Singer Semler honors Chyna’s legacy as WWE Hall of Fame induction remains elusive
Chyna and the WWE legacy of Joanie Laurer is the focus of a new single by Semler and the Hall of Fame conversation rises. The post Singer Semler honors Chyna’s legacy as WWE Hall of Fame induction remains elusive appeared first on Outsports.
Mark
The crossover power of pro wrestling takes different shapes, but one of the most recent examples is as surprising as the cultural sector it came from.
Out queer singer-songwriter Semler, aka Grace Baldridge, released a project in December born from their love of pro wrestling that spotlights groundbreaking out former WWE star Chyna, aka Joanie Laurer.
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Consisting of a song titled “Chyna” and an accompanying video essay that delves into her life in and out of pro wrestling, Baldridge highlights the influence Laurer continues to have nearly 10 years after the untimely ending of her life and how the power structures within pro wrestling, most notably WWE, continue to obfuscate her legacy.
“Physically, she was so different, and I knew I was so different, though it was in a different way,” Baldridge told Outsports when asked why Laurer stood out to them so much. “I just found her incredible. I thought she was stunning, and not necessarily in a sense that she was beautiful, though she was that too.
“But she, as a person, was so remarkable how she could be so confident and so different at the same time. I looked up to that. I felt like she was a comic book character that really existed.”
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When Laurer entered pro wrestling in the mid-1990s, ultimately rising to fame in WWE between 1997-2001, she represented a female body type, confidence and sense of strength that most mainstream pro wrestling fans had never seen before. Her physique, crafted from her days as a bodybuilder, was physically domineering and her personality became endearing as she got to show more of it over the years.
Laurer became one of the first women to puncture the gender barrier on WWE programming, regularly wrestling men in serious matches during a period where mixed-gender bouts were treated comedically or worse, on the rare occurrence that they even happened.
She was the first woman to enter the Royal Rumble, the first and only woman to hold the WWE Intercontinental championship and was even briefly floated as a WWE World title contender.
Her influence is still felt today, carried by female and queer wrestlers alike at all levels of pro wrestling, from the shattering of gender designations for matches and titles across the independent wrestling scene and her being the progenitor of major women’s names in WWE and All Elite Wrestling, including Rhea Ripley, Bianca Belair, Megan Bayne and Jade Cargill.
It also drew the thread between pro wrestling and music for Baldridge after contemplating how to approach writing a song about their fandom. “I was lifting weights one day, which I hope Chyna would appreciate. I’m not strong at all, but I happen to do it. I was lifting weights and then the chorus of ‘Chyna’ popped into my head,” Baldridge said with a chuckle. “I was like, ‘Oh, shoot. I got to follow that thread. I think I need to write this one down.”
Yet WWE remains hesitant to highlight her in the same fashion in which it venerates other stars of her era. Her exit from the company after asking for an increased downside guarantee and her relationship with then-wrestler and current WWE chief creative officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque crumbled after learning of his affair with his now-wife Stephanie McMahon impacted that to a degree.
Should Chyna be in the Hall of Fame?
Levesque tacitly pointed to her brief career as an adult film star and public struggles with addiction after leaving pro wrestling as reasons why she hadn’t been inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame during an appearance on “The Steve Austin Show” in 2015.
“Does she deserve to go into the Hall of Fame? Absolutely,” Levesque said. “That gets asked a lot … It’s kind of a double-sided [edge]. It’s not just as easy as, ’Should this person go into the Hall of Fame?’ [She] completely, 100% transcended the business, changed the business, paradigm shifter of the business, right? Did what no other woman ever did before and was awesome at it and was a phenomenal talent. All of the other stuff that happened happened, and I don’t need to get into the other stuff, but there is no beef on this side with anything.
“From a career standpoint, should she be in the Hall of Fame? Absolutely. Bit difficult, though, and this is the flipside of the coin that nobody looks at. I’ve got an eight-year-old kid, and my eight-year-old kid sees the Hall of Fame and my eight-year-old kid goes on the internet to look at, ‘Oh, Chyna. I’m eight years old, I’ve never heard of her.’ So I go type it in and I punch it up and what comes up,” he continued.
“I’m not criticizing anybody. I’m not criticizing lifestyle choices. Everybody has their reasons. I don’t know what they were, and I don’t care to know. It’s not a morality thing or anything else. It’s just the fact of what it is. That’s a difficult choice. The Hall of Fame is a funny thing in that it is not as simple as, ‘This person had a good career, legendary career. He should go in the Hall of Fame.’ Yeah, but we can’t because of this reason.”
Levesque went on to chronicle the process of reconciliation between himself and former WWE champion Ultimate Warrior, arguably as famous for his homophobic and xenophobic tirades and public speaking tours as he was for his pro wrestling career, when he was tapped for induction later in the interview.
Laurer would be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of the faction D-Generation-X in 2019, but her absence as an individual inductee nearly a decade after her life ended remains a striking omission in many fans’ eyes, including Baldridge.
Baldridge points to a deep connection they feel toward Laurer’s pain of rejection by WWE, essentially the only familial structure she had in her life, and the struggles and tragedy that she encountered through their devoutly religious upbringing as the closeted child of a pastor.
“Being part of an ingroup and doing so well in certain circumstances, performing being a straight Christian girl quite well and seeing how quickly people turn on you. I think that’s part of her story … and then seeing how much I related to aspects of it in my own path of feeling cast out and othered for who I am and just not being able to challenge systems of power because they’re just so powerful and hold all the cards. I think that’s why her name keeps coming up because it’s this wrong that, to many fans, hasn’t been corrected and it’s infuriating that it hasn’t. It seems like such an obvious person to honor.”
And more people are coming to that “obvious” stance through the spread and virality of the song since its release, something that Baldridge is amazed to see. Both projects have brought a grassroots effort calling on WWE to give Laurer a solo induction into the WWE Hall of Fame to new audiences who are using their voices online and in person at WWE events to show their support.
“I think that when everything feels so heavy and there is so much injustice that is present on our phones, screens, minds and neighborhoods every single day, there is something about this story that transcends just the wrestling community because it’s something we could conceivably cheer for it happened that would feel really good,” Baldridge said. “It’s sort of a band-aid. Obviously, I don’t think it’s the grandest injustice we’re facing in this country that Chyna is not in the [WWE] Hall of Fame … however, there is this sense of if we make our voices loud enough, if we take this project far enough, we could actually effect change.
“I think that’s the power of music, the internet and organizing. Being able to grapple with it in this very micro way is probably why people have caught onto the song.”
Baldridge will get their first chance to play the song for live audiences when they go on tour across the Midwest in March. Semler hits the road with “Chyna” starting on March 19 in Nashville, TN.
Check out the entire interview with Semler and other LGBTQ figures in pro wrestling on the LGBT In The Ring podcast.
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The post Singer Semler honors Chyna’s legacy as WWE Hall of Fame induction remains elusive appeared first on Outsports.
