Chris Kanyon was so ahead of his time.
He was amazing.
[Commentary] with moves like that!
I loved working with that mother... er.
Kanyon, the Innovator of Offense,
living up to his reputation.
He called himself the Innovator of Offense.
...trying to get this, oh, my goodness!
How about that, a cradle neck breaker!
Might end up getting stuck, look at this!
Oh, my goodness!
[narrator] In the 1990s,
wrestler Chris Kanyon rose from obscurity
to become one of the most innovative and versatile
performers of the era, pioneering a style that
would set the stage for decades to come.
I would say he's one of the most
underappreciated wrestlers of all time.
Chris is one of those guys who deserve
so much more respect, so much more notoriety,
and so much more love
for everything he did for wrestling.
Despite success and the adulation of his peers,
Kanyon lived with a deep secret,
which he believed, if revealed,
would end his career in an instant.
I had no idea he was gay.
Here was a guy twice my size that's just,
[mimicking raspy voice] always talking about,
"... the queers! I ain't got time for that!"
That, to me, was like the greatest kept secret.
And, I'm one of Chris' best friends.
Concealing the truth became an obsession,
and his increasingly erratic behaviour
deeply concerned and terrified
those closest to him.
Then he started doing a bunch of crazy shit.
The house would be destroyed,
or my car would be destroyed,
or my clothes would be torn up.
And at that point, I was like,
"You just tried to ing kill me."
Just holding onto a secret,
not being able to share it with your
closest friends and family.
Not being able to tell them who you really are,
that must have killed him for so long.
Literally, it was an emotional rollercoaster.
He was manic. Really just out of his mind.
It was a painful thing to watch him disintegrate, really.
His life played out the way he saw it,
'cause we all manifest our own reality.
♪
Who's better than Kanyon?!
In the 90s, it was like
You had to have a catch phrase.
You had to have a catch phrase!
[raspy voice] "Who better than Kanyon?"
- "Who better!" - "Who better than Kanyon!"
Who better than Kanyon? Nobody!
Well, he shows me something different every time.
Kanyon has really revolutionized our sport.
Brought in some moves that no one's even thought of.
That was different.
As far as guys I loved to be in the ring with
and dance, as we call it, haha...
Chris Kanyon's the top 5%.
'Cause it was just fun.
It's me, it's DDP.
Diamond Dallas Page.
Master of the Diamond Cutter.
[Cheering]. Oh!
I think he did the independent wrestling style
before anybody else.
I'm Nick Jackson, this is my brother, Matt Jackson.
We're The Young Bucks.
We're very good friends with Chris Kanyon.
He doesn't realize so much of us, as kids,
as teenagers, we watched Chris.
The way that he took moves and the way he sold moves,
and the way he strung along offense.
You see another one of his innovative moves.
There was something special about Chris.
Everyone loved him.
And he was funny, and he was bright,
and he was witty.
I would call him the King of Sunnyside, New York.
Hi, my name is Rafael Morffi.
I'm a 20-year pro wrestling executive.
I grew up with Chris Klucsarits, aka,
Chris Kanyon, in Sunnyside, Queens, New York.
And I went to grammar school with Chris and high school,
and as luck would have it, work with him at WWE.
Middle class, blue collar area.
A lot of Catholics.
In our parish, he would be in the corner with
some of his friends, putting on these shows.
He adored wrestling.
I don't think he was ever comfortable
about his sexual orientation.
That comes from where he grew up,
his religious beliefs.
He had a struggle at our high school.
He was overheard cursing his teacher and,
sent him to the chaplain of our school.
And he just blurted out, "I'm gay." You know,
"Don't give into Satan, don't give into temptations."
The animosity Chris had towards this person who told him that...
Chris says, "That's who I am so, why is it wrong?"
I think it had a big effect on him.
And really broke my heart.
I was like, man, I wish I knew.
I wish I knew he was going through this.
So, when I first started hanging around with Kanyon,
he presented himself as a guy from New York,
a tough New York, you know, Queens guy,
who was very Catholic and very anti-homosexual.
I am The Sinister Minister, Father James Mitchell.
I have been known as Daryl Van Horne in
Smoky Mountain Wrestling.
I'm sure your mother's waiting for you in the tool shed!
I was known as James Vandenberg in WCW.
..and twist his body!
He showed me this tape of him doing a match in the streets.
I said, you know, "I could really do
something with you, Kanyon.
What we need to do is get you into a ring.
And the only wrestling ring that I know of around here
is the one that Fabulous Moolah has."
