No matter what professional sport you watch, an underrated label is always put on them. There are so many examples of professional wrestling, and four come to my mind. Sweet and Sour Larry Sweeney, Gail Kim, Steve Lombardi (Brooklyn Brawler), and Chris Kanyon. Chris Kanyon is the most underrated professional wrestler in the business, and the moves he made are almost commonplace. He was the innovator of offense, and I love watching his matches. Unfortunately, he lived a very dark life, and Dark Side of the Ring did an episode on him, which was very tragic.
When it comes to Kanyon’s beginnings in pro wrestling, it is very fascinating. James Mitchell, who would later be his manager, received a tape from Kanyon of his moves in wrestling and wanted to get more training. Who did Mitchell send Kanyon to get trained by? The Fabulous Moolah.
Chris Kanyon was a big Fabulous Moolah fan and was marking out to meet her. Moolah normally trains females, but she saw something in Kanyon and would him. Moolah would even book him on shows where Mae Young would be at the heck out of him, and Kanyon thought she was crazy. Mae Young is one of the legit toughest professional wrestlers of all time. At one point, this 77-year-old woman took a powerbomb from Bubba Ray Dudley through a table off the ring stage during the attitude era.
Kanyon kept his sexuality a secret for many years as he feared it would hurt his career. One of the few people that knew about his sexuality was James Mitchell. Kanyon was moving to a new home, and while moving boxes, a ton of adult films spilled out of the box in front of his cousins. Kanyon was freaking out and blamed Mitchell for pulling a rib on him. Kanyon then asks Mitchell to call his cousins to play along on the rib. Well, Mitchell did, and Kanyon trusted him to keep his secret of being gay safe.
The best gimmick of Chris Kanyon in his career was the Mortis gimmick, which was a nice play on Mortal Combat. Watch his matches with Glacier in WCW, they were so fun. A big reason why the gimmick worked was Kanyon hid behind the mask, and his promo skills weren’t the best. That gimmick helped hide that, but WCW decided to distance themselves from it.
Diamond Dallas Page (DDP) claimed the gimmick was done when the nWo faction started in WCW. According to DDP, Kanyon immediately told him that their pushes were dead when they debuted. The problem is, that’s not even close to being true. Kanyon was still using the Mortis gimmick until 1998. So saying the nWo is why the Mortis Gimmick ended is ridiculous.
A fascinating fact not mentioned was when Kanyon joined WWE, he did have dark matches with Mortis Gimmick. The WWE Vault YouTube channel uploaded those matches. One of those matches was against a young Austin Aries in 2003.
WCW has a lot of confidence and reliability in Chris Kanyon. Eric Bischoff put him in charge of handling the wrestling stuff in the movie “Ready To Rumble.” The film is terrible and hurt WCW more than helped. Kanyon was involved in the stunts and taught David Arquette how to wrestle. The triple cage match used in the movie was a Chris Kanyon idea. The documentary even showed a video of the behind-the-scenes work of Kanyon’s influence.
Chris Kanyon was trying to do his best to keep his sexuality a secret. Kanyon had recently bought a house and would host these parties. Many women at that party would often see and pick up that Kanyon was a gay man. That reaction resulted in paranoia kicking in, and his violent mood swings kicked in. Kanyon then tells Mitchell they need to film an adult film with Kanyon and a woman. Well, Mitchell set up the whole thing, but Kanyon never showed. The women considered putting on the mortise mask, and nature took its course with someone else. Kanyon sees and re-enters his violent mood swings. It gets so violent that Mitchell grabs a pistol and gets Kanyon to calm down.
Kanyon in WWE was out of action for 18 months due to both injury and battling depression. He was scheduled to return to Smackdown and confront The Undertaker in a big spot. Well, it turned out to be an absolute burial.
Undertaker was in a segment where Paul Heyman presented Undertaker with a large wooden box. In that box was Chris Kanyon, who was dressed as Boy George and singing with a lisp. Well, Undertaker would beat him up and hit nasty chair shots to Kanyon’s head. The Young Bucks were even in the crowd, questioning what WWE was doing and wasting Kanyon. They then go to critiques using chair shots in the head. Rafael Morrif, one of Kanyon’s friends, former AEW VP of Live Events and former WWE Live Event Marketer, got interviewed, and he didn’t like it either.
