place to go

but down.

I just worry sometimes that I dedicate everything to this job and that maybe,

you know, 10 years from now I'm not doing this anymore and I will have not,

know, gotten married or had kids or done things that normal people do.

This is a very short -lived business and I just sometimes think, you know, that

day is going to come for me when I'm going to plan on being here but, you

suddenly I'll be gone and I'll think, now look what I did.

China's contract was up.

So she had to go in and renegotiate. She wanted equal pay to the guys. She was

one of the main faces of the company that she busted her ass to become.

And she wanted the same contract that the other faces of the company had at

time. The Rock, Stone Cold, The Undertaker.

Joni may have just drawn a line in the sand saying, I want a million

She thought she deserved it, and the office didn't agree.

This is an historic day because the World Wrestling Federation today is

Wall Street.

Years later, she would tell people that they didn't renew her contract or that

they cut her because Stephanie McMahon was mad at her because of the Triple H

deal, but that's not the case. You know, Chyna was offered a chance to stay in

WWE for a good salary.

And she decided not to do it. And I think that was probably the decision

started her downfall.

I wasn't too particularly happy at how it all ended, how it went down.

I mean, you don't want to see your friends hurt.

I do feel like there was a sense of abandonment that Joni felt because

we did not keep in touch. We, the WWE community, did not keep in touch with

like we used to.

Once you're accepted in the club and there are wrestling clubs, we do look at

each other like family.

And there's an intimacy you can't avoid when you're riding together and, you

know, you're wrestling together, you're getting hurt together. Then being

suddenly torn out of that world, I could see that being difficult to kind of

readjust and get your feet back on the ground.

When Joni left the WWE, she decided that she was going to try to do some acting

and see if she could make go of the whole Hollywood thing.

What?

She was stereotyped as a wrestler, so pretty much any of the roles that she

were as a big, brawny, wrestling type of character.

It was starting to get increasingly harder and harder to keep things going.

It didn't materialize into anything that stuck.

What?

You don't recognize me?

She couldn't legally use the name Chyna because the WWE owned that contract.

WB lawyers have asked us not to refer to this former wrestler by her stage name.

So she couldn't sell herself out in the entertainment world as China.

She had to go by Joni Lauer. Now nobody knows Joni Lauer.

During this period, Joni's spending a lot of time at the Playboy Mansion.

She moved to Hollywood, and all of a sudden, you know, someone that had been

clean, her whole life started dabbling in drugs and alcohol.

She would no -show casting calls because she was hungover or on drugs somewhere.

I think Chyna was longing.

for genuine friendships, and she had trouble finding them. You know, I think

most of the people that she was hanging around were associating themselves with

her because she was famous.

She'd have a couple of gigs, and then they would go away, and then

now what?

Things started going downhill with my wife. I just finally had enough.

And I left.

I had moved out to L .A. I was really brokenhearted.

My grandmother says, Johnny,

like, China's out there. You guys always got along great. You should look her

up.

My grandma had a really track record as a matchmaker.

That was a really bad idea.

I never looked at Johnny like that, I swear to God. Like, before, like, our

relationship blossomed, I never thought twice about... Like, anything

romantically with her. I was in heaven, man. Like, that was, I was, I just

thought, okay, happiness.

And I think she felt that, too, man. Like, it was, like, there was a couple

months there that everything was just, like, heaven.

Joni became involved with Sean, another wonderful guy. Three for three with men.

that loved her, really truly loved her and accepted her the way that she was.

But he was in a bad place, too, so I think two wrongs made a really bad

They really met each other when both of them were at rock bottom. Together, you

know, they just kind of started this downward spiral that lasted for quite a

while. There's that hurt, right? I'm just, I'm hurting.

I'm hurting, and she makes me feel better.

And she's the only thing that, besides like the drugs, I just started getting

into the speed and all that.

And it hadn't, it didn't seem like a big deal at the time. It took a little bit

for that to really like grab ahold of me and kick my ass.

I don't want to cast aspersions on how their relationship was.

From the outside, it looked very toxic and not good for either one of them.

