The 3rd Annual Penny For Your Thoughts 10 Day Wrestlemania Countdown! Day 3; The Criminal Snub Of The Hall Of Fame

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Editor’s Note:

We regret to inform you that Penny has decided this will be her last edition of the Wrestlemania 34 Countdown. She has been an valuable member of the IP team sharing an important perspective on pop culture. We wish Penny well in her future endeavors.


Well tonight is the 2018 WWE Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, and, having already discussed the folks going IN to the Hall of Fame this year a few days ago, today I’m going to talk about who ISN’T going in, and why WWE should feel deep shame over it. And you all KNOW who I’m talking about.

It’s been almost two years now since we lost Joanie “Chyna” Laurer, and despite all the “Give me brownie points already dammit!” lip service from Steph and the WWE, she’s STILL not in the Hall of Fame. If you’ll recall I wrote about this BEFORE her tragic passing in the very first Mania Countdown I did. As best as my research informs me, the “official” reason, if you can call it that, is the same now as it was then; her porn career would upset parents and investors were she to be inducted. And that’s as much a pile of bullshit now as it was then.

First of all, if they were truly worried that honouring her would get them backlash from shareholders, investors, parents, yadda yadda, they wouldn’t keep showing her on air and pimping her as a trailblazer for women wrestlers every time Steph wants to put herself over for the current state of the womens product. Womens Rumble, Womens Elimination Chamber, they ALWAYS pimp Chyna for these to show how far women’s wrestling has come. If they were truly afraid they’d get grief for putting her in the Hall of Fame well, they wouldn’t put her on air at all.

Futhermore there are already women in their Hall of Fame, and even a few men, with some adult stuff on their resumes. Some might argue that it’s different with, say, Tammy “Sunny” Sytch, who started masturbating on Skype for money and doing nude modeling well after her HoF induction, while Chyna’s porn happened before any potential induction. But THAT excuse is bullshit too, because they invited Torrie Wilson back for the Women’s rumble and Torrie’s Playboy spreads happened WHILE she was in WWE’s employ. And as for actual Hall of Famers, Shawn motherfucking Micheals did Playgirl and showed his dick to the world, WHILE WWF CHAMPION, and he still got a Hall of Fame induction.

Speaking of WWE stars doing adult stuff that aren’t Chyna but AREN’T shunned like Chyna? Remember that scandal about Paige’s sex tapes with Xavier Woods being leaked? Well, while acknowledging that those were private videos never intended for public consumption, they ARE out there. They show things that qualify as porn. I am about to discuss them. This is NOT something your children should read. So I’m going to insert the Penny “Happy Kitten Spoiler Jump” and warn you to skip the paragraph immediately following the kitten jump if you want to skip the sex talk.

Alright, this is the paragraph you skip if you want to avoid frank discussion of sex and porn. I WILL avoid using common industry terms however, to keep this paragraph as accessible as the subject matter allows. Among the things shown in Toronto escort‘s sex tape include Paige both taking male orgasms on her face, which is common in porn. She is also shown helping her sex partner orgasm on the NXT Womens Championship belt. Arguably Paige doing that to WWE company property, a championship no less, is FAR more insulting and disrespectful to the WWE than Chyna painting herself green and having a fairly vanilla sex scene playing She Hulk in a Marvel Porn Parody.

Okay, this paragraph is post sex talk, you’re safe again you pearl clutchers you.

So, the hypocrisy here is that Chyna did inoffensive vanilla porn that is so common that the average adult is unfazed by it. Paige on the other hand put on video something directly insulting and offensive to her current employers. Yet Chyna is still, even posthumously, still mostly shunned by WWE, mentioned only to pimp Womens Revolution stuff. Paige? Paige is not only still employed by WWE, she’s still treated as a big enough deal to be allowed to cut a promo on Celebrity  TERF Rhonda Lousey. On top of that, WWE and the Rock are making a bloody MOVIE about her.

So taking ALL of this into account, WWE’s “official reason” just doesn’t hold up. The “She did porn” excuse doesn’t wash. There is very little likelihood that shareholders would care. They don’t care about Paige’s sex tape. They don’t care that Seth Rollins has photos of his erect penis floating around online. They CERTAINLY don’t care that Mickie James, one of the WWE’s female Legends and a prominently used performer TODAY, DID PORN MODELLING. Yes, Mickie James did porn mag photo shoots years ago. And the announce team happily refers to HER as a “future Hall of Famer”.

So it all boils down to Steph. It’s not EVEN an industry secret Steph DESPISED Chyna, even though Steph was the actual homewrecker in that backstage love triangle. STEPH is the sleazy one who interfered in someone else’s relationship and broke it up. But even though Tripsy dumped Chyna FOR Steph, Steph could never get a grip on her insane jealousy towards Chyna. Chyna was by all accounts Tripsy’s first love, his first real committed full-time romantic relationship. Any number of industry insiders who were there and witnessed the whole thing go down backstage will tell you how green-eyed Steph got around Chyna, to the point of Tripsy having to not so much as TALK to his ex and Chyna being fired solely to keep her away from Triple H.

Witnesses at Dusty Rhodes funeral saw Chyna try to just say hello to her ex and Steph just barely restraining her jealousy fit, getting people to escort Chyna out.

Most who have known Stephanie McMahon who are no longer with WWE have said that the character she plays on TV is a LOT closer to who she really is than the smiling nice person she plays backstage or in promo appearances. Obviously having never met her myself I can’t say with confirmation if this is true, but enough people not under her thumb have said so to make it a consideration.

No one can 100% confirm that Steph is the reason Chyna continues even in death to be snubbed for the Hall of Fame, but given, as I’ve shown here, that the company’s “official” excuse just does NOT hold up to scrutiny? I’d feel pretty safe betting actual money the one and ONLY reason Ivory is going in tonight and Chyna is not, is because that’s how Steph wants it.

See you tomorrow for NXT Takeover predictions.

Penny is a now divorced intersexed disabled lesbian in BC Canada. She's been watching wrestling and reading comics since she was a kid, and knows her stuff. She lives with her pets and passes her free time writing, drawing, doing paid photoshop work (including logos done for Pulse's Own Mike Gojira), and is a part-time Queer model.