The early 2000s were a time of flux for New Japan Pro Wrestling. Antonio Inoki's desire for true combat sports stars impacted the main event scene, top talent were leaving for NJPW's rivals or starting new companies, and the company was searching for their next big foreign star. It was an era of throwing ideas at the wall, with some truly bizarre results.

One such head scratcher was their call to bring in former WWE Intercontinental Champion, Chyna. Although her WWE run ended with no shortage of controversy and backstage politics, Chyna was such a talent that she certainly still had much to offer the wrestling world. Without a WCW to jump ship to, and TNA very much in its infancy, Chyna looked across the Pacific Ocean for a new start.

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Chyna's Road To New Japan Pro Wrestling

After contract disputes brought about the official end of her WWE tenure in late 2001, Chyna first pursued acting roles to continue her career in show business. Though she found some work here and there, Chyna struggled to find a project that she could really sink her teeth into. Whilst the American wrestling scene was dominated by the only game in town, the WWE, other companies had interest in bringing in The Ninth Wonder of the World.

Appearing under her real name Joanie Laurer, her first New Japan appearance came as a special guest referee, officiating a bout of The Steiner Brothers taking on Kensuke Sasaki and Hiroshi Tanahashi at the company's 30th anniversary event. Before Laurer would complete on NJPW's cerulean blue mats, she first fought in one of Antonio Inoki's side projects, the Universal Fighting-Arts Organization, UFO. UFO presented 'Different Style Fights', a type of wrestling that pushed the limits as to how real the medium could be, labeled most commonly as 'shoot-style'. In her only UFO appearance, Laurer defeated boxer Chika Nakamura in a first round TKO at the Tokyo Dome, though according to Chris Charlton's book Eggshells, the match was 'decidedly more WWF than UFC'.

Though Laurer might not have been a great fit for Inoki's ambition of dominating the mixed martial arts world, she soon found herself in the land of the Lion Mark.

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Chyna Had Numerous Intergender Matches In NJPW

Chyna's first tour with New Japan started in September 2002, teaming with former Pancrase and RINGS fighter Justin McCully and Shane Sewell, best known for his referee-turned-wrestler gimmick in TNA. In these tag bouts, Laurer would mix it up with the likes of Jushin "Thunder" Liger, Yuji Nagata, El Samurai, Minoru Tanaka, Manabu Nakanishi, and in the process, struck up a feud with Masahiro Chono. In the biggest match of her New Japan run, Laurer competed once again at the Tokyo Dome in a singles contest against Chono.

Speaking in Vice TV's Chyna documentary, Chono said that in regard to working with her, "none of the wrestlers wanted to do it." Before Laurer, New Japan had never had any intergender match-ups, let alone a women's division. Despite the hesitance of working with Laurer, Chono understood what a monumental match this was for her, being her highest profile bout since leaving the WWE. "Even for a regular top wrestler, you fight under a lot of pressure, but I figure she had to carry even more pressure," he said.

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The two ended up having a much more substantial match than others on the card at just shy of twelve minutes. Wrestling a hard style for a marquee New Japan match was a test for Laurer. Chono recalled that 'the audience who were watching saw a woman who is not giving up and started to feel for her'. Though Chono would come out the victor in the Tokyo Dome, Chyna looked back on that match as "the most physically demanding achievement I've ever done in my life."

Chyna's days in New Japan Pro Wrestling were numbered, however. Unfortunately, Laurer's personal issues with substance abuse were affecting her reliability, and being in such a high paying contract with New Japan, the company didn't consider her worth the investment at that time. Her last match for the promotion was a tag bout, teaming alongside Masahiro Chono in a winning effort in December 2002. In his closing remarks in Vice's Chyna documentary, Chono reflected that, "the pressure that she experienced. I would hope people understood that."