DATE: September 21, 2000
COMPANY: Scripps Howard News Service
AUTHOR: TERRY MORROW

Chyna is ready to play with the big boys.

"I believe you make your own destiny, but I know I have had to push myself more than other people in this profession," says the top female star of the World Wrestling Federation. "Sometimes I feel like some people who don't have as much talent are cared for more, just so they can be made into a star."

And while her popularity almost equals that of her male contemporaries -- such as The Rock or Stone Cold Steve Austin -- the 6-foot-tall, 200-pound athlete says maintaining her stardom is always on her mind. There are always the newcomers, with brighter, flashier gimmicks, selling themselves to audiences from the ring.

She's a woman in a male-dominated arena, and that means she "has to keep up with the spotlight ... and financially play with the big boys" who have earned millions because of their fame and who are expanding their careers to movies and other non-wrestling projects.

Chyna, whose real name is Joanie Laurer, does have a game plan:

Chaos Comics launched a comic book featuring Chyna last month. It's already sold out.

"She expels this personality that people find attractive. They identify with her," says Chad Soliman, assistant director of marketing for Chaos Comics. "She can hold her own in the ring with the guys. But unlike the guys, she seems to be someone you can approach outside the ring."

In the fall, Chyna will join the ranks of WWF athletes who have written biographies. Books by The Rock and Mankind topped the New York Times' bestseller lists in the past year.

She'll return to the hit NBC sitcom "3rd Rock From the Sun" this fall, reprising her role as French Stewart's bodybuilder girlfriend.

A Playboy spread is planned for the November issue, out in October.

Her biggest battles now, she says, are not in the ring. "A lot of the challenges I face now are of a personal issue. I have to think about these things: Five years from now, am I going to miss the opportunity to get married and have children?"

Chyna dates fellow wrestler Triple H, but she says their on-the-road romance has been hard to maintain.

"It's more difficult to date now than what it was in the beginning," she says of the relationship, which has lasted for several months. "We don't have as much interaction [in the ring]. We are not part of the same story line. ... I love him as a person and what he stands for, mentally and physically. It can be hard, though. Life on the road is never easy."

In fact, "I am extremely lonely most of the time on the road," she says, minutes after signing 1,500 autographs in less than two hours for fans at the Wizard World 2000 comic book show.

Fellow performers aren't always empathetic. "Guys are never going to look at things from a woman's perspective. It's very normal for them to be that way, and it always has been. I have to be a chameleon that way.

"I have to adapt and learn from it. It's very difficult without a lot of female companionship on the road."

Rumors that the 35-year-old New Hampshire native is a man in drag or that she has had cosmetic surgery to alter her face to be more camera-friendly circulate among fans and can be as crushing as the blows she delivers.

"There are a lot of things I see and hear that make it very difficult for me," she says. "It's been a fight all the way, but that's why it is so great to have fans who say to me now, 'Joanie, you have worked so hard for this. You've reached your vision.'"

Critics say the WWF exploits women, offering them as objects of desire and nothing more.

"Anytime anyone says the WWF exploits women, I say, 'Holy cow! Look at me! I'm in there fighting men.' You can't be any more equal than that."