10 Potential Megastars That Never Recovered From WWE Burials
8. Chris Kanyon
Chris Kanyon was twice decimated by The Undertaker during his WWE tenure, but the 2001 sh*t-kicking he and partner Diamond Dallas Page took couldn't compare to particularly cynical decimation he experienced two years later.
Wrestling doesn't have a particularly stellar record when it comes to delicately managing mental health, but it's safe to assume that the best way to aid a performer struggling to cope with his homosexuality in a notoriously narrow-minded industry isn't to dress him up as Boy George, have him 'come out' of a giant gift, then take concussion-inducing chair shots as a punishment.
Literally all of it happened though, and on a taped show no less.
Airing in full despite the company having 48 hours to consider if it was truly acceptable content, 'The Deadman's brutal assault on the returning Kanyon signalled exactly what most inside WWE thought of the prodigious WCW star's talents. Astonishingly, the dire segment was his actual return to television after an injury, but he was beaten with such fury that only a doomed stint on C-show Velocity beckoned in the aftermath.
The message from WWE was painfully clear - he was gay first, and a wrestler second, no matter how talented he may have been. Continuously battling inner demons long after his 2004 WWE release, Kanyon tragically committed suicide in 2010.