The world was rocked on April 20th by the news that Chyna, professional wrestling and porn icon, had passed away at the age of 45. We at HotMovies are extremely saddened by her loss and wish to pay tribute to this Mistress of Muscle.

She was born Joan Marie Laurer on December 27, 1969 in Rochester, New York. Her parents separated while she was still young, and she gained an early taste for the road as she moved with her mother around the country frequently. As a teen, she discovered weightlifting and found solace from her hectic family life.

She was uncertain what to do with her life after college. Given her language skills (she spoke fluent French and German), her previous membership with the ROTC, and work with the Peace Corps in Guatemala, she seriously considered pursuing a career with the FBI. However, her love for bodybuilding won out, and she decided to pursue a career as a professional wrestler. She trained with legendary wrestler Killer Kowalski, where she first met a fellow student named Paul Levesque. Several years later, after Levesque had been hired by the World Wrestling Federation as the dastardly Triple H, he convinced them to hire his girlfriend Joanie as his bodyguard. Despite initial apprehension, Vince McMahon brought her on in 1997, where she became an instant sensation as "Chyna, the 9th Wonder of the World."

As a member of the stable "D-Generation X," along with Triple H and Shawn Michaels, she became one of the biggest stars of pro wrestling's most popular era. Women wrestlers had always been of the "pretty and tough" or the "ugly and mean" variety. Chyna was something entirely different; never before had a female wrestler been so physically imposing, not only to other women wrestlers, but to the men as well. She was easily the most popular women's wrestler of all time, becoming the first woman to ever enter the Royal Rumble, and the first and ONLY woman to win the prestigious Intercontinental Championship. She sadly was let go by the company in 2001 after backstage drama reared its head. Chyna had been in a romantic relationship with Triple H. This was severed after he began an affair with the daughter of the company's owner.

Chyna went on to other things, which led to her work in the adult film industry. She'd had earlier dalliances with sex work as a phone sex operator in her youth, and posed for a best-selling Playboy pictorial spread in 2000. In 2005, a sex tape was released featuring Chyna and her fiancé, fellow professional wrestler Sean "X-Pac" Waltman. It was released as 1 Night in China, and sold over 100,000 copies, earning it the 2006 AVN Award for Best Selling Title of the Year. This led to the sequel, Another Night in China.

She would perform in three more adult films as a parody of herself in Chyna is Queen of the Ring, and as She-Hulk in the Axel Braun films Avengers XXX and She-Hulk porn parodies. She was most recently known to be working as an English teacher in Japan. In February 2016, she made headlines again when fellow former wrestling icon Tammy "Sunny" Sytch released her own foray into porn and intimated that she'd love to make a film with Chyna.

Ron Jeremy, who did work with Chyna a couple of times had this to share:

I really enjoyed working with Chyna. When we first worked together on Chyna is Queen of the Ring, my scene was with Valerie Kay but she insisted on doing a scene with me, and so halfway through I switch from Valerie to her. I got to know her better on The Surreal Life: Fame Games when we lived together for 12 days. I found her to be a good-hearted person who truly cared about people.

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