Look, I'm itching and scratching. I'm uncomfortable talking about it because

was just weird to me. And I know it wasn't a good part of their lives.

I was hiding my drug use from her.

And I didn't realize at the time that she was hiding hers from me as well.

I was doing drugs in the bathroom, in the shower.

I would spend a lot of time in the shower.

A lot of time in the shower.

And, you know, finally she found the paraphernalia.

Like, I just thought it was over. Like, okay.

Bummer, man. I'm so happy in this, you know.

And now it's all f***ed up.

And she was just like, huh.

Yeah, well, I do this.

So you guys no longer had to hide from each other? No.

No. And that wasn't a very good thing.

So around 2002, a new opportunity presented itself.

After she was invited to leave by WWE, the company New Japan saw her worth and

invited her to come and play with them.

Tokyo Dome sold out 60 ,000 plus people.

Masahiro Chono against female wrestler. This was a huge deal.

Her walking down that ramp, you know, in that beautiful outfit, it was like

nothing that I've seen before, especially in New Japan Pro Wrestling.

He was their number one person in Japan, and she was going toe -to -toe

with him.

Chono was like blood coming out of her ear, and her face was red.

Chono won the match.

Even with him winning, she really was the star of the match completely.

Obviously the star of the show.

Let me wait until everybody's in here to tell you that I didn't lose that match

because I beat his ass in front of all of his fans.

I can remember sitting in the corner watching her interview and how proud she

was. Realistically, I was quite honored to fight Chunk.

He's the best.

When she came home, I really noticed that she was different.

I couldn't have a regular conversation with her.

She would be calling me at all hours of the day and the night.

The drug use sort of escalated. I knew there was a problem.

She kind of stopped training with us. We just kind of saw less and less of her

until eventually it was just like, oh, we're not doing business with China

anymore. I think the change really began after her run in Japan was over. I wish

she had gone about establishing herself on the independent circuit. She would

have been a huge draw everywhere she went. But she kind of gave up on

after that.

And in a sense, it felt like wrestling gave up on her.

For two or three years, between about 2003 and 2005, China and Xbox were doing

lot of drugs together. They were doing crystal meth.

I think they called it ice.

She said it keeps her up for days on end. She can get so much done.

And then when she did fall asleep, she would crash.

That's kind of how the two of them were living.

We were doing the same exact drugs, but I had graduated to the needle, and that

really bothered her.

Oh, it is a great recipe for disaster.

Now you've got two people, and so you've got to buy twice the dope, and so

you've got to get twice the money. And so now we're willing to do anything.

Eventually, China and Xbox, you know, had sexual intercourse. They filmed it.

Ended up selling that film.

The worst idea ever.

I mean, we're both just... People that have been there, as far as drug -wise

knows, like, your inhibitions and all that goes out the window.

I don't think there's anybody

that is...

Really proud of that. I think you do that out of necessity. You look around

say, well, where else am I going to make this kind of money?

It ended up a deal being done with the same people that did the Tommy Lee,

Pamela Anderson tape.

My initial reaction was horror.

Black? Yeah.

All right.

Secondly, I thought, that's not the real Joni. That's just, that's drugs.

She was grasping for straws to get money, to get publicity.

I don't know if Joni ever outran the shame of it.

Things had progressively gotten worse, and I knew, like, I was in rough shape

too, and at least, like, realized, like, I need help myself. I can't help

anyone. She got to the point where I was so worried about her drug use.

And Sean was worried about her drug use, that he actually called me and said,

you need to come out here and try to get Joni into a rehab.

So I actually got on a plane. I showed up at her door. She had no idea I was

coming. And as I opened the door, there's Kathy right in front of me.

Classic intervention.

Joni, I think you've got a problem. I really, really love you.

Please do this for me.

Will you consider going to rehab?

I somehow managed to drag her butt on a plane.

to this place in Arizona.

She got there, and they gave her the papers to sign in, and she said nope

and walked out the door and left.

And that was the end of our relationship.

From then on, Joni wasn't really speaking to me anymore because she was

at me for trying to do this.

