Yesterday, Chyna was found dead in her apartment in Los Angeles. She was 46 years old.

You know, I’ve only written a couple of these so far, but Chyna’s death feels different than the deaths of Merle Haggard and Doris Roberts. Both Haggard and Roberts, more or less, lived long lives and celebrated accomplished careers along the way. Chyna? Not so much. This one just feels, I don’t know. Sad.

That isn’t to say Chyna—whose real name was Joanie Laurer—didn’t have her own successes. She did. But just like so much wrestling talent that came before and after her, it was extremely short lived, and the fucking train wreck of a life that followed makes one wonder if any of it was even worth it.

Full disclosure: I was never a fan of Chyna’s wrestling. Actually, I never even saw her wrestle a single match in real time. She wrestled with WWF for five short years—from 1997 to 2002—and that was a period of time I was completely checked out of wrestling. Still, within those five years, she left audiences with a legacy that will forever be remembered, if not by WWE proper then by its fans.

Here are 5 more things Chyna... No, here are five more things Joanie Laurer left us.

That Professional Wrestling Is a Cruel, Vicious Beast

For talent, the post-wrestling career path is extremely limited. At best, you transition into acting and enjoy a career that could be potentially even more lucrative. This happens to maybe one out of every 1,000 wrestlers (The Rock, John Cena, and... that’s about it). At worst, you end up committing suicide and/or killing people you love (Chris Benoit). But for everyone in between, the majority of talent must resign themselves to a life of sitting behind a shitty folding table at a convention while they sign autographs for fans reliving the good old days. Then, inevitably, they end up dying far too young of a heart attack, brain aneurysm, or—in Laurer’s case—a (suspected) drug overdose.

Again, it’s all just so fucking sad. How sad? Here’s a video that Laurer shot of herself making a smoothie just three days before she died.

Yes. It’s that sad.

She Made a Great Villain

As Women’s Champion, Laurer’s character became this impenetrable force that all other women couldn’t break. Here she is mopping the floor with—and serving as a brick wall for—Trish Stratus.

When All Else Fails There’s Always... the Darkness

Chyna left WWF in 2002. After a brief stint in New Japan Pro Wrestling in 2002, she retired from wrestling entirely. What followed will probably, at least in Triple H’s own words, keep her from ever being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

She posed for Playboy (for a second time) in 2002. No biggie, right? But in 2004 she released a sex tape (with fellow wrestler X-Pac). That was followed by a run of shitty reality shows (The Surreal Life, My Fair Brady, and then, ironically, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew), and she ended her career (and life) performing in hardcore porn films. Her last two “starring” roles came in 2012’s Avengers XXX: A Porn Parody, and 2013’s She-Hulk XXX: A Porn Parody where she played, you guessed it, She-Hulk.

Here’s the trailer for the latter. It’s suitable for work. Or at least as suitable as something this sad could possibly be.

She Changed the Way Audiences Saw Women in Wrestling

In wrestling’s early days, the female talent pool was made up of bruisers: The Fabulous Moolah, Mae Young, Rico, etc. But at some point in the 1980s, probably starting with Wendi Richter, the women stepping into the ring suddenly became, well, sexy. A few of them could actually wrestle, but for every one Lita there were a hundred Sables. The bruisers became nothing more than a pair of breasts that would occasionally wrestle. Poorly. More often than not, they were just eye candy on the arms of a male Superstar. But Laurer changed that. She was one of the guys, both in attitude and brute strength. In 1999, she became the first—and only—woman to win the Intercontinental Championship. She would co-win the title again in 2000 in a match against Chris Jericho.

Here’s a clip of her Raw debut from 1997, which shows her coming into the ring as a ringside plant and choking the living shit out of Marlena.

This moment would also serve as the spark of the birth of...

D-Generation X

Between 1997 and 2015, there were five different incarnations of D-Generation X (or, as it’s better known, DX), and Chyna was a member of that group’s first two stables, which are arguably their best versions.

From August 11, 1997 to January 25, 1999, Laurer was a member of DX. The first stable of talent included Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and Rick Rude (who had recently left WCW after the Montreal Screwjob). When Rick Rude left the group (and then died just a few months later... see a pattern here?), the group added Road Dogg, Billy Gunn, and X-Pac.

DX started as, and always was, a gang of rebellious rule breakers, and during the Attitude Era that went a long way. But beyond the attitude, something audiences could tell from DX’s segments was that they were having a blast doing what they loved.

So at the very least, no matter what came after it, at least Laurer was able to leave us with that.