Brought in the hard way by the fabulous one.
For over half a century, the Fabulous Moolah was
one of the industry's leading power brokers,
controlling nearly all aspects of women's wrestling.
He was pretty marked out that he was
in the presence of a legend.
Moolah normally trained women.
I had told him, "Just keep your mouth shut.
Let me do the talking. Let me see if I can
bullshit her, get you in the door."
She looked at him, she was very impressed.
♪
Moolah would run these tiny shows for her students.
Mae Young was there, and she would get in there all the time
and jump on Kanyon and stomp the shit out of him.
She'd rip big wads of hair out of his head.
"Van! What's going on? This bitch is crazy!
She's shooting on me!" I'm like,
"Just put up with it. You'll be okay."
By the mid 90s,
Kanyon catches the attention of World Championship Wrestling,
and is soon realizing his dream performing
regularly on national television.
I first met Chris when I went to WCW and,
he used to be in a tag team called Men At Work where
they used to go around and measure things
for no apparent reason. [Laughing]
He started getting a little bit of steam because he had
such a great reputation amongst the other wrestlers.
He had this really super thick accent.
He also had a little bit of a lisp,
which used to bother him.
He was always nervous to do a promo on air 'cause
he was always kind of worried about his lisp.
[Indistinct] ...and found to be condemned!
Everyone saw the potential that he had to be top star,
and that's when they started giving him a little bit more
to do on the show and kind of expanding his role.
He was getting to live his dream.
This was a time when he was really happy.
He went to pack up and go to Memphis, I believe.
I get a phone call, and I see it on the caller ID and
I'm excited. Christopher Klucsarits, and I picked it up.
"Kanyon! How are you doing?" He goes,
"Van, I have something to tell you."
"Okay, what's that?"
"I had one of those big U-Haul things,
and my cousins were trying to move it.
And Van, gay pornography exploded all over the street!
It was like a piñata of gay porn!
And I panicked, and they said,
'Kanyon, what the... is that'?
And I said, 'That's Daryl Van Horne's!
He, he, he pulls ribs on people.
He's a sick mother... er! He's probably gay, himself.
I bet it's his!'".
So, that's how he came out to me.
And I said, "Okay, so what?" He goes,
"So, you need to call my cousin."
And he had this very elaborate script written out where
I couldn't be too obvious, but I had to say,
"Hey, can you get me in touch with Kanyon because
I left some materials with him." And the thing was,
I was the only person Kanyon told he was gay.
And, my job was to cover for him.
What really was a huge break for Chris,
was they came up with this campaign.
Our world is about to change.
The Blood Runs Cold story line casts wrestler
Ray Lloyd as Glacier,
a character inspired by Mortal Combat's Sub Zero.
While Kanyon emerges as his nemesis, Mortis,
with Manager James Vandenberg at his side.
That's the coolest mask gimmick ever.
♪
This was... a huge break.
And it was a great combination with Vandenberg.
"Vandenballs", he used to call him.
He used to torture Vandenballs, man.
He was vicious.
[Laughing]
But, Vandenballs never has a career without Chris Kanyon.
And he loved Vandenballs, he loved him.
- [Cheering] - Oh!
Oh! That was right in the chest!
We were celebrating a great victory or something.
I went to turn the car on, and it wouldn't start.
He started screaming, and yelling, and cursing at me.
I go, "Kanyon, it's not a big deal.
I'll call a taxi, whatever."
And, he just started increasing it.
Anyhow, the car starts.
So, now we're riding home to Atlanta.
The whole time, he's throwing elbows in my face going,
"You mother... er! I... ing hate you!
You... ing piece of shit!" I'm just going, "What?
What's wrong with you, man?"
And we got to the parking garage. He kicked,
actually kicked my ing passenger door open.
"You mother... er!"
And he began to kick out every headlight, brake light.
Jumped up and down on the hood.
Totally destroyed my car. Bashed the glass out of it.
"Get the... out of here! I hate you.
I never want to see you again!
If I didn't have a lisp, I would never have anything to
do with you, 'cause I can't do a promo."
And then, I looked at him, I let it sit for a minute.
And I went... "Okay."
"That's a hell of a thing to say to the only guy
who knows your secret identity."
♪
As Chris Kanyon reaches new heights wrestling for
one of the industry's top promotions,
he becomes even more paranoid about his
colleagues discovering his innermost secret.
If you were gay back then, you were a bad guy.
You were a heel.
You were the guy that you would do the Sunset Flip
and they would pull your pants down,
you'd have a thong on.
