Beneath the Skin With Chyna

By Kevin Kelley

There’s an old adage which says that the people who are the quietest usually have the most to say.

Since departing from Walter "Killer" Kowalski’s school for a role in the World Wrestling Federation, the only impression fans have received of Chyna is the powerful—yet intriguing—bodyguard of D-Generation X. In reality, behind the stoic athlete resides an extraordinary human being who was able to rise above a broken family and make it in a sport some have said she had no business being in. In this exclusive first-ever interview with the quiet leader of DX, we find out what it’s like to be the Ninth Wonder of the World.

KK: First question: Where were you born?

CHYNA: In Rochester, New York.

KK: How many brothers and sisters do you have?

CHYNA: I have one sister. She is my sister, mother, best friend in the world, everything to me. She’s five years older than me and I basically live with her. I have one brother I’m not real close with, but in my latter adult years I’ve been making the attempt to become more family-oriented with him. He’s four years older than me and he lives in Syracuse.

KK: Tell us about your parents.

CHYNA: It’s a very dysfunctional family. I have no contact with my father or my mother. After several attempts, my mother’s been married five times. I left home when I was about 15 years old. My father, who is a recovered alcoholic, hasn’t cut the mustard when I’ve tried to contact him, so it’s always just one disappointment after another. So, I have absolutely no contact with them.

KK: Sounds like your older sister really filled in when it came to parenting?

CHYNA: Yes. That’s the same with all us kids, which is probably the reason I’m not that close with my brother. But my sister and I have always held that bond together. Because of the age difference she did take over that mother role for me, and she’s always been extremely protective of me and caring.

KK: I’d imagine the normally painful teen age years were made even more difficult by the pressures at home. How did that impact school and dating and things like that?

CHYNA: Miraculously, honestly, I don’t know how I’m not one of the most dysfunctional people around. You hear about how people who come from families like that are usually very disturbed. And, I think, although I never got along with my mother she must have instilled some values in us all because we’ve all turned out to be really good kids. And I think I learned to use that to my advantage. I would always integrate myself into my school work. I always made the dean’s list. I was always very smart. I was always very athletic. I involved myself in everything I possibly could, as did my sister. Maybe that’s why I’m so driven to get attention and be in the spotlight and end up where I am today—because I’ve always been like that. I’m always seeking attention in some form or another.

KK: Your grades were not affected. You stayed in school and you graduated. Did you go to college?

CHYNA: Yes, I did. I went to the University of Tampa, and I majored in Spanish literature. It’s actually a double major. I got a literature major, but I did it in Spanish. I was very into foreign languages. My actual goal was to work for organizations such as U.S. Aid or the United Nations. I did a lot of internships with organizations such as American States and one with U.S. Aid. I joined the Peace Corps after college and went to Costa Rica to teach people how to read and write in Spanish. That was kind of my goal, although that didn’t end up happening.

KK: How did you go from upstate New York to the University of Tampa?

CHYNA: Well, because of the fact that I did very well in school, when I was 16 I won a scholarship through the United Nations. I was very advanced in Spanish. And they sent me to Spain for six months to study. I liked it so much that when the time ended I stayed there and finished my high school diploma in Spain. I enjoyed it so much that that’s how I picked my major. So, I went from there. When I came back from college and the Peace Corps, I went back to Tampa and I graduated in two and a half years. So, I was really motivated to do things quickly. I didn’t quite know for what reason, but I was just really motivated that way. So, because I’d been there for two and a half years—which is longer than I’ve been any place in my life up until now—I decided I would job hunt there. I actually went to Miami, and I would commute there for certain weekends or during the week and line up interviews. I had an ongoing interview with the Secret Service for about two years. I wanted to be either an athletic trainer for them or a bilingual agent. They play head games with you, and it’s kind of a crappy job and the pay is low, but it was what I really wanted to do. They want to make sure you are the right candidate for them, so I spent a ton of time interviewing and testing and moving up that ladder. After a couple of years I guess I finally decided that was not what I wanted to do, because I was putting all my eggs in one basket. So, I went to visit my sister in New Hampshire for Christmas, and I thought I would just go out on a couple of interviews for the sake of experience, and I ended up getting a job. I just kind of spontaneously said, "I’ve had enough of interviewing and I want to do something now." So, I moved to New Hampshire and started at a company called Mobile Com, which is now Mobile Media. I sold beepers to major corporations like Polaroid and UPS and dealt with huge accounts selling beepers—which is not what I wanted to do. It was a sales job, so I had a lot of liberty. For your average job I guess it was good for me, but it was not what I wanted to do. I was bored stiff.

