Chris Kanyon Found Dead

[Strummer]

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Chris Kanyon (a/k/a Christopher Klucsaritis) was found dead of an apparent suicide on Friday night. Although details are still sketchy, it is believed that he was in New York at the time of his death. A longtime friend reports that a pill bottle and several notes were found close to the body.

 

Kanyon also worked as the Mortis character in WCW and also had a run with WWE starting with the Invasion angle. He made headlines after his WWE run concluded by going public with his homosexuality. He appeared on the Howard Stern radio show several times as a result of his admission. Although he retired from wresting at one point, he had returned to the ring again recently and worked a couple of matches this year.

 

Powell's POV: Kanyon has battled severe depression issues over the years. He told one friend as recently as Monday that he was having problems and was contemplating suicide. The friend is said to have contacted one of Kanyon's family members to express his concern despite the fact that he and several of Kanyon's friends have heard similar statements over the years. One friend said this morning that he's expected this type of news for years, yet it was still surprising and clearly painful for this person. My deepest sympathies go out to Kanyon's friends and family.

prowrestling.net

[rovert]

Ive extend my condolenses in the other thread.

 

It will interesting who WWE handles/words this on their site with the Linda factor and the likely grudge they hold due to the lawsuit.

[jdw]

[Bob Morris]

Sad news.

[Death From Above]

I wasn't a huge fan or anything, but I did think he always seemed like a guy that managed to do a lot with some pretty limiting gimmicks on paper. "Some guy ripping off Mortal Kombat" and "Guy imitating DDP" were not the kind of things that had success written all over them but he managed to make it work well enough back at the time.

 

Sad that he did himself in. People that haven't dealt with it can't get their head around what a complete monster chronic depression can really be, and I'm sorry to hear he felt this was his only way out.

[El-P]

I really enjoyed Kanyon as Mortis and as the goofy guy along Raven or the Jersey triad. He was a crazy spot and bumping machine, but he had a fun personnality. It's a really sad news.

[Strummer]

I didn't like him in the ring as most net fans but I loved the "Raven goes home" and "Positively" Kanyon angles

 

"Champagne" Kanyon was pretty awesome too or "Shampoo" as Juvy called him

 

RIP

[1004Holds]

SMH. May he R.I.P.

[kjh]

Being bipolar + concussions + drugs (alcohol, pills and roids) + politics (Be good, but not too good) + ritual humiliation (Boy George angle) + wrestling obsession (desperately angling for a job with WWE/TNA in an erratic manner that was bound to fail) is a bad combination.

[Ditch]

I know I'm jaded about wrestler deaths when I'm more upset about Kanyon further delaying a possible Steve Williams bio in WON than I am about the actual death.

 

[kjh]

I doubt Dave would have used the extra space to write about Steve Williams, Ditch. He'd probably use the space to preview UFC 112 and more news tidbits. As Jonathan Snowden indicated in another thread, he'd already lost interest in the piece two months ago. We're very unlikely to get it now, so I wouldn't hold your hopes up.

[Loss]

The WON bio is pretty interesting.

 

He kept his homosexuality secret, but it tore him up when other wrestlers would, in front of him, talk about how much they hated gays or made gay jokes. He constantly feared if they knew, that he’d never be accepted, even though many gay pro wrestlers are accepted, and those conversations are just part of the high school locker room mentality, like racial jokes in the locker room, which didn’t mean members of minorities weren’t going to be accepted.

I can't tell if that is Dave editorializing on locker rooms or not, but people who go on about how much they hate gays typically don't accept them. I don't get that.

[jdw]

Dittos the racial jokes.

 

John

[rovert]

Mark Madden's Page baiting "tribute"

http://www.wrestlezone.com/editorials/arti...anyon-rip-99657

[Bix]

I *think* Dave's point was that it happens by osmosis when guys want to be accepted and thus play along with anti-gay talk started by guys with seniority over them.

[tomk]

Locker room jokes are how you reproduce norms.

