This is from the Wrestling Observer and was sent 4 years ago, on January 21, 2006:
Dear Stephanie, I will try to make this as short as possible. And I am sorry to bother you. Four plus years ago, when I was wrestling for your company, I came up with an idea. You see, I am gay, but at the time, I was heavily closeted. My idea was to be the first ever openly gay active pro athlete in the five major U.S. pro sports of pro baseball, basketball, wrestling, football or hockey. By lumping wrestling in with the other four, I thought there was great potential for mainstream publicity. First step was to come out to family and friends, but at the age of 31, that was harder than I thought. After telling just two people, I stopped. And I shelved the idea, always planning on going back to it.
Well, soon after, I suffered my two injuries. First my knee, then my shoulder. Then depression set in. Then I got fired. Depression got much worse. I finally sought help. Through therapy, I came to terms with my sexuality and began coming out to family and friends and really began preparing to meet with your father to give him my ideas and thoughts. I began saving newspaper articles and magazines articles. I began studying sexuality and how it relates to religion and psychology and sociology to prepare for any potential mainstream appearances from Howard Stern, Larry King, Good Morning America, The O’Reilly Factor, The Daily Show, Leno to Letterman. I believe and still do, especially with the recent stunning success of Brokeback Mountain, the “gay cowboy movie,†that there was and still is great mainstream potential.
And I wrote ideas for storylines. Ideas of how to introduce this aspect of the Chris Kanyon character. How to use this aspect of the character to build and advance feuds and storylines. Ideas for interviews and vignettes. Then I started taking independent bookings to make sure I would be in shape for when I tried to get the meeting with Vince. I set a time frame of March, #1 to coincide with the Academy Awards in case Brokeback Mountain does well and gets positive mainstream press and #2 to coincide with WrestleMania in case the company wanted to introduce new ideas right after the upsurge in interest that always follows WrestleManias.
Then yesterday, I read online that Orlando Jordan was going to start a bisexual gimmick. I confirmed this with some current WWE employees. I was completely devastated. My main, and at times, only motivation for getting out of bed, for training, and for pushing on, this idea to be first, to be a true role model, to help young struggling confused kids, this idea that I felt and believed to be my destiny, well, I saw it possibly slipping away. So I decided to send this e-mail. I don’t want to steal someone’s idea or gimmick or glory. But please believe me, I had this idea 4+ years ago and spoke of it with some of your current contracted wrestlers months and months ago. Personally, I feel doing bisexual as opposed to gay is very much diluting the potential. I am also very confident that I am the perfect person to do this, that I can definitely pull off the in ring work as well as the publicity and mainstream aspects that I feel would help make this a main-event character. We only get one chance to be first at something. I would hate to see it diluted and not used to its maximum potential, especially if the only reason was that the company did not know there was someone like me, who is ready and comfortable and able to carry the load in the ring and, in mainstream appearances, do well and resent himself professionally and intelligently, already preparing for this opportunity.
I truly appreciate your time. And I hope you don’t mind me reaching out to you. You were always very nice to me when I worked for you and I now feel afraid, lost, confused and desperate. Any advice or recommendations you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Sincerely
Chris “Kanyon†Klucsaritis
