John Laurinaitis

John Hodger Laurinaitis (born July 31, 1962), also known by his former ring name Johnny Ace, is an American retired professional wrestler and business executive.

He has wrestled for such promotions as World Championship Wrestling (WCW), All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) and WWE.

He is the brother of Joe (Road Warrior Animal; one half of the former wrestling tag team The Road Warriors) and Marcus, and is also the uncle of former National Football League player James Laurinaitis.

John Hodger Laurinaitis was born on July 31, 1962 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He is of Lithuanian ancestry.

John Laurinaitis started wrestling in 1986 as Johnny Ace.

At first, while wrestling in NWA's Florida Championship Wrestling, Ace frequently teamed with his brother The Terminator.

He was also a flag-bearer for The Sheepherders and followed them to another NWA territory, Jim Crockett Promotions.

Later, after JCP had been bought out by Turner Broadcasting Systems and become World Championship Wrestling, he formed a tag team with Shane Douglas called "The Dynamic Dudes".

They were managed by Jim Cornette until Cornette turned on them for Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane's version of The Midnight Express.

In his last televised WCW match, Ace lost to Mean Mark Callous, later known as The Undertaker, at Capital Combat on May 19, 1990.

As All Japan Pro Wrestling was cutting its ties with the NWA in 1990, Laurinaitis chose to stay in it, thus becoming a permanent foreign fixture on the roster.

In AJPW, he found a lot of success, teaming with Kenta Kobashi, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams and Bart Gunn.

Laurinaitis enjoyed significant championship success and acclaim during his tenure, becoming a two-time All Asia Tag Team Champion, a four-time World Tag Team Champion, and the winner of the New Year's Heavyweight Battle Royal on January 2, 1991, at Korakuen Hall.

Two of his matches received 5 Stars from Dave Meltzer, he won the "Match of the Year" award from the Wrestling Observer, and was ranked #77 in Pro Wrestling Illustrated's (PWI) top 500 wrestlers for 1997.

On February 28, 1998, Laurinaitis would reach the highest point of his singles career as he challenged Mitsuharu Misawa for the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship.

It would be Laurinaitis' only shot at those three prestigious belts.

Following his retirement in 2000, he was placed #203 in PWI's top 500 all time rankings.

Laurinaitis retired from the ring in June 2000 after the split between All Japan Pro Wrestling and Pro Wrestling Noah.

He soon returned to World Championship Wrestling, where he replaced Vince Russo as head booker.

Laurinaitis was responsible for booking the highly acclaimed one-night single elimination tournament held for the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship that was won by the debuting Lance Storm.

Laurinaitis was hired in as a road agent after WWF's acquisition of certain assets of WCW in March 2001 and in June on the same year, Laurinaitis was promoted to director of talent relations.

In June 2004, Laurinaitis replaced Jim Ross as vice president of talent relations, then being promoted to senior vice president in February 2007 and finally to executive vice president in March 2009.

However, when Stephanie McMahon took over talent relations and handed over the reins to Paul "Triple H" Levesque, Laurinaitis moved down from his executive duties to being senior vice president of talent operations.

Laurinaitis's tenure in this role has received criticism from those who have worked for him, including Jim Cornette who, in his interviews with Kayfabe Commentaries, described how Laurinaitis failed to work in the same capacity with Ohio Valley Wrestling (WWE's developmental territory) as Ross did, often failing to warn the promotion when wrestlers OVW were using at the time were going to be called up to the main roster or when wrestlers from the main roster were set to appear for OVW but never did.

Eventually WWE would end their relationship with OVW.

In WWE, Laurinaitis worked in the talent relations office for eight years, and as occasional professional wrestler from 2011 until 2012.

After his on screen firing, he stepped down from his corporate backstage role to being a producer.

He was promoted again to Head of Talent Relations in 2021 until his release in 2022.

Prior to joining WWE, Laurinaitis worked as an executive for WCW.

On the June 27, 2011 episode of Raw, Laurinaitis was described by CM Punk during his infamous 'pipe bomb' promo as a "glad-handing, nonsensical, douchebag yes-man" who would "tell Vince McMahon everything he wants to hear".

Laurinaitis subsequently made an appearance alongside McMahon as a corporate stooge during the main event of the Money in the Bank pay-per-view the following month.

At the climax of the WWE Championship match, under McMahon's orders, Laurinaitis tried to duplicate the Montreal Screwjob, but defending WWE Champion John Cena then proceeded to knock Laurinaitis out, not wanting to win the match that way.

This interference allowed CM Punk to win the match and the championship.

The next night on Raw, Laurinaitis appeared alongside McMahon as McMahon announced an 8-man tournament to decide a new WWE Champion following Punk's departure from the company.

On the August 1 episode of Raw, Laurinaitis interrupted Triple H, telling him to strip Cena of his WWE Championship, which led Cena to interrupt him and threaten to hit him again before Laurinaitis fled the ring.

The following week on Raw, Laurinaitis helped Triple H officiate the contract signing between CM Punk and John Cena for their match at SummerSlam.

After signing the contract, Cena flipped the table over and moved to go face to face with Punk, but was stopped by Laurinaitis.

As Laurinaitis talked to Cena, Punk kicked Laurinaitis in the back of the head, causing Cena to accidentally hit Triple H instead of Punk.

Following SummerSlam, Laurinaitis began to make regular appearances on WWE programming as part of an angle in which Triple H attempted to find out who had sent a text message to the returning Kevin Nash telling him to attack CM Punk after his victory at SummerSlam, causing him to lose the WWE Championship to Alberto Del Rio who cashed in his Money in the Bank contract immediately afterwards.