Of all the people, like damage and all that, Kathy was hurt the worst of anyone

besides Joni herself.

I think all of that, like, spun her into a downward spiral, and I don't know if

she ever kicked out of it.

It wasn't so much, like, coke or anything at this point. It was

pills. It was alcohol and, like, Xanax. They would go on these massive drug

binges where they would get in fights. At one point, she punched him and broke

his nose. Another time, she allegedly attacked him in front of his kid.

It got to the point where...

He drove her to Cedars -Sinai Medical Center in 2005 and dropped her off and

said, this girl needs help.

I never saw her again. I never saw her in person again.

It was hard for a long time after that.

Within months, Chyna went from being in People magazine and TV Guide

to getting lampooned on TMZ.

Cruel. It's cruel. I know. I'm sorry. I'm a man -eater.

Cruel. I had found a niche at that time and phase of my life where I was placing

celebrities on these celebrity -based reality shows.

And I had a slew of them. I knew if I saw her on TV at that period in time, it

was going to be a train wreck.

No one wants to be the boring person on a reality show.

But I think she overplayed it to the point where it was hard to tell where

old Joanie ended and this new Joanie began.

When you're tuning into Celebrity Rehab, specifically because

you know someone who's on there, that's a bad sign.

What scares you most about being here?

The confusion of why I'm here.

It is sad when your heroes let you down.

It's a bummer. For about 10 years, China just continued to go through ups and

downs and peaks and valleys. But things actually got so bad around 2012 that her

friend got worried about her, went over to check on her. China was in an

apartment with no furniture.

There was an air mattress on the floor that she was sleeping on with no sheets.

The apartment reeked of whiskey.

There was cigarette butts everywhere.

She answered the door with heavy eyelids, reeking of alcohol.

At that point, her friend said, Joni, you're coming with me. I'm taking you

to Hawaii, and we're going to get your life in order. I'm not taking no for an

answer. China packed up her stuff, went to Hawaii, and tried to make some

changes.

Joni spent a very brief period in Hawaii, and then she... packed up her

and moved to Japan.

There we are.

Learn English with me.

She got her head straight. She was teaching these Japanese kids English.

I'm getting used to living in Japan.

I almost felt, for the first time, a sense of relief.

This is what she needs. She needs, like, a boring schedule that just gives her

somewhere to be, something that's helping others and giving her a purpose.

Joni loved Japan.

She loved it. She loved going there. She loved the culture. She loved the

people.

This is kind of like a little scrapbook from people that were in Japan with her.

This means a lot to me because it tells me how these people knew her not as

a wrestler.

She looks happy.

She looks very happy.

I don't think China got any better in Japan. I think she got worse.

Within a couple of weeks, you know, she was found on her kitchen floor with deep

cuts in her forearms, and she had to be rushed to the hospital.

It's only recently I found out that they prescribed her some medication because

she was in a severe depression. I'm just sitting here in an empty room in the

boiling heat.

To the point where she tried to take her life by attacking a policeman.

And police in Japan don't carry firearms, or else it may have been a

story.

A group of police officers tackled her, put her in handcuffs and took her to a

mental asylum.

The incidents cost China her job.

I figured the one way that I can get China back to the state

and do something with her is bring back the idea of reconstruction of China,

which back in the mid 2000s was a reality show that we were pitching. So

to make sure that you are provided.

With the lifestyle and the people that you're surrounded with, that is only

going to bring you joy and happiness from now until the day you die. Let's

make it a documentary.

We'll film a year of her life.

Eventually, she did get out of there, and that's when she flew back to the

United States to try to make her documentary.

She's going to face her demons.

She's going to be put in some very uncomfortable situation.

Basically, what Anthony was trying to design was like a...

B -level version of the resurrection of Jake the Snake Roberts.

If you want to stay with us, you don't drink ever again in the presence of us,

period. So when was the last time you put some scissors or some knives to

your... It smelled fishy right from the get -go. She thought she was going to

make a fresh start.

All it really did was bring everything right, bubble right back up to the

surface again.

I feel pretty tired.