When he was released from WWE, Kanyon did come to terms with his sexuality and started coming out to his close friends and family. Kanyon always thought people would hate him, but everyone accepted him, including Brian Cage, DDP, Luke Hawx, and many more.
Chris Kanyon wanted to be a role model as an openly gay wrestler and was going to go public with coming out of the closet. He decided to do it in the independent circuit show in a match with DDP. After the match, Kanyon comes out, and DDP hugs him and says you will always be my brother.
With Kanyon mainly wrestling in the independent circuit scene, he appears on the Howard Stern Show and becomes a regular. Probably not the wisest move for Kanyon, knowing the mental health issues he has. Also, it doesn’t help that Howard Stern is a real piece of work knowing his history.
Kanyon would constantly take shots at WWE and claimed he was fired for being gay. Stern even brought that up to John Cena, who said, “Kanyon came out of the closet after he was fired. And the truth is Chris wasn’t any good”. I love John Cena, but he’s full of it for claiming Chris Kanyon wasn’t any good.
Then came Ric Flair’s comments. Flair decided to call into the Howard Stern show to defend WWE. He claims that Cena made a good point and that Kanyon wasn’t in WWE because he just wasn’t good. You can tell that those words hurt Kanyon as he was a big fan of Flair’s
The worst part, which wasn’t mentioned in the documentary, is that Flair would go after Kanyon for his “lifestyle choices” and “what he chose to be.” Kanyon would respond, saying it’s not a choice, obviously referring to his sexuality. What a swell thing to say for a man who, by the way, help trained your son David to be a professional wrestler in WCW. So, if you think he was no good, why did you allow him to train your son?
Both Ric Flair and John Cena do not come off well in those interviews.
Mitchell then discusses the last time he saw Kanyon alive. It was after a match, and while it was a terrible match that had fans laughing, they had a great time behind the scenes. After the match, they go to the bar and the hotel. Kanyon then reveals that he was sore because he tried throwing himself in front of a car in a suicide attempt, but it didn’t work. Both would argue about it, but they made up. While driving to the airport, they told stories of the old days and having a good time. When both departed and Mitchell talked to his wife, he broke down and said, “I think Chris is going to do it this time”.
Unfortunately, he was right. On April 2, 2010, Chris Kanyon was found dead in his childhood home in Queens, NY. Kanyon died from an overdose of anti-depressants at 40 years old.
With Kanyon’s Death, it devastated many. They lost a friend, and all the talking heads were breaking down. Chris Jericho even states that nobody talks bad about Kanyon, which is rare in their industry. James Mitchell called him a tortured soul and wished he knew more, along with wishing he was still alive.
The Young Bucks called Chris a hero and a tremendous pioneer in the business. Knowing how much AEW loves WCW and his close connection to the Young Bucks, Brian Cage, etc., he would have been a part of AEW. Whether it’s as a manager, trainer, creative, or part-time wrestler, he absolutely would have been a part of it. He influenced so many, and he started many moves in that company.
This was an unfortunate episode, as, like I said, I am a big Chris Kanyon fan. While I wasn’t alive when Kanyon was at his peak in WCW, I always went back and watched his matches. Sadly, Kanyon’s career in WWE didn’t pan out. I learned a lot about how severe his mental health and violent mood swings were. I think the saddest part was everyone loved Chris Kanyon, but the one person who didn’t love Kanyon was himself.
James Mitchell was excellent in this and a great talking head in this documentary. The Young Bucks and Brian Cage were great, too, and they showed how influential Kanyon was in their careers. In AEW, Chris Kanyon made many moves, including the Buckshot Lariat that Adam Page does. Imagine if Kanyon was alive today, he not only would be a part of AEW on Day 1, but he would have gotten a ton of recognition and praise, that he should have gotten years ago. In his promos, whenever he asked the crowd, “Who’s Better Than Kanyon?” I always answer with Nobody.
Rest In Peace, Chris Kanyon. I will never forget what you did in this industry, and thank you, Kanyon, for the memories in the ring and how you influenced others out of the ring.
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