Chris Kanyon

Chris Klucsaritis (born January 4, 1970 in the Sunnyside, Queens neighborhood of the City of New York, New York) is an American professional wrestler, best known for his work in World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation as Chris Kanyon. He is one of the first active professional wrestlers to openly disclose his homosexuality.

Career

As a youth, Kanyon played rugby, roller hockey, basketball, and baseball. In 1992 he graduated from the University at Buffalo with a bachelor's degree in physical therapy. He began training under Pete McKay Gonzalez, Ismael Gerena and Bobby Bold Eagle at the Lower East Side Wrestling Gym in Manhattan at some point between December 1991 and January 1992. He wrestled his first match on April 5, 1992 in Levittown, New York at the Island Trees Junior High School, and wrestled one match as Chris Morgan before adopting the ring name Chris Kanyon. Kanyon worked as a physical therapist for the next three years, wrestling on weekends and in the evenings, before finally deciding to become a full-time professional wrestler in 1995. Early in his career, Kanyon formed a tag team with Billy Kidman which saw both men wrestle in the uniform of hockey players. In late-1994 he made several appearances with the World Wrestling Federation as a jobber. His friend and future manager James Mitchell saw potential in him and sent him for training with The Fabulous Moolah in South Carolina and from Afa at the Wild Samoan Wrestling School.

World Championship Wrestling

Kanyon debuted in WCW as a jobber. After several months he was placed in a tag team called Men at Work with Mark Starr. Their gimmick was that they were two construction workers turned wrestlers who wore overalls to the ring, and that Kanyon would cause the team to suffer losses by taking measurements with his tape measure at inopportune times. Starr was replaced with Mike Wenner before the team disbanded altogether.

In 1997 Kanyon donned a mask and was repackaged as Mortis, a gimmick based on an amalgamation of two characters from the fighting game Mortal Kombat - Reptile and Scorpion. Kanyon mentioned in an interview when the writers were brainstorming for his "Mortal Kombat" gimmick that they couldn't decide if they were going to make him the "dead guy" (Scorpion) or the "lizard guy" (Reptile), so they combined the two. Managed by James Vandenberg, Kanyon feuded with Glacier (modelled after the character Sub-Zero). Kanyon faced Glacier at WCW Uncensored 1997 on March 16 in his pay-per-view debut but lost to the undefeated Glacier. Following the match, Wrath debuted, siding with Kanyon and attacking Glacier. Glacier defeated Kanyon in a second match at WCW Slamboree 1997 on May 18. After the match, Wrath and Mortis once again attacked Glacier. However, Glacier was spared a post-match beating when Ernest Miller ran to the ring to defend him. The four men fought one another over the following weeks, culminating in a match at Bash at the Beach 1997 on July 13 which was won by Kanyon and Wrath. Kanyon and Wrath continued to team together until the angle was quietly dropped in late 1997.

In February 1998, Kanyon (still in his guise as Mortis) asked Raven if he could join Raven's stable The Flock but was told that he could only become a member if he defeated Diamond Dallas Page for the WCW United States Championship. After Kanyon failed to defeat Page, he was DDT'ed on the entrance ramp by Raven. This lead to Kanyon discarding the "Mortis" persona and beginning a feud with Raven, in the course of which he was dubbed "The Innovator of Offense" by play-by-play commentator Mike Tenay due to his unique wrestling technique, which included multiple moves performed from a fireman's carry position. He formed an uneasy alliance with Perry Saturn in order to fight against The Flock, but eventually turned on Saturn and joined forces with Raven. After Saturn forced The Flock to disband by defeating Raven at Fall Brawl 1998, Kanyon and Raven continued to team together until Raven was sidelined with (kayfabe) depression and Kanyon took time away from his wrestling career to work as stunt coordinator and stuntman on The Jesse Ventura Story.

Kanyon returned in 1999 and formed a stable with Bam Bam Bigelow and Diamond Dallas Page known as the Jersey Triad. The Triad feuded with Saturn and Chris Benoit over the WCW World Tag Team Championships, defeating them for the titles on June 13 in the Baltimore Arena at The 1999 Great American Bash. During their reign, they were given special dispensation by WCW President Ric Flair to defend the titles as a three man unit, granting them a numerical advantage over their opponents. However, the ruling was overturned by Flair's replacement Sting, and Kanyon and Bigelow lost the titles to Harlem Heat at Road Wild 1999 on August 14 in Sturgis, South Dakota. The Triad disbanded shortly thereafter, with Kanyon once again placing his wrestling career on hiatus to work on the WCW produced film Ready to Rumble, where he served as stunt coordinator and as the stunt double of lead actor Oliver Platt.

Kanyon returned to WCW in 2000 as Chris "Champagne" Kanyon, abbreviated to C.C.K., accompanied by J. Biggs, his "agent." He claimed that he had become acclimatised to the glamour of Hollywood and thus began indulging in luxuries such as champagne, women, and expensive cars. He feuded briefly with Bigelow and Page before being removed from WCW by interim booker Kevin Sullivan.