KK: After some time in the working world, your interest was not only in academics but also in athletics. Growing up, you said you were involved in a lot of different sports. What did you play?

CHYNA: Well, I tried to play everything. I tried basketball and couldn’t shoot a basket to save my life. I tried soccer and couldn’t kick the ball through the net. Genetically, I knew I had a gift. I was always bigger than everybody else. I was very tomboyish, and I saw what the guys were doing, so I just started putzing around with the weights a little bit. And really when I got into college, I was never much of a partyer. I was always the fuddy-duddy. When everyone else was out having a good time, I found my way to the gym and started playing around. I absolutely didn’t know what I was doing at all, but whatever I was doing my body started responding like that, and I just went "Wow" and stuck with it. So, it was mainly bodybuilding that got me going because I saw such a change in my body and had such a genetic gift.

KK: So, you not only completed school and college in two and a half years with a degree in Spanish literature, but you were also building another life as well—the life you would go to beyond the working world. When did you make the transition from the job to getting into competition and wanting to be an athletic professional?

CHYNA: Well, in college, when you have outside activities groups allow you to join in a college play or college song and dance or band. I sang in a band, too. I just always had that yearning to entertain as well. Once you leave that environment, what’s to do as an adult in the working world? There’s really not an opportunity. So, even when I worked, I did things like singing telegrams on the side on the weekends. I’ve done it all. I joined a belly dancing group and learned to belly dance. I actually toured around New Hampshire at all the Greek restaurants with this belly dancing group. And I loved it, I just loved entertaining. I just thought, "I have too much of an athletic gift and a yearning for entertainment to let it lie." And I just always knew from the time I was a little girl that I was born to entertain and it was killing me just working and not doing anything. So, I started doing fitness contests, but I was too big. Basically, I remember one fitness contest I did—they told me not to come back. They also wrote me a letter saying, "This is not a bodybuilding contest, we’re not looking for your type of physique. Don’t come back." And I said, "All right, I’ll show you. You can’t stop me from coming back." It was a televised event, and I wanted to get exposure because I thought somebody would see me. The more they were telling me I wouldn’t fit in with them, the more they would see me. They can’t keep me from coming. The next year I went back and did something totally off the wall. I did a sword dance with my belly dancing costume on! It was just so totally outlandish that I stuck out like a sore thumb. I got this idea in my head in the meantime that I would do so good in wrestling because I was such an entertainer. I could learn like that and my body fit well with that. I had been rejected from everything else. I didn’t believe in bodybuilding because overall as a sport I think it’s very unhealthy. And I think most bodybuilders don’t look good—they’re not fit people. They don’t look good all year long, they’re up and down and unhealthy, and most of them are heavily drug abused. I was a fit girl, a big girl who wanted to entertain—wrestling seemed like such a good niche for me. So, that’s how I ended up going to Walter Kowalski’s school. Someone said, "He lives right around the area," and I said, "I should do wrestling." And word got to me that he lived nearby, so I literally called him out of the phone book. This crotchety old man answered the phone, like 11 o’clock at night. I told him I wanted to come to the school, and that’s where it started.

KK: Had you been a fan of wrestling while growing up?

CHYNA: No, never. I thought it was the stupidest thing and that it was for guys. My brother enjoyed it, and I remember when we were little we would have cage matches in the dog kennel in the backyard. I remember he would invite his buddies over and I would make them a little belt out of tin foil and my beads. I couldn’t appreciate it for what it was and never took it as an athletic form of entertainment the way I do now. I just knew I would be good at it, and it would allow me to entertain and to use my body.

KK: So, at Kowalski’s school you trained right along with the guys?

