So last night Triple H appeared on Stone Cold Steve Austin’s wrestling podcast (LIVE ON THE WWE NETWORK ONLY NINE NINETY NINE MAGGLE) and spoke for about an hour, non-kayfabe, about the challenges of booking pro wrestling in an era where everybody who wants to know anything about wrestling can essentially know at least half of everything that goes on backstage. A lot of it was interesting. A lot of it was self-serving, and I don’t mean that in a condemnatory way: Triple H is for all intents and purposes the second-in-command of WWE and protecting himself does, to a certain extent, mean protecting the company as well. (Of course, when asked about CM Punk, HHH did his best to quietly and effectively shift blame back to Punk for the entire situation, and that was mostly crap.)
But what really struck me was when Triple H discussed Chyna, who revolutionized women’s wrestling in the late 90s and who is now effectively stricken from WWE’s history books, more or less, because following her wrestling career she did porn. The question of Chyna was raised because someone wanted Steve Austin to ask about whether she would ever be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Triple H danced verbally around the issue and never said the word “porn” or “adult film” or stated in any way what Chyna did; it was left unspoken or assumed. And he said, more than once, that there wasn’t any issue from WWE’s side and that he wasn’t judging her for her life choices – but what if his eight-year-old kid Googles “Chyna” and finds out about the porn?
This isn’t really about Triple H personally: if you look at how women wrestlers are treated in NXT (which Triple H books and runs) versus how they’re treated on the main roster (which Vince McMahon books and runs), it’s night and day: NXT women are allowed to be full, wide-ranging characters, and prove themselves as wrestlers. RAW Divas are eye candy at worst and at best have a choice of “fun-loving,” “bitch” or “crazy” as their character options, are dismissed or ignored by the announcers and treated as an afterthought, wrestling-wise. Clearly Triple H wants women’s wrestling to be a thing that sells tickets, which is both the progressive option and also the monetarily sensible one, and by any standard he’s clearly the person you want in charge of booking and running women’s wrestling overall in WWE (from the available choices, anyway).
But Triple H also wants it both ways. He wants to say he doesn’t judge Chyna for her “life choices,” but he also wants his ostensibly family-friendly corporation to not extend recognition to a sex worker, which is judging her for her life choices. He’s trying to both be Paul Levesque, who probably feels bad about his ex-girlfriend’s career going south and who probably doesn’t care at all that she decided to do porn (or at least thinks “well, whatever you gotta do, I guess”), and Chief Creative Officer of WWE, who has to care about that a lot.1 It’s a shitty, passive-aggressive way to deal with the issue – and of course we could write an entire essay about the sex/violence double standard with respect to “family entertainment,” and many have, so let’s just say we recognize the cognitive dissonance and move on – and that’s entirely on him. Look: I might not agree with a condemnatory attitude towards sex work, particularly from someone working for a company with a long history of questionable behaviour. But it would have at least been honest to simply say “we can’t celebrate someone who did porn” rather than hedging.
- Of course, Triple H tries to have it both ways a lot – witness him saying both that wrestlers have to live and breathe the business 24/7, and then right after that say that Bret Hart cares too much about wrestling. Of course, what he really meant is “Bret Hart is a great wrestler, but kind of a humourless dick.” [↩]
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But it would have at least been honest to simply say “we can’t celebrate someone who did porn” rather than hedging.
But if you actually say that, you have to come up with a reasonable line between what Chyna does now and what Tammy Sytch was doing in the 2000s – does WWE really want to go on the record as saying nudity is fine, but penetration is too far?
Chyna absolutely should be in the HOF, and I don’t agree with his argument, but I understand where Triple H is coming from. Our society has a huge problem in dealing with sexuality. WWE could ignore that problem and induct Chyna, but for any company to go against that grain would be more surprising than not.
I doubt it has anything to do with it, but I also wonder if Chyna’s past with Triple H might quietly play a role in it. Maybe the higher ups find her a distasteful reminder of when Triple H was just another talent, rather than a respectable member of the family. I doubt that plays a part, but there’s a chance that it might.