Look at this! [Laughing]
[Cheering]
Back in those days, it just wasn't as accepted as it is now.
Oh, my gosh! A man kissing another man!
I can't believe it!
Absolutely, I'm sure Kanyon was worried about
how that would be presented.
Oh, my god! Oh!
Wait a minute.
It wasn't gonna be a positive thing.
My name is Brian Cage. Current AEW wrestler.
Big time fan, very close friend,
and also unofficial trainee of Chris Kanyon.
Just because of the creative control that wrestling
could have, you know, that easily could have
lost him his job, for sure.
He had what looked like a control center.
He would spend days trolling for boyfriends.
He had all these long winded conversations with guys,
and he would print everything out.
Alphabetize them, organize them.
And he would put them in this little metal box.
So, you'd have the usual suspects come running in
and, they'd ask what was in the box.
He'd say, "None of your ing business!"
And he started getting really paranoid about the box,
to a point, I started calling it Pandora's Box.
I said, "Kanyon, why do you have this?
You're worried about being outed as being gay,
but this is like Nixon keeping Watergate tapes."
Maybe he wanted somebody to knock it over just like
his gay porn fell out of the U-Haul thing
with his cousin, you know. That could have been it.
What was great about the Mortis character for Chris,
was that you could hide behind the mask.
And, little did I know that he was hiding
behind a mask the whole time.
Mortis really gave him that power to grow.
What a move, what a move!
And then a little thing happened called...
the N.W.O.
What is he doing?
Is he the third man?!
You can call this the
New World Order of wrestling, brother.
And I will never forget Kanyon.
He looked at me, he goes, "Our push is dead."
And he was right. The NWO took over the world.
I hope it's okay because
there's nothing you can do about it!
All of that gimmicky character-based
wresting stuff went out the window.
We're on reality-based wrestling, not cartoons.
He started getting really frustrated about it.
You just opened Pandora's Box!
The stress off it started making him
really lash out at me for no reason.
One night, he went off on me.
"You mother... er!" And started choking me,
like this, with the thumbs on the Adam's apple,
to the point that I, I blacked out.
And I started coming to and I was hearing,
"You mother... you mother... er!"
And then he, he looked down at me and he goes,
"Oh, Van... [gasping]
What am I doing? I'm so sorry!
I, I... ing love you. I'm... ing sorry."
And he started kissing my forehead and shit.
And, you know, and I was loyal to him,
and I loved him, and he, he helped me so much.
But, there's no reason to be beating my ass.
You know, he had to release his steam and he couldn't
act that way in front of other people.
With the Mortis storyline now over,
Chris grows anxious about his future with the company.
But WCW finds him a new role.
- That's, that's Mortis! - Oh, my...
You know, we haven't seen Mortis for months.
Now without a mask,
he is reintroduced to fans as Kanyon.
Now we can see Chris.
We can see, 'cause he looks, he's a good looking dude.
You know, he's got swag.
Now he's got a different level of confidence.
Who's better than Kanyon?
Eric Bischoff had a lot of faith in Chris Kanyon.
I mean, he sent him to do Ready to Rumble.
That match, everything, all that's Chris Kanyon.
That generation loved Ready to Rumble.
It's the best wrestling movie of all time.
[Laughing]
Kanyon helped teach David Arquette
how to wrestle and how to take the bumps.
And then he even took some of the stunts.
He was a stunt double in the,
in the film, itself.
Someone came up with the three-level cage match.
And then it was his idea to use that cage in actual WCW match.
Chris took a bump from the top from Mike Awesome,
big moment.
- Oh! - [Match bell chiming]
It was just great to see him.
Like, he's in the mix.
He would make fun of me all the time.
He would do his DDP impersonation.
He was having such a good time with it.
Bang!
WCW had the money to spend on these guys.
Chris probably went from making, you know,
100 bucks a day to making, you know, what,
3, 4, 500 grand a year.
He was spending it, but in a good way.
He loved to play lord bountiful
and put on the best parties.
He turned his house into
a beach bar nightclub.
Like, literally. He brought in sand.
The women were crawling on him.
I'm not kidding. Crawling on him.
And he completely no sells it.
And, one of the girls one night,
comes over to me and she goes,
"I think your friend might be gay."
And I told him that. He got really paranoid then.
♪
So, he had assigned me to
make a pornographic video of him
that he could show the boys as proof that he was straight.
"Find a whore.
Here's the room and here's my video camera.
Here's the script.
I'll be there about midnight."
