We assume that many of you WWE fans listened to the “Stone Cold” Steve Austin podcast with Triple H, the COO, and likely future head of the WWE.
It was a great listen, but rather than review the entire piece, we want to focus on comments that Triple H made regarding Chyna and the Hall of Fame.
Although the company is still owned by Vince McMahon, the fingerprints of the man who is professionally known as Jean Levesque has been instrumental in the growth of their feeder system, NXT, and mending fences that brought Bruno Sammartino and The Ultimate Warrior back into the fold with the WWE and getting the inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Although we don’t know for sure, we have strong suspicions that he may have had a hand in getting Lanny Poffo to relax his stance and get Randy “Macho Man” Savage inducted into the Hall of Fame this year.
When asked by Steve Austin about his former love interest and former Intercontinental Champion, Chyna, and the Hall of Fame he had this to say:
“You know, that's one of those questions... Does she deserve to go in the Hall of Fame? Absolutely. ... It is a little bit of a double sided edge. It's not just as easy as 'should this person go in the Hall of Fame?' Completely 100-percent transcended the business, changed the business, paradigm shifter of the business, right? Did what no woman ever did before and was awesome at it, and a phenomenal talent. All the other stuff that happened and I don't need to get into any of the other stuff but there is no beef on this side with anything, and I mean that 100 percent. From a career standpoint should she be in the Hall of Fame? Absolutely.
It's a bit difficult, though, and this is the flip side of the coin that nobody looks at... You have a, I've got an 8-year-old kid. My 8-year-old kid sees the Hall of Fame, and my 8-year-old kid goes on the Internet to look at... 'oh, this is Chyna, I've never heard of her, I'm 8-years-old, I've never heard of that.' So I go type it in, I go punch it up, and what comes up? And 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 is 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 guy had a really good career, a legendary career. He should go in the Hall of Fame.' Yeah, but we can't because of this reason, we can't because of this legal instance, we can't because of this. ... It's different than any other Hall of Fame in the world and at the end of the day, it's for our fans.”
Some have pointed that this is sexist, claiming that there is a good chance that Sean Waltman (X-Pac) who participated in one of those videos might get in as an individual or as a member of D-Generation X, though the circumstances are not the same. Chyna would make multiple pornographic films, while X-Pac’s was a home video that was leaked and marketed, which granted he did participate in. The levels are not the same.
Current WWE Hall of Famer, Sunny (Tammy Sytch) has dabbled in soft core pornographic material is also in the Hall, but again the levels aren’t even close.
As the WWE is now a publically traded company the headlines that it could make are certainly ones that want to avoid, even if she did change the narrative for women’s wrestling in the United States.
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