“he also wants his ostensibly family-friendly corporation to not extend recognition to a sex worker, which is judging her for her life choices.”
Except it’s not, actually. Judging her would be him saying “yeah, turned out she was an amoral slut who doesn’t deserve to be remembered as part of this wonderful family”. Saying the equivalent of “her public life doesn’t fit the image we want the WWE brand to have” is a decision about marketing, not morality.
And sure, you can reply “well it’s pretty lame that you’re just writing her out of WWE history after everything she did for pro wrestling”, or “that attitude seems kinda ass-covering and chickenshit for someone who’s supposed to be this badass pit fighter”. But it’s also valid for WWE to say “every time someone brings up Chyna they want to talk about The Porn Thing, and we don’t want WWE to be about Dealing With The Porn Thing, so we just don’t talk about Chyna.”
One thing I didn’t think about yesterday: Val Venis. You know, the guy whose best-known gimmick was as a porn star.
I was particularly galled that he tried to indicate Chyna going into the hall-of-fame was a non-starter because of the porn thing two weeks after using her partner in her first sex video to promote the Royal Rumble.
If Sean “1-2-3 Kid/X-Pac/Syxx” Waltman ever goes in the Hall of Fame, Chyna not being in it is an unfair double-standard.
Nevermind the simple parading of heavily modified, near-naked female bodies around the wrestling ring being something of a time-honored trope. We have a woman celebrated for grabbing people’s heads between her thighs and body-slamming them, and we’re going to get squeamish about porn? Really?
This seems to be another edition of the weird faux-prudish American sexual taboo. The difference between sexy rock star and filthy mega-slut can be measured in the thickness of one’s nipple-tape.
“Saying the equivalent of ‘her public life doesn’t fit the image we want the WWE brand to have’ is a decision about marketing, not morality.”
Ok, this is a pet bugbear of mine, but those two things are not exclusive, and presenting them as if they are exclusive IS a moral decision. Putting market value first is not necessarily an evil thing or a bad thing, especially if, say, you’re a leading representative of an organization that employs a lot of people, but pretending that economic decisions are exempt from any other measures can feed into a “market as one true God” kind of mentality.
On a slightly different note, I am very surprised a Canadian would in any way criticize Bret the Hitman Hart. I think that might be against Canada’s Constitution or something.
It’s been pointed out elsewhere that people who have done much worse than porn are in the Hall Of Fame.
Mike Tyson is a convicted rapist. He’s in there.
Steve Austin has, on more than one occasion, beaten up his significant other. He’s in there.
Jimmy Snuka probably murdered his girlfriend. He’s in there.
Yet Chyna isn’t in there because she did something completely legal that harmed absolutely nobody? Come the fuck on.
A sex tape is somewhat different than pornography, isn’t it?
@Rob Brown: Is Chris Benoit in the Hall of Fame? If he’s not, I’m sure there’s a large contingent who want him there. It’s also probably not a big coincidence that every figure you list is a male.
There is a rather obnoxious minority of the IWC who bring up Benoit going into the hall of fame every so often, insisting only your wrestling career should matter. Because a corporation and media entity really wants to celebrate the career of a man best know for killing his wife and youngest son. “But he was a great technician! He hit those German suplexes so well!” completely missing the point.
@Andrew: I’m afraid I don’t see your point about everybody I mentioned being male. Is there a female wrestling personality who committed a crime (or did something legal, yet still worse than porn), and who got into the HoF anyway, that I should have mentioned instead? Off the top of my head I can’t think of any.
My point is that if you can be guilty of domestic abuse and be allowed into the HoF, then anything equal to or less than that should not disqualify future candidates. If Triple H claims that porn of all things keeps you out, then he and WWE are either seriously inconsistent or lying.
@Andrew: Chyna has done more then just a sex tape. She’s stared in a few adult films.
Shouldn’t keep her out of the HoF though.