That's what we charge.

$100 for the two.

Jet lag is starting to set in now. I'm still assimilating just being in the

United States. She did her first Comic -Con in Long Island. Mick came up to her

and they hugged for like five minutes in tears and whatnot.

Hi, Joni. She wrapped her arms around me. It was like I'd rediscovered a great

friend. I'm about 35 minutes away from here. Do you want to come over and have

dinner with the police?

My dad called and he said, yeah, Joni's coming over. And I'm like, what?

Like, she is?

I got the

sense. I

wish she had not agreed to have

her journey documented.

We are here to tell you about a very special project.

It's called the reconstruction of China.

Joni showed me her upcoming schedule.

You went away for, what, four years?

And I just felt like she was diving into the deep end of the pool when she

should have been dipping her toes into the shallow end. Suddenly, I wasn't

remembered for, like, all the great things I did in wrestling, but, like,

become this monster.

I voiced my concern. Like, that's all you can do is give a friend the best

advice you can and let them know.

You were there for them. The documentary ended up being just a series of

manufactured events that would look good on TV.

We're about to go into the headquarter office of WWE.

We're going to ask for Hunter.

We're going to ask for Vince.

We're driving cross -country.

Let's stop by and see if they owe you any money.

Harmless to me.

And he goes in with a camera person and forces a meeting at the WWE headquarters

without no appointment.

And we were asked to simply leave.

We were not greeted favorably.

Everybody was staring right at me. I got a couple smiles.

She was in no mental shape to take on that kind of schedule or that kind of

spotlight. Now this morning, we are on our way to Miami, where my father

is buried.

There were a lot of people that wanted to help her, and she was very good at

keeping a distance and not letting people back in.

And she certainly did that with me. You told me all those things, but then you

were never there.

I don't know why. I mean, I think, unfortunately, Joni probably suffered

some mental illnesses at a very young age that went undiagnosed, undetected.

They certainly exacerbated all the problems that she had later in her life.

Hey!

90 % of the time, China was incredible, down -to -earth, hilarious.

Unfortunately, there was still that 10 % to 20 % side that wanted to be a diva,

that wanted to get house.

Anthony showed up, and he went like this.

He took some pictures and some markers at me, and like, like, what the f***?

Who the f***?

So she never really felt like she had a problem, an addiction problem.

But she obviously did.

She would binge sometimes 17 straight days. She'd probably sleep two of those.

Having a hard time eating. I need some help.

What do you want? Can you help me? You have to remember, Joni was fragile.

I'm trying to, bitch! As powerful as she was, she was dealt a bad hand. And the

right people were not there for her in the right place at the right time.

I spent a long 10 years, 15 years. I don't know how long.

No.

But I'm tired.

Retina, I'm a champion.

Don't treat me that way.

She leaves a voicemail. Hey, guys, I'm going to seek rehab. I'm going to try to

clean myself up. And don't tell Anthony.

A day or so went by.

She wasn't responding to texts. She no -showed an appointment.

She probably had a big bender right before she went to rehab. A lot of

do that.

He went over, snuck in past the security gate at the apartment, went up to her

floor, and the door was unlocked.

He walks in conveniently with another guy filming on a camera phone behind

I think he knew once the door was unlocked and he could just walk in

something might not be good.

China was found dead here at her apartment in Redondo Beach, California.

A friend told cops that China hadn't answered her phone in days and came to

check on her. That's when the friend found her lying in bed.

I was in Atlanta airport and it was on the news.

The news came in and I burst into tears, burst into tears.

It was a combination of alcohol and sedatives. You do anything in excess,

you're...

you're likely to pay, and in this case, it cost her her life.

She was so much more than just another celebrity gone from

an overdose.

She was way more than that.

I think I mourned her death years before she actually died. You know, when she

died, it was horrible, but I remember also thinking, thank God this woman

finally has some peace.

The memorial service for China was like nothing I've ever seen. It seemed like

more of a production than a memorial service.

The goal was, let's get a bunch of celebrities here, let's sell some

let's sell some shirts, and do something that people are going to talk about.