And he never showed up.
One o'clock, two o'clock, whatever.
So, nature took its course.
Long story short, we followed his script.
And the girl was wearing the Mortis mask, okay.
♪
In the morning, we're in the hotel room,
and I pop the tape in. Kanyon laughed at first,
and then you could see him start getting furious.
And he ran in the bathroom, and out of nowhere he goes,
"You mother... er! You used my hair conditioner!"
I was like, "Kanyon, I don't even have... ing
three pieces of hair on my head."
And he's just amping it up and I,
and I started seeing...
the things that led to me getting choked.
However, I had a 45 pistol under the pillow.
And he hit me with both fists in the chest and
I flew over the bed.
I hit the ground and I came right back up,
slid across, put my hand under the pillow,
picked up the gun and I went, "... you!
You hit me again, you're... ing dead!"
Now shit's on.
Kanyon grabs the four pieces of Charlie Brown hair
I have on top of my head: "Put down the gun!"
And I'm going, "I've had enough of this shit!
You're too... ing big, you mother... er!
What the... did I do to deserve this shit?"
And, and then, it hit me like, this shit's out of control.
This is my, one of my best friends.
So, we let it diffuse.
Oh, yeah, yeah, I was.
I had looked up all the statutes on,
you know, reasonable fear of life, and whatnot.
I mean, it wasn't something I wanted to do,
but I was like, you know, the next time this guy
starts that Adam's apple business...
I was prepared to shoot him.
♪
Although Chris Kanyon's paranoia continues to
manifest in violent outbursts, his career is about to
peak in a way he never dreamed possible.
Chris Kanyon took prominence right when
the industry was having a great boom.
Then, you know, WWE bought out WCW.
You know, they really believed in him.
And Chris writes in his book, you know,
Vince pulled him aside and said,
"You have really adjusted well here,
and we have big plans for you."
And he ended up being a double champion
the first two months or so.
He was a tag champion, and he was the US champion.
Who better than Kanyon and DDP, and...
Who better?
You know, I thought he was in a great spot.
I mean, I thought he was gonna shine.
But, you know, it's like anything, you know,
you don't know what you don't know.
Kanyon would invite me to come up and stay with him.
I'd stay with him two, three weeks.
Sometimes a month at a time.
He would spend two or three days sitting on the floor,
stacking and restacking papers.
I'd say, "What are you doing?" "I'm working on my taxes."
But he wasn't working on his taxes.
He was just taking piles of notices from the IRS and
things like that and just moving them around, like...
He would stay in bed for 6 and 7 days
after he's invited me there.
I'd just be sitting in his house for days, and days, and days.
I didn't understand depression.
I'd say, "What the... do you have to be depressed about?
You're on... ing WWE, you're in movies.
You got money."
He couldn't articulate it to me further than, you know,
"You don't know what it's like to be in my head.
You think everybody loves me.
I don't think they do."
♪
Then he got hurt.
He got his shoulder injured,
and he was worried that he was gonna get fired.
You build a program, then you get hurt.
It's really hard to come back from.
He took steroids for one of the few times
I was ever aware of it
to try to rehab his injury.
And I guess he was depressed for a few days and
left a needle out.
And he got some sort of horrible blood infection and,
and he lost a bunch of weight,
and he was really worried that...
they would let him go.
Kanyon spends the next year and a half recovering
from his injuries while also struggling with
his mental health.
Determined to come back better than before,
he's finally offered a role that he believes will get
his career back on track.
He had told me he was gonna be at Smackdown.
And he had a role, a big one.
It was a moment for him to be involved with
two huge names in the industry, The Undertaker,
who was very high on Chris.
Thought Chris had a lot of potential.
And, Paul Heyman,
who's presenting The Undertaker with a gift.
...The Undertaker in a box...
Whenever WWE came to town in southern California,
we were at the shows, no matter what.
I remember Chris was hiding in like a giant,
of course, in pro wrestling, a giant present.
At some point, Kanyon was directed to come out of a big
wooden box dressed as Boy George and singing,
'Do You Really Want to Hurt Me',
and he was told to do it with a lisp.
♪ Do you 'weally' want to make me cry? ♪
- Boy George? - Do you really want to hurt me!
And we're like, "Oh, my god, it's Kanyon!"
'Cause we were such Kanyon fans.
We're just popping from our seats.
We're like, "We didn't know he was gonna be here!"
♪ ...me cry. ♪
Where's Brother Love when you need him?
But then he just got destroyed, right?
[Indistinct shouting]
And Kanyon!
