Sort of an obituary from PWInsider:
A New York native, Chris Kanyon (real name Christopher Klucsaritis, 40) trained under Bobby Bald Eagle in NYC and broke into the business in the early 1990s. Kanyon grew up a huge WWF fan and often told a story of being in Atlantic City during Wrestlemania IV, finding a door to the Atlantic City Convention Center ajar late at night. He entered the arena and jumped into the ring before taking a turnbuckle as a keepsake, promising himself one day he'd wrestle for the WWF. Whether the story is true or simply a wrestler's tall tale, it always made for a great magical story.
In a minor piece of trivia, he actually worked the first-ever match at the infamous Elks Lodge in Queens, NY that would later become known as ECW's Madhouse of Extreme, losing to the late Billy Firehawk. He later went on to do some additional training under The Fabulous Moolah as well. During those early days, he worked just about every local independent in the NYC area that one could find and was a regular for Tommy Dee's UWS promotion.
After working enhancement for the early days of Eastern Championship Wrestling, Kanyon signed with World Championship Wrestling during the Monday Night Wars era. He initially worked under a mask as Mortis, one of the "collection of oddities" managed by James Vandenberg (Jim Mitchell). Later, he worked without the mask as Kanyon, using the catch phrase, "Who's better than Kanyon" during which he went out of his way to innovate a lot of unique original offensive maneuvers as a member of Raven's Flock.
During the latter days of WCW, Kanyon received the biggest push of his career as one-third of the Jersey Triad with the late Bam Bam Bigelow and Diamond Dallas Page, holding the WCW World Tag Team championships. When that group broke up, he feuded with Page under the "Positively Chris Kanyon" moniker, a play on Page's personality.
Kanyon never received a strong singles push in WCW beyond the DDP feud, but was liked enough that he was sent to work and prepare celebrities like Jay Leno for their wrestling appearances and worked as a stunt coordinator on the WCW "Ready to Rumble" feature film. He later parlayed that into additional Hollywood work as well.
After WCW was absorbed by World Wrestling Entertainment, he was among the talents who's contracts were taken over by the company, but never fit into the WWE world. He held the WCW United States title after an angle where Stephanie McMahon, the head of the Alliance, asked Booker T to hand it to Kanyon. He and DDP reformed their team and held the WWE Tag Team belts briefly as well.
Over time, Kanyon found himself among a number talents who suddenly found themselves without an ally in the creative side of things. In WWE, it's often said you have to make Vince McMahon your fan in order to get attention and with the huge influx of talents, getting the chance to stand out during that time period was near impossible. Kanyon suffered knee and shoulder injuries and when he was able to come back, he was lost in the shuffle and delegated to doing jobs on Velocity and similar shows. He was eventually released after months of not being used in a main role because the company had nothing for him. He wasn't alone in that regard. In fact, of all the talents that were brought to WWE after WCW was purchased, only Chavo Guerrero has remained.
When Kanyon decided to publicly come out, he claimed that his sexual orientation was part of why he never received a big break in the company. At the time, given the long tenure of Pat Patterson for WWE, it wasn't considered something that was a credible claim. Once Kanyon came out, he made a number of appearances on the Howard Stern show and at one point, had been working on a book on his life and career. The book was up for pre-orders on Amazon.com and other online retail outlets but was never released.
After his WWE release, Kanyon made limited appearances for TNA and worked the "6:05 Reunion" PPV, losing to Diamond Dallas Page. During that appearance, Kanyon came out before the crowd on the taped PPV as well. He never returned to a national role on a regular basis after his 2004 WWE release, something that friends say haunted him as all he ever wanted was to wrestle.
Kanyon had publicly claimed retirement, but still made occasional independent wrestling appearances, including a recent one for the NYWC in Long Island. He was one of the plaintiffs in the dismissed lawsuit against WWE (Raven and Mike Sanders were the others) that was brought against WWE for misclassifying wrestlers are independent contractors. The suit ended up dismissed before it went very far. While there was talk of the suit being re-filed at the time, it never happened.
In speaking to a number of wrestlers that were friends with Kanyon this morning, all noted that he was a giving person who was truly a lifelong fan of pro wrestling, to the point that when he was let go by WWE and there was obviously no other outlet for him to live his dream, he was never really the same. A number of his friends noted he had been dealing with depression off and on for quite a long time as well.
|