CHYNA: At Kowalski’s school…when I first went there—you know, Kowalski is obviously a very old school—I walked into this big dump of a place. I thought it was a gym. It had a hard wooden floor and an old boxing ring there with 10 steel beams underneath. No springs, no padding, nothing. Just 10 steel beams and rickety old ropes that were barely held on there, and I had to pay him. I didn’t want to pay him all this money until I got in there and saw these guys throwing each other around and I went "Geez, I don’t know if this is for me. That looks ridiculous." I remember being all nice to him, and I asked him, "Oh, would you mind if I just tried a few things to see if I like it or not?" He turned around and looked at me the way Walter does and he said, "You either do it or you don’t!" And I went, "Oh." So, sure enough I saved my money and a few weeks later I went back and I said, "OK, I’m going to do it!" I joined with three guys that week, and before the end of the week they were gone and I was there. I was so sore, but I was going to show them I could take it just like the rest of them. I was the only woman, but I learned guy style and I did everything they did.

KK: Like the fitness competitions, they basically told you they didn’t want you there. But you were not going to be denied and you set your mind to it and accomplished that goal of sticking it out in Walter’s school.

CHYNA: That’s right and I think actually one of the reasons I stuck with it was because I think when Walter saw me there were stars in his eyes. It’s very hard to read him—because he’s just a crabby old man—but I was one of very few people who could get in there and cuddle up to him. I think he saw me doing that and he would really push me by saying, "Go get in the ring and go do this and go do that." And he loved my body—he would always show me off to people saying, "Look at this!" In his own way I knew he was very impressed with me. As a matter of fact, we actually got into a little conflict when I left, because I think he wanted to keep me there and wasn’t really rooting for me to come here. He said I needed to stay there with him and practice more and do his shows. Unfortunately, I didn’t leave on bad terms, but I felt that he was bitter when I joined here and was hurt that I left him.

KK: Certainly, you can’t deny the way you and your character have transcended any previous views of women in wrestling—be they women wrestlers or the semi-traditional valet/manager roles. As a hybrid of both, do you feel that you’ve really placed women in professional wrestling in a totally new light?

CHYNA: Well, I do. And right from the get-go it was a fighting battle. I knew that I was going to have to push really hard or I wouldn’t have a fighting chance to do this. And even when I joined Walter’s school... for the average person to be in this business, it was a very short time—probably a year and a half—since I had started wrestling before I came here. First of all, for a male, that’s no time. But, secondly, as a female who’s not married to anybody, didn’t have a boyfriend in the business and no family in the business, no connections whatsoever, but I was bound and determined and I spent my last 50 cents making a photo copy of old pictures that I had to get to people. I drove everywhere to every show. I pushed really hard, and I just happened to meet a couple of people who were very keen to the idea of having a female bodyguard type of thing—the younger guys like Hunter and Shawn. They really thought it was a cool idea. I had gotten to them, and I knew the older generation in the business didn’t like that. They would say "Oh, it won’t work," and I knew they didn’t want me. Then again, I knew the younger guys thought it was a cool idea. There was a generation gap there, and for a while I thought it wasn’t going to happen. But the younger guys kept pushing for it, and when I finally got the job, which I was very excited about, I almost came in very insecure because I thought because of the fact that people really didn’t want me here maybe it wasn’t going to work. I was pleasantly surprised. I think when I first came out, because it was such a unique thing, people didn’t know how to take it. But it took off, and even I can say—and I consider myself to be a humble person and I’m not one to be cocky or toot my own horn—but I have noticed that since the moment I started there’ve been signs and people yelling, whether bad or good, but they notice me every show and they want to see me. That has been very evident to me and even more so as time has gone by. But to answer your actual question, yes I do think it will change the role for women in this business. A lot of people ask me, "When are you going to wrestle, Chyna?" Well, I don’t want to wrestle, because number one I don’t think women’s wrestling has ever been very popular. I don’t think it ever will be very popular. There’s such a limited number of women who can work and work well. I think generally people don’t want to see big fat women beating the crap out of each other. That’s not appealing to watch. Women should wrestle in mud or jello, and I hate to say it, but if it’s a T and A thing that’s what it should be, and I’m certainly OK with that. But I don’t want to go the opposite way and deliver a product that people don’t want to see. Right now, what I do is very unique, and I’m at a level where I’m working with the guys on their level. I’m main event. And I feel if I were to wrestle with women it would take me down to opening match level and there would be nowhere to go with that. And that’s certainly not a dig at anybody else. That’s my own choice. And I feel that I wouldn’t have half the recognition I do now if I were to wrestle regularly, and I think that would totally kill me off also.

KK: Part of being main event every night is being a part of DX.

CHYNA: Absolutely.