Kanyon returned to WCW once more on April 10, 2000, when Sullivan was replaced by Vince Russo. He teamed with Page for several months before betraying him and siding with Eric Bischoff, the leader of the New Blood faction. In the course of his renewed feud with Page, Kanyon began imitating Page, renaming himself "Positively" Kanyon (a reference to Page's autobiography, Positively Page) and wearing a long blonde wig. In the course of the feud he began using a version of Page's finishing move, the Diamond Cutter, known as the Kanyon Kutter. He began arbitrarily delivering the Kutter to various WCW backstage employees, and at one point executed the move on Gene Okerlund and Buff Bagwell's mother Judy, leading to a short feud with the Bagwell family. His feud with Page stretched into 2001, and had not been resolved when WCW was purchased by the World Wrestling Federation in March 2001.

During his tenure with WCW, Kanyon trained celebrities such as Dennis Rodman, Karl Malone and Jay Leno for their wrestling matches in WCW.

World Wrestling Federation

On July 6, 2001 Chris Kanyon made his WWF debut on SmackDown! as part of The Alliance, a group of former WCW wrestlers who were "invading" the WWF. On July 24 in the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, WCW World Heavyweight Champion Booker T, at the request of Stephanie McMahon, gave Kanyon his WCW United States Heavyweight Championship (which he held in conjunction with the WCW World Title). Upon being presented with the title, Kanyon began referring to himself as "The Alliance MVP", and frequently posed the rhetorical question "who betta than Kanyon?"

Kanyon reformed his tag team with fellow Alliance member Diamond Dallas Page, and on the August 7 episode of SmackDown! in the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, they defeated the Acolyte Protection Agency (Faarooq and Bradshaw) for the WWF World Tag Team Championships. Their reign lasted until August 19, when they were defeated by the Brothers of Destruction (Kane and The Undertaker) for the titles in a cage match at SummerSlam 2001 in the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California. Kanyon went on to lose the United States Championship to Tajiri on the September 10, 2001 episode of RAW is WAR in the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, Texas.

On October 29, Kanyon tore his left anterior cruciate ligament during a dark match with Randy Orton, marking his first major injury. He underwent surgery with Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Alabama, and was sidlined for the remainder of the Invasion storyline. In May 2002 he was sent to Ohio Valley Wrestling, a WWE developmental territory, to restore himself to full fitness. However, while wrestling Lance Cade in Lima, Ohio on July 13, Kanyon injured his left shoulder, suffering a humeral head contusion and supraspinatus tendonitis. He underwent surgery on July 21, but began experiencing breathing difficulties on July 25. As a result of an allergy to the medications he was being treated with, Kanyon's lungs filled with fluid and his blood oxygen level fell to 41%. He gradually recovered, and was discharged from hospital on July 28, having lost 32 lb (15 kg) in the interim.

Kanyon returned to OVW in October 2002, and remained there for a further four months. On the February 13, 2003 episode of SmackDown! he returned to the main roster, emerging from a large crate dressed as Boy George and singing "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" to The Undertaker, prompting The Undertaker to attack him. Kanyon was relegated to Velocity from that point on, in addition to wrestling on several house shows as Mortis.

Retirement and beyond

On February 9, 2004, after a year of not being used in any major storylines and two injuries, Chris Kanyon was officially released from his contract. He retired from professional wrestling on August 28, 2004 after losing a retirement match to Diamond Dallas Page in Wayne, New Jersey. In July 2005, he announced the end of his retirement and his imminent return to the independent circuit. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, he took part in several benefit shows.

On October 14, 2005, Kanyon revealed that he had been diagnosed with manic depression in mid-2004, and had been placed on a course of anti-depressants and mood stabilizing drugs. In the early hours of October 16, he was arrested in Ybor City, Tampa, Florida for "disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence" after attempting to break up a fight. He was released that same day after fellow wrestler Altar Boy Luke provided a States dollar|$" target="_blank" >^*750 cash bond.

Kanyon appeared at the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling pay-per-view TNA Turning Point 2005 on December 11, 2005 as Chris K, losing to Raven. He attended a TNA iMPACT! taping in February 2006, but did not wrestle due to a dispute over the wording of the contract he was asked to sign, which would have granted TNA the right to merchandise his image and persona without paying him royalties.

Revelation of homosexuality

On February 4, 2006, while wrestling at an independent show in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Kanyon stated that he was tired of living in "the closet" and announced that he was a homosexual. He went to say that he was fired from WWE not due to cutbacks, but because of his sexual orientation. Proclaiming himself to be the first openly gay professional wrestler in the wrestling industry (a claim of dubious authenticity), Kanyon told the audience that he chose to be "the real Chris Kanyon", and that they should choose whether they wanted to boo or cheer him, commenting that, "life is about choices".

Kanyon went on to reveal that he made the revelation in character in order to attract mainstream attention, receive bookings on bigger shows and possibly even obtain a long-term contract with WWE or TNA. On March 5, 2006, Kanyon revealed that he was legitimately homosexual (although later reports have indicated that is a complete "work", and he only ever said it to get his name going around again).

In wrestling

Finishing and signature moves

Flatliner / I'm Better Than You (Reverse Russian legsweep)
Kanyon Kutter (Cutter)
Mortis Kick / Deathwish (Muay Thai roundhouse kick)
Inverted sitout side powerslam
Swinging fisherman suplex
Second rope Russian legsweep
Argentine neckbreaker
Super Samoan drop
Electric chair drop
Fireman's carry
Superkick

Managers

Nicknames

"The Innovator of Offense" (bestowed upon him by WCW play-by-play commentator Mike Tenay)
"Positively" Kanyon
Chris "Champagne" Kanyon
"The Alliance MVP"