Top-Down Smackdown: The Chyna Sin Drone

So, who caught the live Steve Austin podcast with Triple H last week?

For those who didn’t, you might have been surprised – contrary, perhaps, to fan perceptions, both men effectively dropped character and jawed like a couple of old road buddies. Granted, Hunter may have been acting – but if so, he did a far better job of disguising any corporate doublespeak than Vince McMahon did…his feigned ignorance of CM Punk’s grievances notwithstanding.

For old-school fans, it was good to know that Triple H is actually on our side in several key areas – he’d like Raw to be back to two hours, shows to feature more actual wrestling, and storylines given more time to pay off. And it sounds like all of that will only happen when Vince McMahon dies.

Funnily enough, however, the most controversial part of the discussion appears to have been when Chyna’s name came up. Triple H said that she absolutely belonged in the Hall of Fame based on her impact on the business, but from a PR perspective it probably wouldn’t happen due to the fact that Googling her leads to some very non-PG stuff.

Chyna has responded:

I just Googled her to see if doing so actually brought up anything bad in an image search. One or two images are obviously from TMZ, there’s her Playboy cover, and a couple of memes that mention her being in porn. The Playboy thing seems the height of hypocrisy for WWE to hold against her since they made it happen for her – and every other major diva of her era. And other wrestlers have been featured on TMZ, including Ultimate Warrior, who threatened them once.

So it comes down to porn.

I don’t judge Chyna or anyone else for doing porn, but I think it’s disingenuous for her to act like it’s a cheap shot to bring it up. If the only porn she’d ever done were the X-Pac sex tape, maybe she’d have a case that her privacy was violated to begin with, but she has also played She-Hulk in an Avengers porn parody, and there was probably plenty of time while green paint was being applied that she could have changed her mind about it.

Chyna acting ashamed of doing porn is part of why it’s shamefully perceived. Own it. Be proud of it, or if not proud, at least unabashed. Take a page out of this guy’s book:

Yeah, WWE’s pretty hypocritical, just in case you didn’t know. And while I haven’t seen Sean Morley reappear on TV in a long time, they do trot out the Godfather every once in a while. True fact: real-life pimps are frequently nastier, more abusive human beings in a sexual way than anyone in the adult film industry.

Incidentally, Chyna’s initial porn partner X-Pac was just on Raw, and will almost certainly end up in the Hall of Fame someday either by himself or as part of DX and the nWo. Funny that he’s not being penalized for on-camera boning, but his then-girlfriend is. And by “funny” I mean “completely sexist.”

Eventually, though, everything that was once shocking stops being so. Maybe Chyna will have to make it to Moolah’s age before everyone reconciles, but if she lives that long, it’ll happen.

Talk back about Raw or anything else below.