Welcome back to the WWE.
It was really violent.
A chair!
And I remember, like, I was smart to the business even,
I think, I remember thinking to myself, like, this is terrible.
Oh!
Why did they bring Kanyon out just to kill him like that?
[Indistinct shouting & screaming]
He's a human being!
What was that, like a chair shot to the head or something?
It was like a terrible chair shot to the head.
Oh!
Wow, did you hear that?
Unfortunately, I did. Man, that was a nasty...
It's pretty obvious.
He had never done anything like that.
Just out of the blue one day he comes out and
is expected to sing like Boy George.
Like, I mean, come on.
Somebody found something out or heard something,
or said, "Let's put this guy to task."
And it's a bullying WWE trick. Why else would you do that?
I think that really did hurt him.
To this day, I'm not gonna buy it
that they wanted to humiliate him. Sorry.
WWE's not gonna have someone trained to come back
for a year to humiliate him on national TV.
That's not gonna happen.
It just didn't work out creatively.
And then he started being...
depositioned or pushed down a card.
You know who's better than Kanyon?
I want to know. Tell me, please.
Everybody! Woo!
This happens a lot of times in the WWE.
You get kind of slotted in a certain position and
it's hard to dig yourself out of it.
They didn't feel it was enough to keep him on so,
they let him go.
♪
Kanyon claimed to me, at first,
that the office was punishing him for being gay.
But then he told me later that was all bullshit.
A knee injury, a shoulder injury.
He can't get back on track.
And he was just using it as an ace in the hole
to cover his ass if he ever had to sue them.
And he became what I guess you call in literature,
an unreliable narrator.
I couldn't tell what was true and what wasn't.
And Orlando Jordan beats Kanyon!
But, you know, Kanyon in a lot of ways towards the
last few years of his life could be his own worst enemy.
♪
Devastated by his release from the WWE,
Chris Kanyon finds meaning in mentoring
a new generation of wrestling stars.
It was about 2005 when we got booked on a bigger show...
We saw Chris Kanyon was on the list and we couldn't believe it.
He was one of our heroes, legitimate heroes.
Here we are, we're just these kids.
- I'm probably 19? - Yeah, and I'm 15, 16.
We're like teenage voices:
[high pitch voice] "Hi, I'm Matt.
This is my brother, Nick." All nervous.
We hit it off, you know, right off the bat.
Imagine this guy that you watched on television for years.
Now he's your friend, and he's, you know, calling you every day.
He had called me at one time and he goes,
"Hey, are you guys having a show?
'Cause, I'm kind of in the area.
I could come work one of your shows if you're there."
And I was like, "Holy crap.
Well, we're doing a show now!"
Chris Kanyon, the Innovator of Offense.
Who better, nobody's better!
He came out to a big pop, you know, the big star.
And he buries the crowd, super good heel, mic work.
I'm gonna beat ya, and then I'm gonna
leave this stupid hick town and never, ever come back.
- [Booing] - Shut up!
I didn't want to go, I didn't want to go over at all.
And he goes, "Kid, this is your promotion,
your hometown. Like, you gotta go over,
it's gonna get the better reaction."
I was like, "Okay, fine." He goes to pick me up,
I slip out the back door, and I roll him up, 1, 2, 3.
Still to this day, it's one of my top three favourite,
not like matches in wrestling,
but probably one of my top three favourite moments in my life.
And he was such a giving, selfless guy.
Maybe for this one night, you're better than Kanyon.
[Cheering]
Chris Kanyon was the person that would,
honestly, give you the shirt off his back.
He was a great person, yeah.
Chris was a, Chris was a great person.
My name is Luke Hawx. I'm a professional wrestler,
and also a dear friend of Chris Kanyon.
As you can see, such a dear friend,
you see, I have Mortis tattooed on my arm right here.
2005, Katrina hit, and I was in Louisiana.
It was the worst hurricane of all time,
completely wiped out the city.
Kanyon called me up and he,
he was the first person to call me.
And he goes, "If you need a place to live,
you can come live with me as long as you need to.
No charge." So, Chris would go through these stages
where he would stay up for three or four days at a time.
Keep in mind, we're in Clearwater Beach and,
the headquarters for Scientology is not far away.
So, he said he had just got home,
and he went left,
and he was driving on this bridge for hours.
And he was trying to get to the scientology building,
and I think he said he'd seen aliens or
aliens had stopped him.
♪
Which never happened because
he was home with us the whole time.
So, he starts freaking out.
He's like, "I gotta break into this building.
