But if it wasn't for wrestling, the real life Paul Levesque and Joanie Laurer would never have been drawn together. Paul had already graduated from the World Wrestling Federation Hall of Famer Killer Kowalski's Malden, Massachusetts training school when Joanie signed up. She was more interested in fame between the ropes than love. "I'd been playing sports and lifting weights as long as I can remember," she says.
"There were people who told me I was ugly, that I looked like a man. I thought that it would be different in wrestling. It would be a place where I
could find my niche."
At Kowalski's school, she was bombarded with stories about the most successful student to make it on the professional mat, Triple H. "It was very jealous talk," she recounts. "'He didn't deserve his break'.....'I'm a better wrestler than he is'......'He's an @ss%*##.' Between what I heard and the way I saw him act on TV, I thought he was the anti-Christ."
But when Joanie had a meeting with the World Wrestling Federation about a possible role in the company, Hunter did not live up to his reputation. At their first encounter in a hotel bar, the pair began swapping Killer Kowalski stories. Triple H and his then-tag team partner, Shawn Michaels, started to
conceptualize the role Joanie could play: a tough, sexy, edgy female manager. World Wrestling Federation head Vince McMahon wasn't so sure. Would male
wrestlers be willing to "sell" (take falls) for this woman? But when Michaels had knee surgery and went on sabbatical, Hunter was left without a teammate.
Grudgingly, McMahon agreed to let Chyna accompany Triple H to the ring, temporairly.
"Paul and I had begun talking on the phone," she remembers. "He was feeling me out. Was I a psycho? Could I handle living on the road? I'm not going to
say that I wasn't attracted to him. But our conversations were all professional."
In February, 1997, Chyna started in the World Wrestling Federation, touring Germany for 17 days with what she recalls as "a bunch of guys on a bus,
farting and burping." Paul was protective of his new manager, shielding her from the criticism of his peers, and training with her in the gym. "By the
end of the tour," she says, "we did the big kiss."
For ten months, they kept their relationship a secret. "I didn't want people to think she didn't pay her dues....that she was only in the World Wreslting
Federation because I wanted a girlfriend on the road," Hunter says. Chyna was worried that, if Triple H asked an opponent to sell for the manager, the response would be, "Why because you're screwing her?"
But people were catching on. Terri Runnels once told Chyna, "I think you and Paul would make such a good couple. Anything you want to tell me?" And Shawn
Michaels asked the couple directly if their friendship transcended the arena. In time--after Joanie had met Paul's family, and she was accepted by the other wrestlers for her abilities--they resolved to answer every inquiry honestly. Says Chyna, "We acted like everyone knew already. It was like, 'Yeah, so what? We're together.'"
Still, the duo maintains a certain distance when they're in the dressing room. "We don't hang on each other in front of the other wrestlers," Chyna
says. "We're at work, not on a date."
But the emotions are always strong. "Paul's not like any boyfriend I ever had," says the first woman to ever win the World Wrestling Federation Intercontinental title. "Other guys were intimidated by me because I was so big. It was like their machismo was threatened. But it was never a problem with Paul. He makes me feel like the ultimate woman because he's a real man."