KK: Right after you started is when the whole DX revolution began—an organization that in its own way transcended the view of superstars who traditionally were booed and hated, yet do things that are cool, and the people cheer and respond positively. What’s it been like to be part of something as ground breaking as DX, especially having only been around the wrestling business for a year and a half total?

CHYNA: That’s a hard question to answer, because many times people say to me, "Chyna, you don’t understand, it didn’t used to be like that," or "You came in during this time," but I guess because of the type of determined person I am I believe that certain people are drawn together or drawn to certain levels and I didn’t expect to do anything less. I knew that I was drawn to those guys for a certain reason. I think the same way they were drawn to me. I could see the type of driven people they were and the talent that they have. The first time I stepped into the ring with Shawn Michaels and Undertaker and heard the big cheer from the crowd, and as it transcends more, I think, "Oh, my God, is that really me?" or "Am I really part of this?" It doesn’t seem real sometimes. It’s a thrill, and I never take it for granted. I just think it’s the neatest thing.

KK: I know that you’ve been called the quiet leader and the behind-the-scenes unifying force in the interviews with Hunter, X-Pac and the Outlaws. Tell us what you think your role is in DX?

CHYNA: I feel like I’m Mama Chyna. I’m the backbone of DX. I’m the serious one that when things get out of hand, there’s always the watchful eye of the whole scenario as to what’s going on and that’s Chyna. Chyna is the ultimate last resort when help is needed. She’s not there to do something every time, because DX can usually take care of themselves, but when needed she’s there. She’s kind of got the situation under control, and there’s a mystery to Chyna. You never see her jumping up and down or really smiling. There’s a lot of mystery to Chyna and she hasn’t even been unleashed yet. We can do so much with my character, but I do see her as the overall backbone of DX.

KK: Could you analyze each member of DX, starting with Hunter? Give us your opinion of him and what you think about him professionally.

CHYNA: Professionally, one of the most talented people I’ve ever known athletically and up and coming. The transition that he has made professionally in a year and a half has been absolutely incredible. He’s gone from never saying anything on the microphone to picking it up and being able to save the day, which he’s done on many occasions. Athletically, one of the very few men who can lead a match and general a match and physically do the things he does as well as get a reaction from the crowd. If you’re not a fan you don’t understand what that takes and what these guys are doing. People are so focused on whether it’s fake or not that they don’t understand what incredible athletes they are and what it takes to entertain. They have no idea physically and mentally what it takes to give a good match. From the moment I started with him and having learned what it takes, it amazes me in comparison to other people how he can do that. Because I still can’t get it. I try to think in my head, "Okay, if I had to do that what would I do? Geez, I don’t know." To be able to just do it just like that is incredible to me. And on an idea level, a creative level as well, you basically have to take care of yourself. People can help you with ideas, but you are the entertainer and you have to take care of yourself because the people can boo you in a minute. All those things combined take a lot of talent. And that’s him, and I see him. Even if he was—knock on wood—hurt tomorrow, he would still give so much to this business just because of his knowledge.

KK: How about X-Pac?

CHYNA: X-Pac—little brother, irresponsible, can never get mad at him, pokey, very talented in the ring like a rubber ball athletically. He’s the kind of guy who never complains about anything. He’ll be an hour late and you’ll be waiting for him, but you just can’t get mad at him when he shows up because he’s got that puppy dog, little brother kind of face. He’s one of the guys I’ve recently come into contact with I have not been very close with, but because of his relationship with the other guys, I felt like that before I ever met him. He’s got a heart of gold, and he lives for this business. Health-wise, he’s okay. Because of his size he’s a big talent. The way he bounces around the ring amazes me.

KK: How about the Outlaws?

CHYNA: Funny. Road Dog is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life. Talent-wise, in all honesty, I don’t think they’re quite up to the caliber of the rest of the group. But the willingness to succeed is there, and they’re just starting as far as I’m concerned.

KK: You know everyone is waiting to see Chyna explode. We’re waiting to see the one who belly danced. We’re waiting to see the one who twirled the sword onstage. When are we going to see that?

CHYNA: Probably never, because that’s Joanie [Chyna’s real name]. And Chyna is so opposite from Joanie it makes me laugh when I think about it—because Joanie is probably one of the most sensitive, silly, feminine women you would ever meet, and Chyna is so opposite from that.