I gotta go in that building. I know the aliens are in there."
I told the guys, I said, "We can't let him leave."
♪
We gotta hold him down.
We're gonna have to tie him up and lock him in a room.
We can't let him leave until he calms down and goes
to sleep 'cause we knew once he went to sleep,
he would wake up and he would be fine.
And that's exactly what happened.
He woke up, didn't even remember it happening.
♪
Kanyon eventually begins treatment for bipolar disorder,
and finally feels empowered to open up
about his sexuality.
He says, "I need to tell you something."
And I go, "Okay, what's up?"
His tone was different,
and he was more serious and, and I'm just like,
"Is everything okay, man?"
"I just don't know how you're gonna react to this."
I'm like, "Dude, just tell me."
And he finally spits it out, he's like, "Kid..."
"I'm gay." And, I said, "Okay."
And he goes, "You don't hate me?"
I said, "Hate why, why would I hate you?"
He goes, "'Cause I'm gay."
And just to be honest, especially at that time,
that day and age, I was a little bummed out about it.
I'm like, "What?" I'm like, "Kanyon's gay?"
Then I started thinking about it. I go, wait a minute,
that doesn't change anything. Like,
I'm, I'm really thankful for that opportunity now, too,
because I really think that made me...
like, open my eyes and become a lot more like
understanding and tolerant towards a lot of things
because it was like that quick, like,
within a minute I went from like,
"Oh, man," to like, "Oh, wait, who cares?"
We were all kind of happy for him 'cause by this time,
his career wasn't where he dreamed it could be.
He had been discussing, on and off,
being an openly gay wrestler.
He wanted to really be a role model in doing it,
but the, the issue was how do you portray that.
He came out of the closet at an independent show
where he was wrestling Diamond Dallas.
And right now, one of the most controversial wrestlers...
The question I got for you, my brother...
You gonna pop the question? Uh-oh.
The rumour that's going around is...
Are you gay?
He figured that it would be a big deal.
The rumours are true. I'm gay.
I am the first ever openly gay professional athlete
active in this country.
You will always be my brother.
The thing was, we're now in 2006.
And nobody cared.
It was kind of like too little too late.
Orlando Jordan had been put on television and,
they were gonna announce him as an openly gay wrestler.
And Kanyon lost his mind about that.
"They're taking my gimmick! They're taking my gimmick!"
And I would say,
"Well, you don't have a patent or trademark on being gay,
and you didn't bring it up to them before."
He wrote a letter to Stephanie McMahon saying,
"Please, let me be the spokesman.
I think I can help kids that need to come out,"
and things like that.
Stephanie wrote him back this pithy little response,
"I'm so sorry to hear about your struggles.
I didn't know about any of this,
but before I can address your other issues
I have to talk to legal," legal department or something.
And, he never heard back from it after that.
A few years prior, Kanyon had already sealed his fate with
the WWE by attempting a series of ill-conceived
stunts in the hopes of getting their attention.
I was WWE's MSG promoter.
You know, Chris Benoit just wins his world title.
You had Eddie Guerrero in the ring.
So, you know, I'm on the floor.
So, this is about a few minutes after we were off air.
I look in the corner of my eye and I see Chris
jump in the ring, go to the turnbuckle...
♪
That was some odd behaviour from him.
You know, I had to ask myself,
what, you know, what's going on here?
Later that night, the WWE was kind enough
to invite him to the after party.
He goes, "Oh, and by the way, I just went over to,
to Vince, Vince McMahon,
put my arm around him and I said,
'Thank you for inviting me to this party, you know,
even though you fired me.'"
- Again... - I don't know why he did that.
Chris was, he, it was like a downward spiral.
I think his head was stuck in that, "No, I'm gonna be
controversial so they'll talk about it in the sheets."
You would hear these stories about,
"Yeah, Kanyon's sitting front row at a live event
screaming, you know, 'Give me justice',"
or whatever, whatever the, the details were.
Any way you slice it, you could see this isn't good.
The industry may have seen him as taboo to work with.
That must have been terrible for Chris.
And then, you know, he kind of disappeared
for a while after that.
One time he calls me,
and we were really close at this point.
I start the shower and my phone goes off, and it's Chris.
And I always pick up for Chris.
And he's bawling his eyes out.
And I'm like, "Chris, calm down, calm...
What's going on?"
"I've had enough. I'm gonna kill myself."
I said, "Chris, what?"
He's like, "Pray for me right now, kid.
Pray for me for me right now."
