WCW's Rip Off Of WWE Legend Chyna, Explained
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There’s a wide variety of gimmicks you’ll see in wrestling. Most of the gimmicks are created with the mindset of making more money with them. This was especially true during the Monday Night Wars where both WWE and WCW were trying to one-up each other on a weekly basis.
RELATED: 10 WCW Gimmicks That Were Too Similar To Other Characters
Some of the characters we saw at that time were just knockoffs of someone else like Avalanche was a copy of Earthquake, and The Renegade channeled The Ultimate Warrior. Another such character we saw in WCW was Asya, who was created to counteract Chyna’s popularity in WWE.
Asya First Showed Up As The Head Nurse During A WCW Storyline
Most fans would remember Asya as the Head Nurse of the mental institution where Ric Flair was admitted back in 1999. Now that was a wacky storyline in itself where Flair and Roddy Piper were feuding over who gets to pull strings in WCW as the President. Flair’s own son checks him into the asylum from where he would book Nitro. When Arn Anderson managed to get Flair out of the asylum, Asya came along with him as his personal bodyguard and WCW gave her the name Double D.
Asya’s name is pronounced as Asia and is similar to Chyna’s name, which is pronounced as China. Fans might remember Asya because she was an obvious rip-off of Chyna. But aside from these two similarities, there wasn’t anything in common between these two. Chyna, obviously, had more charisma than Asya, and she was a one of a kind wrestler. Asya on the other hand had none of that.
RELATED: 10 Things WWE Fans Should Know About Chyna' Life Outside Wrestling
She started out as a model and would compete in bikini contests and also worked with Hawaiian Tropic at one point but later got into bodybuilding and developed a huge physique. WCW scouted her and offered her a contract. Asya had no wrestling experience before she was prematurely debuted on television. This was apparent during her matches, which weren’t any good.
Her storyline with Flair also ended pretty soon, and she later joined The Revolution which consisted of Dean Malenko, Shane Douglas, Perry Saturn, and Chris Benoit. As part of the group, she got into a feud with The Filthy Animals. In her debut match, she teamed up with Malenko to take on Rey Mysterio and Torrie Wilson.
She teamed up with her Revolution stablemates a few more times, but there wasn’t anything special about them. Finally, it was time for a Cruiserweight Title match against Madusa which she lost after Perry Saturn hit her from behind, and she was removed from the group.
Asya Was Released By WCW A Year Later
After that, Asya continued to appear in WCW for some time. She only had two more matches on television. Asya was also paired with her real-life husband Dale Torborg for a bit. She disappeared from WCW after one time, during her entrance, her pyro exploded on her and she suffered a kayfabe injury. Asya was released from her WCW contract in August and soon retired from wrestling. She did participate in bodybuilding competitions for a while, but there’s not much known about her post-wrestling career. She also married Dale Torborg in 2000, and gave birth to their daughter, Sierra Raye, in 2005. And this was the whole Asya project that ultimately failed.
WCW intended her to be on a level above Chyna, but they probably picked the wrong wrestler to do it. First of all, while Asya was muscular she wasn’t tall like Chyna so she didn’t seem dominating as much as Chyna did. She also lacked charisma, and then there were her wrestling skills which were also subpar at best. Her wrestling career ended after only around 20 matches. All of this combined made Asya one of the least impressive wrestlers of her time.