They sold tickets for that?

Oh, hell, really?

that memorial show was a low -rent hot mess.

Yes, I was invited. No, I did not attend.

In my opinion, it was a joke.

When he held up the urn and he said, The bitch is in the house!

I was mortified.

This urn was custom -made. It's got her classic colors, and the font is similar

to what she sort of...

was using towards the end. And I think that she would really, really love this.

This is China.

The morning after the memorial service, a small group of people went out on a

boat and spread China's ashes into the Pacific Ocean.

The horizon where the sky meets the ocean is three miles.

No matter where you are in the ocean. We did it exactly three miles out of her

apartment. So that if you go to her apartment and you stand out and look

the ocean, you're with her.

Here's this famous woman who not long ago was on The Tonight Show, a woman who

was on billboards and in Playboy. And now I'm on this boat and no one that's

here toward the end of her life other than Anthony really knew her. And it was

just a sad thing, but it also just kind of illustrated.

All the problems that were in her life. That was the issue. She didn't have any

close friends.

If I had the chance to talk to her again, I would have reiterated that I

her and I was there for her. But more importantly, I would have backed it up

with my actions.

There always seemed to be a tomorrow until there wasn't.

I got some people in my life I'd love to have one more opportunity with, and I

would love one more opportunity with her. I'd love to have dinner. I'd love

have lunch, have a conversation, have a coffee, anything with her, and just

spend some time and laugh.

Sorry. She was so funny, man. She was so fun to be around.

I just miss her.

I didn't do that. I didn't call her and say, hey, guess what I'm doing now.

Thank you.

Maybe that phone call would have let her have one less drink.

Let her have one less bump.

There's a lot to put on myself, but you know, you always wonder.

Because she meant a lot to me.

She meant a lot. Can we take a break? Let's take a break.

We'd like to welcome you to the 2019 WWE Hall of Fame ceremony.

I was asked to go to the Hall of Fame induction for DX, of which Joni was a

part. I have never, ever attended anything like that in my entire life.

all, the WWE, if they do it, they do it big.

Joni was on everybody's mind that night.

Her legacy goes way beyond our industry. In some manner, I look at her during

that time frame.

has like this paradigm shift of the thinking of how people saw women and

of power and what women can do with that power. It's fitting in this moment that

at WrestleMania tomorrow night, the women will headline WrestleMania for the

first time in history.

And the night before that, probably the most impactful woman to ever step foot

in this ring gets inducted into the Hall of Fame.

She set the table for...

Every woman that came after her, for me personally, she encouraged me. She

believed in me, and she told me any dream I had, anything I wanted to do in

company, that I could do that. I feel sad that Joni didn't really get to see

much she meant to these next generations, myself being one of them.

those good things she did often get forgotten about, and that's what

happen. I just wish history had not taken so long.

to recognize her contributions.

I wouldn't be where I am without her in my career.

The ex wouldn't be where it is.

I see her so differently than her China persona. To me, she's not China. To me,

she's Joni. I really miss her every single day.

Gabby, she's here.

She's here.

The real her.

You know, Mick Foley had always told his daughter, Noelle, back when she was

about four, that China was strong. Oh, there's no one stronger than China. I

remember saying to my dad, Joni is strong like dolphin, or she's maybe even

stronger than dolphin.

That was my daughter's gauge on strength.

So if you were up there with dolphins, you were doing really well in my

daughter's mind.

We all kind of found a place on the boat. We were getting ready to drive

All of a sudden, someone goes, oh, my gosh, look at these dolphins.

And everyone hopped out from their seat and went over to the side of the boat,

and there was literally like four or five dolphins on the side of the boat,

of like escorting the boat back to the dock.

And then someone said, they're over here, too. And, like, I ran over to the

other side, and there was four or five more just flanking the boat, guiding us

back to shore.

Jason was there to document it.

Dolphins emerged.

Wow.

Dolphins emerged.

during the sprinkling of the ashes.

It's actually fitting, I think.

I felt like those dolphins were kind of China's way of saying, hey,

I'm good.

I'll be okay.