And I'm like, my hand's shaking and I'm like,
I'm praying for this guy.
And, he's bawling and bawling and bawling,
and like, the entire bathroom's filling up with steam
'cause like, I'm on this call for 45 minutes.
I'm crying, and I'm 19 years old.
I'm trying to convince this guy,
one of my heroes, don't kill yourself.
And it was heavy.
And by the time we were done with the conversation,
I got him to calm down.
And we said a prayer and, and he told me he loved me.
And, I got off the phone and I'm just like
standing there, just going, holy crap,
what was that?
♪
In 2006, Kanyon receives an unexpected call
from The Howard Stern Show,
where he eventually appears as a regular,
demonstrating his wit, charm, and humour.
He got out there and he talked about being gay,
and he made the self-deprecating jokes
that he'd always wanted to do.
If the Mets win, you gotta suck my dick.
Ah!
Chris Kanyon's a wrestler. And, he feels he was
kicked out of the WWE 'cause he's gay.
To me, the Boy George thing,
that was a message, I thought. You know,
that was like, "If you come out of the closet,
we're gonna beat the shit out of you."
[Howard] I see.
They told me before that, before I went out there as
Boy George, they said, "Sing like a..."
- Whoa. - Oh...
You know...
There was an incident with him and John Cena
on Howard Stern.
He says Vince is a homophobe,
and Chris claims that he was fired because
he is a gay man.
Here's, here's a weird thing about Chris,
and I've known Chris for a long time.
He, he actually came out of the closet after he was fired.
[Howard] Right.
He just, he wasn't any good.
I remember when I first saw it, I was... ing livid.
It was just such a dirtbag thing to say.
And with Vince, you do have to have
a certain technical bravado.
You gotta be able to wrestle.
But at the same time, it's WWE.
You gotta be able to entertain the people.
Chris just wasn't any good.
Take Kanyon, you know, to the general public,
who's like right here.
And then, John Cena, who's right here.
And if he, you know, kind of craps on Kanyon.
Whatever truth there is to whatever he's saying,
Cena's gonna basically stomp it out.
You know, the guys from the WWE were in an uproar
after your last appearance here.
- Really? - Did you know that?
No.
Ric Flair is on the phone. He wants to debate you.
Ric Flair is on the phone?
Kanyon loved Ric Flair.
Kanyon's Kanyon was Ric Flair.
[Ric Flair] John, John made a good point.
And I'm, I'm disappointed in Chris as a person.
I've known him a long time, that he would blame
his shortcomings on something that's going on
in his personal life.
He started getting into a fight with
his childhood hero, Ric Flair.
Ric, we know a lot of guys inside the business that
are gay, but they don't want to go national,
be nationally out.
I did, and I was punished for wanting to do it.
[Laughing] Yeah.
I guess it kind of didn't go well for Kanyon.
He put Ric Flair in a position of having to say,
"Chris, I love you, buddy. You're a good guy, but...
you're not the Nature Boy. You're not Stone Cold."
So, you think he could work for the WWE again?
No, I don't think he could.
Why not?
I think the opportunity for Chris Kanyon
has come and gone. And Cena said,
"Yeah, you are not good enough right now
to be on the show." - Okay.
[Howard] Alright, well, there it is.
Ric Flair backed what John Cena said,
and Kanyon had a huge problem with that.
He really kind of underplayed
how much it affected him.
I think he just didn't want to admit that
wrestling had that kind of power over him.
He was a great professional wrestler.
He was a great entertainer.
And, it was gone.
Last time I saw him was January or February of 2010.
And he had been booked to work a show for
Mikey Whipwreck, and the match just,
it was horrible.
It was the worst I've ever seen him wrestle in his life.
And people started laughing.
Once they're laughing at you and not with you, you're gone.
Total flat finish. Nobody cared.
But, we went to the bar afterwards.
He was holding court. He was the star.
He was making all the self-deprecating gay jokes
and people were laughing with him, not at him.
One guy walked up to me:
"Hey, I don't want to bother you guys,
but will you just let him know he meant a lot to me,
and he's inspired me because... because I'm gay."
So, we go back to the hotel room and everything's great.
And, we walk in, and he started saying he was sore,
and I asked him what happened. And he said that he'd
just thrown himself in front of a car,
trying to kill himself a couple days earlier.
And I started saying, "Kanyon,
have you lost your... ing mind?
Did you see just see what we did?
Did you see the outpouring of love from these guys?"
And I said, "You're being ing selfish."
And he goes,
"No, Van, you're the one who's being... ing selfish.
