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1990s WWE wrestling star Chyna dies in Southern California

Chyna, the WWE star who in the 1990s became one of the best-known and most-popular female professional wrestlers in history, has died, authorities said.

Police in Southern California said they were responding to a 911 call from a friend of former WWE wrestler Chyna when they found her dead in her Redondo Beach apartment.

A friend had gone Wednesday to check on Chyna, whose real name is Joan Marie Laurer, after she had failed to answer her phone for a few days, Redondo Beach police said in a statement. The friend told the 911 operator that Laurer wasn't breathing.

The 46-year-old Laurer was dead when officers arrived, police said. Several media outlets report that she was 45.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/e2e123a3 ... california

I guess her videos are now worth more.

Remember seeing her in Ottawa at a Monday Night Raw airing, along with Triple H (when he was using the longer moniker), and a relatively new Rocky Maivia (later "The Rock," who has gone on to bigger things since.)

That was one of the most interesting shows I've seen because of what was going on offscreen. We (Judy, Josh - the 'rasslin fan - and I) were seated where we could see some of what was going on backstage, and it extended onto the floor during commercial breaks. This was the day after the infamous "Montreal Screwjob" and there were a lot of the wrestlers who were unhappy (to put it mildly) with how that went down, and multiple threats of "I'm not going out there tonight" followed by "you'll never wrestle again" going back and forth. (Rick "Stop the Music" Rude was one of those who went on under protest - he spectacularly showed up on a live WCW show the following Monday, airing against a taped episode of RAW taped a day after the Ottawa show in a nearby town in Canada -- where he was also on! He had bolted WWF to WCW in between.)

I used to attend the grand Prix wrestling in Ottawa and across the river in Hull in the 70s