Chris Kanyon

Mortis

In late 1994, he made several appearances with the World Wrestling Federation as a jobber, facing wrestlers such as Shawn Michaels, Diesel, Tatanka and Bob Holly.

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

In 1997, Kanyon donned a mask and was repackaged as **Mortis**. Managed by James Vandenberg, Kanyon feuded with Glacier. Kanyon faced Glacier at Uncensored on March 16 in his pay-per-view debut but lost to the undefeated Glacier. Following the match, Wrath debuted, siding with Kanyon and assaulting Glacier. Glacier defeated Kanyon in a second match at Slamboree 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 on July 13 which was won by Mortis and Wrath. Mortis and Wrath continued to team together until the angle was quietly dropped in early 1998.

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 United States Heavyweight Championship. Mortis failed to defeat Page for the title on the February 12 episode of *Thunder*, and he was DDT'ed on the entrance ramp by Raven as a result. This event led 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. His matches almost always began with him asking the rhetorical question "*Who Better than Kanyon'* as the crowd would respond "everybody" (or "nobody", if he was a face.) 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, Kanyon and Raven continued to team together until Raven, in storyline, was sidelined with depression.

Kanyon returned in 1999, helping Raven and Saturn win the WCW World Tag Team Championship, but soon abandoned them 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 Tag Team Championship, defeating them for the title on June 13 at The Great American Bash pay-per-view. During their reign, they were given special dispensation by WCW President Ric Flair to defend the title 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 title to Harlem Heat at Road Wild on August 14, 1999. The Triad disbanded shortly thereafter.

Kanyon returned to WCW in late 1999 as Chris "Champagne" Kanyon, abbreviated to C.C.K., accompanied by J. Biggs, his "agent", and two former Nitro Girls, Baby and Chameleon. He claimed that he had become acclimatized 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 television.

Kanyon returned to WCW once more on April 10, 2000. He teamed with Page for several months, which climaxed at Slamboree with him attempting to save DDP from being powerbombed by Mike Awesome on top of the triple cage. Kanyon saved Page, but Awesome turned his attention to Kanyon, throwing him off the triple cage onto the ramp below, ending the pay-per-view in dramatic fashion. Kanyon, after a storyline which saw him in a halo brace in a hospital and in a wheelchair, stepped out of the wheelchair and turned on Page at The Great American Bash, costing him his Ambulance match against Mike Awesome. Kanyon then joined 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 and wearing a long blonde wig. He eventually dyed his hair blonde and wore a "P.C.K." (Positively Chris Kanyon) T-shirt. 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, which led to Buff Bagwell defeating Kanyon at New Blood Rising in a Judy Bagwell on a Forklift match. Kanyon left WCW shortly afterward.

Kanyon returned to WCW on the February 5, 2001 episode of *Nitro*, attacking Diamond Dallas Page, renewing his feud with Page. Kanyon returned to the ring and defeated Page at SuperBrawl Revenge on February 18, 2001, but Page defeated Kanyon in a rematch the following night on *Nitro*. Kanyon began feuding with Ernest "The Cat" Miller in March 2001. During this time he had a small gimmick change including a more intense look, new entrance music and a black leather jacket he wore to the ring. The feud had not been resolved by the time WCW was purchased by the World Wrestling Federation in late March 2001.

On July 6, 2001, Kanyon made his WWF debut on *SmackDown!* as part of The Alliance, a group of former WCW wrestlers who were "invading" the WWF. He made his WWF pay-per-view debut at InVasion, a one-off show featuring WWF superstars against former WCW and ECW employees. At this show, he formed a team with Shawn Stasiak and Hugh Morrus in a winning effort against The Big Show, Billy Gunn and Albert in a six-man tag team match. On July 26, 2001, in Pittsburgh, WCW World Heavyweight Champion Booker T, at the request of Stephanie McMahon, gave Kanyon his WCW United States Championship. Upon being presented with the title, Kanyon began referring to himself as "The Alliance MVP".

Kanyon reformed his tag team with fellow Alliance member Diamond Dallas Page on the August 6, 2001 edition of *Raw* when Kanyon helped Page attack The Undertaker backstage. On the August 9, 2001 episode of *SmackDown!*, they defeated the Acolytes Protection Agency (Faarooq and Bradshaw) for the WWF Tag Team Championships. Their reign lasted until August 19, when they were defeated by The Brothers of Destruction (Kane and The Undertaker) for the title in a steel cage match at SummerSlam. Kanyon went on to lose the United States Championship to Tajiri on the September 10, 2001 episode of *Raw*.

Kanyon then had a small feud with Matt Hardy over Kanyon hitting on Lita. Kanyon pinned Hardy on the September 24, 2001 edition of *Raw*. The feud eventually ended in early October after the Hardy Boyz defeated Kanyon and multiple Alliance partners, such as Rhyno, Lance Storm, Chuck Palumbo and Hugh Morrus, in a series of tag team matches. Kanyon then began working on the WWF's B-shows.

On October 29, 2001, Kanyon tore his left anterior cruciate ligament during a dark match with Randy Orton. He underwent surgery and was sidelined for the remainder of the Invasion angle. He would appear only once in a cameo role at the 2001 Survivor Series pay-per-view. At this show, a team representing the Alliance took on a team representing the WWF in a tag team match. A pre-match stipulation declared that the side represented by the losing team would all be released from their contracts (excluding title holders and the winner of the immunity battle royal, Test). As a result of the Alliance team's loss, Kanyon was "fired" along with all the other Alliance members. Eventually, all Alliance members returned as WWE superstars, usually quietly without a storyline or announcement. This storyline allowed Kanyon time to recover from injury.

He made one appearance in a backstage segment with the APA, where they wanted him to attend a battle royal at the next pay-per-view event. Kanyon was among the challengers, but was largely inactive. On the February 13, 2003 episode of *SmackDown!* he returned to the main *SmackDown* roster, emerging from a large crate, from The Big Show, dressed as Boy George and singing "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" to The Undertaker, prompting The Undertaker to attack him. Kanyon made his televised in-ring return on the April 19, 2003 edition of *Velocity* with his "Who Betta Than Kanyon?" gimmick and was defeated by Rhyno. Despite a few appearances on *SmackDown*, Kanyon was relegated to *Velocity* from that point on for the rest of 2003, in addition to wrestling on several dark matches and house shows as **Mortis**.

On April 2, 2010, Kanyon passed away.