You don't know what it's like to live in
my... ing brain, to feel like a... ing freak,
and to... ing hate yourself every day."
And I yelled at him a little bit more and, and then he goes,
"Van, I'm gonna stop you right here."
And we hugged, and then it was like,
like an episode of This Is Your Life.
He was gonna take me to the airport and
we had like 45 minutes to go.
And it was like, "You remember the time you did this,
you remember the time you did that?"
And we were howling like the good old days.
When I got out of the car, I just... ing lost it.
And I got on the plane, and I cried the whole way home.
And I found a little corner seat,
and I got off and my wife asked me what was wrong.
And I said, "I think he's gonna do it this time."
♪
That last day I saw him, I literally knew that
he wasn't gonna be here much longer.
I started, you know, calling him several times a day,
every day for like two weeks.
And he wouldn't answer the phone, at all.
Then his friend Mike Paserello called me at,
I think it was like 6 am in the morning,
and that's never a good time to get a phone call.
And he told me, told me he was gone.
On April 2nd, 2010,
Chris was found dead in his childhood home
in Sunnyside Queens, New York,
having overdosed on antidepressants.
His death was ruled a suicide.
He was 40 years old.
As you can imagine, we took it how we took it.
[Sighing] And ah, you know, I teared up a little bit.
Said, "Mother... er!"
I was like so numb. I didn't know, like,
what to do or feel. I was just like frozen
'cause it was just, I was just at a loss.
But I also remember being relieved because I
remembered Chris is now at a place where he wants to be
because he can't be in pain, you know.
He's not... it's...
♪
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
He, I knew my friend wasn't suffering anymore.
And it sucked to lose him, but I just hope that
he's not suffering anymore.
I... ing owe everything to the guy, you know.
He's horribly missed.
He was one of my best friends.
He wanted to reach his arms out and help,
you know, me be successful and...
I love him and I miss him.
It's very rare in wrestling that you get
somebody that nobody ever talks bad about.
Chris is one of those guys.
I mean, he was a tortured soul.
If I understood what was going on,
maybe I could have been a, you know, more...
more assistance or guided him in the right way, but...
I just didn't know, and I, you know,
I would just tell anybody watching this...
if you know anybody who's bipolar or schizophrenic,
anything like that, to where they're mental health issues
are interfering with their day-to-day existence,
do what you have to do.
... any secrets you have.
Go out there and get them help and save them.
He definitely opened the door though.
Yes, in the wrestling industry.
For others to be more comfortable with coming out,
and that he was one of the first that I can remember.
He's a pioneer.
You know, he'd be a hero right now.
He really would be a hero.
I think that was too much of a cross to bear, I really do.
I mean, now we've got,
you know, out gay wrestlers, trans.
I mean, it's a different world.
Chris Kanyon inspired and helped
an entire generation of younger guys.
They show their appreciation for what he did,
for his legacy by incorporating his moves
into their matches.
- A superplex. - Wow!
Who better than Cage!
He was just so under-utilized and so underappreciated,
so the fact that we could bring more light
to his name and people can really understand and
see how great of a guy he was,
and how great in the ring he was,
you know, it's better late than never.
I remember on one road trip in particular, Chris is like,
"You guys don't realize what I would do to go back and
be your age." - Oh, yeah.
Trying to break in to wrestling and make it again right now.
And we just, it didn't make any sense to me.
"What are you talking about? You've done it all.
You were on WCW Nitro,
you've been a champion in WWE."
You have your own action figures,
you've been on video games.
You've done it all, Chris. And I didn't understand, like,
why would he want to trade spots with me?
I would do anything, I would give up anything to be him.
"Guys, listen," he's like, "the journey there is
so much better than the destination."
And I'm like, I didn't get it.
And now, I've made it to the destination,
and he's right.
Like, you're chasing this thing and when you finally
get to the thing, it doesn't really make you feel
any better or happier.
You have to be happy the entire time.
That last night I saw him, I'd asked him,
"You know, I've told some of these stories about the crazy
shit you did, but you didn't have the gay subtext to
explain some of the behaviour." And I said,
"Do you really want me to tell these stories?"
He goes, "Shoot, papa, shoot." "Tell the truth, papa."
If you pulled out a Ouija board and I got the
chance to talk to him one more time,
I would just say, "Kanyon,
you've been an amazing friend."
I... I...
I guess I'd just hug his ghost.
[Laughing] You know, oops.
And he'd go, "Mother... er, you missed!"
[Laughing]
♪