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

John Laurinaitis started wrestling in 1986 as Johnny Ace. At first, while wrestling in Florida Championship Wrestling, Ace frequently teamed with his brother The Terminator. Later, when he wrestled for NWA’s Jim Crockett Promotions 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. Prior to entering the competition as one of The Dynamic Dudes at the NWA, he appeared as a flagbearer for the team of The Sheepherders. 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 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 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.

Following his tenure as an on-screen performer in 2012, Laurinaitis was relieved of his backstage executive duties and returned to his original role as a road agent.

On the October 10 edition of Raw, following a kayfabe strike by members of the WWE roster as a result of Triple H’s management, Vince McMahon introduced Laurinaitis as the new Interim General Manager of Raw. That same night, Laurinaitis fired Jim Ross and reinstated The Miz and R-Truth, who had been suspended following repeated attacks. After a few weeks of impartiality during which he pledged that he would listen to the WWE fans using his slogan of “People Power”, Laurinaitis began showing bias against WWE Champion CM Punk, who had repeatedly criticized Laurinaitis and questioned his integrity over the past few months. On the December 26 edition of Raw, Laurinaitis placed Punk in a gauntlet match against three opponents; whoever pinned Punk would earn a shot at the WWE Championship at the Royal Rumble. Punk agreed to the match under the condition that if he beat all three, then he would receive a match against Laurinaitis himself afterwards. During the match, Laurinaitis distracted Punk, allowing Dolph Ziggler to pin Punk and earn a title shot. The following week on Raw, Laurinaitis distracted Punk once again, causing him to be counted-out in his title match against Ziggler, thus retaining the championship. Laurinaitis then scheduled a WWE Championship match between Punk and Ziggler at the Royal Rumble, in which he named himself guest referee. Laurinaitis continued to cause Punk to lose to Ziggler throughout January which ultimately led to Punk attacking Laurinaitis in retaliation, claiming that he was abusing his power. Laurinaitis began to declare himself as the soon to be permanent General Manager. In response to this, the Board of Directors ordered that his position as Interim General Manager would be taken under review by Chief Operating Officer Triple H. At the Royal Rumble, Laurinaitis brought in another official and Punk defeated Ziggler. On January 30 edition of Raw, Laurinaitis was set to have a performance review by Triple H. During the review, Triple H degraded Laurinaitis and his actions, but before the final decision he was interrupted by The Undertaker. The Board of Directors then decided on February 7, 2012 to retain Laurinaitis as Interim General Manager.

On SmackDown’s 15th Anniversary Special on October 10, 2014, Laurinaitis formed a team to face Teddy Long’s team to be determined as the greatest GM in SmackDown history. The match was won by Teddy Long’s team. He appeared at the Slammy Awards in December and, on March 28, 2015 he inducted The Bushwhackers into the WWE Hall of Fame.

On September 3, 2015, Laurinaitis became engaged to Kathy Colace, who is the mother of the Bella Twins and the mother-in-law of former WWE champion Daniel Bryan. The two were married in a private ceremony on March 24, 2016.

On January 22, 2018, Laurinaitis was one of the guests that appeared on stage during the 25th Anniversary episode of Raw.

On May 10, 2020, Laurinaitis made a cameo appearance during the Men and Women’s Money in the Bank match, which was filmed inside the WWE headquarters.