[kjh]

Yeah, tomk's right. It's not really a tolerant environment if people feel the need to bash gay people to fit in. Dave Meltzer pussyfooting around the Boy George angle was disappointing too. The Lagana quote was pretty disgusting.

 

All I remember from the Boy George thing was he was coached into being more lispy and into it, but wasn’t privy to reasons and such if this was to show him up and fuck with him.

I mean come on. Even if we're willing to accept that Lagana didn't realize at the time Kanyon was secretly gay, it was blatantly a demeaning angle "to show him up and fuck with him". There's no question about that.

 

Speaking of incidents that are obviously not homophobic whatsoever, is it just me or did Dave Meltzer still fail to mention Flair's yelling at Orlando Jordan's partner for his behaviour at a bar leaving him shaken up in this week's Observer? I mean I can understand Dave not wanting to break the news of this embarrassing incident, but once the news has been broken he should discuss it in his newsletter.

[El-P]

It's disgusting.

Tha amount of stress this poor guy had to endure.

But of course it's nobody's fault if he ended up depressed and killed himself. WWE never has any responsability in anything, of course.

[jdw]

Even if we're willing to accept that Lagana didn't realize at the time Kanyon was secretly gay,

According to Madden in the piece above:

 

"Kanyon wasn’t out when he was in WCW, but everybody knew, and I never once saw him victimized by homophobia."

 

Now that could be Mark bullshitting, or perhaps Mark has exceptional gaydar. But if "everyone knew" in WCW, it's pretty hard for Lagana *later* in the WWF to not have known.

 

It's more of a stretch when one understands that Kanyon was out enough at the point of the Boy George spot that others on WWF Creative not only knew, but they also wanted to fuck with him.

 

It's wrestling. When people think they "know" something, they pass it around. Take the "Savage Banged Steph" story. No matter how much folks on here have walked through how the story doesn't add up at all, lots of folks in the business "know" it and it's all over the place inside.

 

So Lagana... on the standard Idiot Or Liar test in wrestling, on this one he comes across as a Liar.

 

John

[El-P]

There was an actually fun story that Kanyon told himself I believe about him pretending to bang a girl so he would pass for a heterosexual in the locker room. I don't know who was the guy who helped him with that, maybe it was Vandenberg. Anyway, I don't remember the details, but first guy he bumped into after the whole thing was Waltman I think, and when the word was out that Kanyon had banged this girl, Waltman reaction was "Really ? Oh, I thought you were gay ?"

So anyway, it seems people knew.

[Bix]

For some reason I feel like I should point out that Lagana is bisexual, I guess for gaydar reasons.

[kjh]

Even if we're willing to accept that Lagana didn't realize at the time Kanyon was secretly gay,

According to Madden in the piece above:

 

"Kanyon wasn’t out when he was in WCW, but everybody knew, and I never once saw him victimized by homophobia."

 

Now that could be Mark bullshitting, or perhaps Mark has exceptional gaydar. But if "everyone knew" in WCW, it's pretty hard for Lagana *later* in the WWF to not have known.

I was trying to be diplomatic by not throwing the liar tag around. But yeah, Lagana's assertion that he didn't realize he was secretly gay is pretty laughable as well. I don't think Mark is bullshitting when he says "everybody knew" in WCW; I'm sure a lot of jerks in the WCW locker room liked to rib him about his repressed sexuality.

 

For some reason I feel like I should point out that Lagana is bisexual, I guess for gaydar reasons.

I'm sure even Lagana wasn’t privy to reasons for his firing from WWE too.

[Dan]

I was more perturbed with the part about Kanyon being told he was so ugly that he needed to wear a mask to get over.

[rovert]

I was more perturbed with the part about Kanyon being told he was so ugly that he needed to wear a mask to get over.

 

While I was even perturbed at him wearing a mask most of Wrestlemania weekend.

[rovert]

Feinstein has already capitalised on his death: