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Why Kanyon?

Hey Scott,

I've been looking at old Kanyon shoots. Is there any real understanding of why that guy fell SO hard? Of any wrestler who fell out with WWE, he seems to be the one who has the most extra-curricular stuff to fall back on: He was educated, had decent connections, was an experienced stuntman, and was generally well liked.

Was it drugs? Was he just clinically depressed?

​Yes.  It was apparently a combination of both, as he had a series of disastrous injuries that left him hooked on painkillers, and sent him into a spiral that worsened his natural depression.  Near the end he had a bunch of unsuccessful surgeries on his arm to repair what I think was a biceps tear and it just never healed properly and that probably didn't help his painkiller issues.  He was a guy with a lot of problems, sadly.  ​

Comments

  1. Kanyon was bipolar and the fact that he had to hide in the locker room that he was gay made him worse.

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  2. The fact that his finisher was dubbed the "Downward Spiral" is only harsher in hindsight.

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  3. His entrance music was fantastic though. Oddly enough, he was my favorite Alliance guy. The "Alliance MVP" baby!

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  4. He wasn't gay, he was sexually attracted to men and not women.

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  5. Well, he called it the flatliner. Which... Isn't much better I guess.

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  6. it was a knockoff of AC/DC's Shook Me All Night Long. WCW had a few of those.

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  7. Yup. UnEvenflow, definitely doesn't smells like teen spirit, come as something other than you are...

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  8. It's sad. Fortunately it does not seem like Darren Young is having those kinds of problems, I just wish Kanyon had been around in more tolerant times.

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  9. It's also really sad how some of the other wrestlers turned on him. I remember during the time he became a regular call-in on Howard Stern, they had Kanyon call in when Ric Flair was in studio or something. Flair dismisses Kanyon as never being any good, and Kanyon's like "I was good enough that you asked me to train David..." And Flair just brushes him off. Definitely seemed like Flair distancing himself from a guy who was going through some shit (or outright homophobia)

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  10. I'll take a borderline-actionable knockoff of a GOOD song over generic heavy guitar every time though.

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  11. Shook Me All Day Long?

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  12. Would have been awesome if Flair replied "and a shit job you did of that too" regarding the David comment.

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  13. Also Your Sherona (Knobbs) and Walking with the Devil (Wrath)

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  14. Ric Flair would call Ricky Steamboat and overrated homosexual for $5000.

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  15. Flair really seems like a dick the more he talks out of character. Not sure if he's an asshole or if he just likes to say what the McMahons want or both. Either way Really changed my opinion on him.

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  16. Well Ric's hands-on approach to training Reid didn't go so well either.

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  17. Man, his book. I bought it expecting to read about this selfless legend the internet said he was and half way thought I couldn't believe how much of an asshole he was.

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  18. Yeah, I felt the same way when I first read Dynamite Kid's book. Never heard what he was like outside the ring, only knew him as one of my favorites growing up so was pretty excited to read his book and once I read it, I did a complete 180 on the guy.

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  19. Poor guy. Was then and still a huge fan

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  20. Day shaking is the best.

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  21. I liked Kanyon. It's too bad that he couldn't stay above water.

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  22. That's not fair. David could've been trained by Stu Hart--the guy just had no aptitude for wrestling.

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  23. Ricky Steamboat was NOT a honosexual.

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  24. Even WWF Developmental couldn't do anything with him, save having him get his ass kicked by Bikertaker.

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  25. Reid was a natural. He picked up the business and died from a drug overdose much faster than his peers.

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  26. Yes, it was Edge.

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  27. That's true, of course, but Flair charges $7,000 to say *that*.
    The market has spoken...

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  28. Though I admit that it would have been funnier to write "Steamboat was NOT overrated!"

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  29. HowmuchdoesthisguyweighOctober 1, 2014 at 8:27 PM

    I remember an old wwe magazine were it was pretty much hyping a Morris debut in wwe. Must have been 2002ish. That could of been interesting. He was a fun worker. Had innovative offense and worked hard. To bad he had so many issues.

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  30. Who better than Kanyon?


    Kanyon has the distinction of my favorite sell ever of a Stone Cold Stunner during the Raw where Austin destroys the Alliance.

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  31. You may be on to something... and I probably should've went with:

    "But Flair will call him an *underrated* homosexual for $7000"

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  32. I always really liked the Triple Threat knock off DDP, Kanyon, and Bam Bam Bigelow did. Even back then, it felt like DDP just trying to help Kanyon get over.

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  33. "I am not a monster! I am not the elephant man!"

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  34. Hell of an asskicking too. Taker threatening Dr. Tom was funny as hell too

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  35. "What are you doing?"
    "What am I doing? I'm kicking your ass! What does it look like I'm doing!"

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  36. Better than Shane's "Flying Beer Spit" sell?

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  37. I could tell he was a failure just by the way he held his arms. It was the damndest thing. You could just see it right there.

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  38. in his shoot interview, Nova (?) thinks Kanyon was buried because he was gay and points to the Undertaker's reckless and really horrific chairshot that legit knocked him out cold as being a particularly chicken shit move that really sent Kanyon downward in his life.

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  39. What did it say? I remember he was working dark matches as Mortis for awhile there.

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  40. Oh he was the Brock Lesnar of wrestling drug overdoses.

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  41. Who better than Kanyon? Darren Young.

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  42. HowmuchdoesthisguyweighOctober 1, 2014 at 9:49 PM

    Won't let me paste it here but I found an article that had an exert from what I remember. I put the link in this thread.

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  43. You are not very good at this.

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  44. HowmuchdoesthisguyweighOctober 1, 2014 at 11:01 PM

    Always liked Kurt's sell of the stunner

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  45. HowmuchdoesthisguyweighOctober 1, 2014 at 11:03 PM

    Flair on those legend roundtables..... Pretty obnoxious

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  46. Same here. The book killed his mystique for me and it gets worse as he gets older and more petty.

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  47. The Boy George shit didn't help either I'm sure.

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  48. Was there ever a reason for the boy George skit aside from out right homophobia and bullying?

    Kanyon is out for months, randomly appears inside a giant box inexplicably dressed as Boy George and gets destroyed by the undertaker.

    Be a star WWE

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  49. Given how sanitised, sterile and determinedly inoffensive WWE's current product is, it's really easy to forget just how fucking abominably they treat people when they feel they can get away with it.

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  50. Page's music was so close to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" that to this day, when I hear the opening guitar riff of the real song, I expect to hear Page yell "self high five!" over it

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  51. it was a great stable, should have had DDP go a title run as a heel with it. You think WWE can't get booking right, Jesus WCW post-Goldberg title run was awful.

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  52. Same here...and I'm always a little disappointed when I don't hear it.

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  53. MaffewOfBotchamaniaOctober 2, 2014 at 7:47 AM

    Watching shoots interviews with people who were with the company 2003-2005 (like Nova, Daiviri, Rene Dupree), WWE did NOT sound like a fun place to work during that time.

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  54. All he wanted to talk about was his escapades at the Marriott. It was pathetic.

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  55. to be fair those are the stories that I did want to hear from him, not just HORESMEN GOOD NWO BAD over and over and over again.

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  56. I always wondered if he was actually gay. I mean, not that it's completely unbelievable - but it seemed like the kind of thing a bipolar person would say to get attention.

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  57. Didn't he publicly come out, and then later say he wasn't actually gay? This seems like a thing that happened, but I'm not sure.

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