Well, Stone Cold Steve Austin really opened up a can of worms when he asked Triple H whether his ex-girlfriend Chyna would ever be inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame last Monday on his podcast for the WWE Network, and I'm sure he, nor Hunter, was fully aware of what the consequences would be.

Maybe The Cerebral Assassin could have predicted the inevitable accusations of hypocrisy and sexism that followed over his excuse that Chyna's porn career would exclude her from the institution in today's PG-rated environment. Even the criticisms of on-air bullying by Chyna's friend Vince Russo could be taken for granted. But I don't think even Hunter himself would have forecasted that Chyna would give a lengthy interview for the VIP section of Russo's website PyroAndBallyhoo.com giving full details of how their relationship broke down, including allegations of domestic violence against WWE's current Executive Vice President of Talent, Live Events & Creative.

It was well known that Chyna was the last person in the company to know about Paul Levesque's affair with Vince McMahon's daughter, Stephanie McMahon. Thus, the anecdote that Triple H once stood up Chyna at an arena whilst unbeknownst to her he flew with Vince and Stephanie to the next town in their corporate WWE jet isn't all that shocking, even though it's still objectionable behaviour.

However, what was surprising was Chyna's new claim that Triple H had assaulted her during an argument where she confronted him with her suspicions that something was going on behind her back:

"So I think Hunter's plan was to get me to leave the relationship first and then that way he can start dating Stephanie and like everything would be cool. So I would ask Hunter time and time again, I figured it was better just to address the problem and ask him honestly and I would have to believe his answer, so we got into a heated argument, we were not getting along, I told him 'I know something's going on. Don't tell me something's not going on.' He swiped my hand, I swiped his hand, he hit me. I went back like Jerry Springer and then I was like OK that's the deal breaker for me, the relationship is now over, so now I have to leave. After that, I know that he was crying and I know that he felt bad that he hit me, and my first initial reaction was to get up, and like I don't know, I was just in shock and it felt like a Jerry Springer moment, it was very surreal, and I just couldn't believe that he hit me. But he knows that like I don't stand for physical violence, albeit we'll get to that after with Sean [Waltman], so I knew at that point I had to leave, but I needed some sort of closure so when he was gone I started looking all over the house, and I looked into his, long story short, I looked into his briefcase and I found a love letter from Stephanie that had [been] dated a year back, so the whole time they were doing the storyline basically they were together."

I think it's important to stress that we have absolutely no reason to believe that these allegations are true, but equally, Chyna would be very foolish to make up such stories against an executive of a publicly traded company. As always, in such private incidents, the only people who know the truth are the two parties involved.

Chyna's tale then returned to familiar territory, as she corroborated the story in Matthew Randazzo V's book Ring Of Hell that immediately upon finding out that Triple H was two-timing her with the boss's daughter, she rung Vince McMahon himself up to inform him of the news, only to be told in no uncertain terms not to kick up a fuss about it:

"And I immediately called Vince McMahon, and got him out of a meeting that he was in and he said 'Chyna, what's so important that you have to talk to me right now.' I told him, because in my mind I was thinking he doesn't know, of course Hunter's not going to be dating his daughter, it's secret, he's gonna be on my side right? Well, doh. He said, 'Well, I hope you don't lose your job over this.'"

Chyna then details the environment backstage on the first Monday Night Raw after her break-up with Hunter, how he gave her the cold shoulder and never even spoke to her again until many years later (when he picked up Chyna's then boyfriend Sean Waltman for rehab), whilst Stephanie later pulled her aside and gave her a good ticking off.

Later in the interview, Chyna criticised WWE for ignoring her many pleas for help whilst she was plagued with substance abuse problems and suggested that this was an indictment of their Wellness Policy. The truth to this statement depends on when Chyna contacted WWE, as their open offer of WWE-sponsored rehabilitation for all former talent wasn't made until September 2007, long after her addiction issues began.

For a fuller recap of Chyna's chat with Russo, please read the coverage by DailyDDT.com.

We reached out to WWE for a response to Chyna's allegations that Triple H once hit her. They quickly got back to us and we obtained the following statement from Paul Levesque himself:

"The false statements and reckless allegations made by Joan Laurer (aka Chyna) on a recent podcast about a physical dispute are a complete fabrication. While Joan has had significant struggles in life, this does not justify making such claims."

We would like to thank WWE for giving their side of the story on this challenging subject. We will let you the reader be the judge of who to believe.