Victoria Reveals Chyna’s Role In Launching Her Wrestling Career

Victoria’s wrestling career wrapped up in 2019, but its inception was assisted by a future WWE Hall of Famer.

Speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Lisa Marie Varon spoke about how Chyna, while in Los Angeles with WWE, visited her workplace and suggested she try her hand at wrestling.

“I met Chyna at Crunch Gym in West Hollywood. They charged her to come into the gym, and I gave her a stack of guest passes and said “hey, I know they charged you, here.” Crunch Gym, there’s a lot of celebrities there so they don’t care who it is, they have to pay to come in. So I gave her a stack and we took a hip-hop class together. I said, “hey, I’ve got a couple of friends that are in the business that I know, Trish Stratus and Torrie Wilson.” She goes, “oh, are you a wrestler? You have a really good look for it.” I go, “you know, I think I can do what Rob Van Dam does and Rey Mysterio.” Gymnastics and the flyer and that kind of stuff. And she goes, “you have a really good look for it.”

Varon states that she asked for information about how to apply immediately, even going above and beyond with her audition tape.

“I asked who I would send my stuff to and she wrote down the address, which was just the corporate, the one in Connecticut. Sent my stuff in. I had a video made, I paid $600 for this VHS to be made. Like transitions, I started it with [makes punching motion] boom, LISA MARIE VARON [appears on screen]. It had music and all that kind of stuff. It showed all my competitions and me demonstrating exercises and stuff like that.”

She clearly impressed those within the company as they took no time in calling her back. She said the following:

“I got a call back from Jim Ross and Kevin Kelly and they said “we’ve never seen a video so professionally done and a package sent like this”… They said “we want to meet you in 30 days” and I asked “what do you see me doing? I’m obviously not a Torrie Wilson or Trish Stratus, I’m a bigger girl.” They said, “We see you wrestling.” So I googled a wrestling school, and UPW came up. So I called them and said WWF is wanting to meet me and I need to learn how to wrestle in 30 days, which, I didn’t know [how difficult it is]. I thought it was a routine, 5-6-7-8, okay here we go. You go to the corner. I didn’t think in a million years that I would be doing that for 20 years.”

Victoria stayed with WWE until 2009, winning the Women’s Championship twice. She would then move on to TNA, where she won the Knockouts title five times.

The full interview can be seen above, via Chris Van Vliet’s YouTube.