[Deathwatch] Chris Candido, professional wrestler, 33

[Deathwatch Central]

ONLINE ONSLAUGHT
Chris Candido Passes Away
April 29, 2005
by Rick Scaia
Exclusive to OnlineOnslaught.com

http://www.onlineonslaught.com/columns/oo/20050429.shtml

Chris Candido (real name: Chris Candito) has passed away. He collapsed
at home last night around dinner time, was rushed to the hospital, but
could not be revived. Candido was 33 years old.
 
There are conflicting reports on the cause of death at this time, but
there seems to be agreement that Candido's passing is related to
complications stemming from his ankle surgery earlier this week.
Depending on which report you choose to believe at this point, Candido
was hit by either a blot clot or a staph infection. Both are rare, but
possible, complications after major surgery. And although it's
important to note that Candido had cleaned himself up and nobody is
suggesting any nefarious abuses directly caused his death despite him
being administered painkillers following his surgery, one doctor-type
I've talked to said that a man with those abuses in his past *is* more
susceptible to these sorts of post-surgical complications.
 
Just 2 days prior to his death, Candido was present at TNA TV tapings,
and seemingly in very good spirits, despite being wheelchair-bound with
his surgically reconstructed ankle: injured as he may have been,
Candido loved wrestling, and you couldn't have kept him away from his
job if you'd wanted to. That feel-good story of Candido's presence at
tapings only makes his sudden passing all the more shocking and
confusing. Wrestling has lost another good one, and lost him way too
soon.
 
Candido, one could argue, was put on this earth to be a wrestler. Or if
you choose to take the more pragmatic route and dismiss destiny, he
sure as hell knew from an early age that wrestling is what he wanted to
do. Candido was one generation removed from the business, as his
grandfather was a rounder in the northeast NWA territory which later
split off to become the WWWF in the 60s. Growing up in New Jersey in
the 80s, Candido already had the business in his blood, as he'd get to
help out on ring crews, and what not, throughout New York, New Jersey,
and Pennsylvania.
 
Also, one of Candido's closest friends back then was the man who'd
later become known as Balls Mahoney. Together, they'd dream of one day
breaking into the wrestling business; but while they were still in high
school, they tried putting together their own backyard shows. Unlike
many "backyard wrestlers" or guys who quit school at age 16 because
they think you don't need a head on your shoulders to wrestle, Candido
was more of the "Foley Backyard Mindset," which emphasized coming up
with charismatic personalities and stuff along with the "ring work." 
It's something that served Candido well throughout his career, and
something that distinguishes him from the rest of that class of wannabe
teenage backyard wrestlers who thought it was all about high spots and
stunt work who became ubiquitous in the 90s.
 
Candido finished high school, and around 1990 reported to the Monster
Factory, one of the more reputable wrestling training facilities in the
country which just so happened to be located in New Jersey. Inside of a
year, Candido was a breakout star on the New Jersey indie circuit,
working primarily for Dennis Coraluzzo. With the debut of Eastern
Championship Wrestling in 1992, Candido moved just a little bit
westward, and started working for Eddie Gilbert's Philadelphia-based
promotion. A little known fact is that Candido was an ECW Tag Team
Champion in 1993 (as one half of the Suicide Blondes), and that he'd
had a successful run with the company long before his 1996 career
resurrection in ECW.
 
However, ECW in 1993 was not the ECW most of us think of... this was
prior to Paul Heyman's take-over from Gilbert, and there simply wasn't
money to be made in ECW. But Candido had already opened a bunch of eyes
in his two-year career, with his mix of outstanding in-ring ability and
charismatic promo work. And in 1993, there *was* a place where a guy
could go, work 3-4 nights a week, and make money: that place was Smokey
Mountain Wrestling.
 
Jim Cornette's SMW was the tape-trading, indie-lover's darling in '93
and '94, and Candido arrived just in time to be a huge contributor to
SMW's Glory Days. Proving that a seemingly-humiliating gimmick can, in
the right hands, be a career-maker, rather than career-suicide, Candido
debuted in SMW with a Crybaby gimmick. It was so pronounced that
Candido's first major feud ended with him losing in a Diaper Match...
and despite having to appear on TV in a diaper (and apparently with a
bottle and a pacifier, too), Candido's stock actually rose as a result.
Just one of those quirks where, if you know how to be the chickenshit
heel and LET YOURSELF be a chickenshit heel, fans will respond to you
in a huge way.
 
Something else happened in SMW that was huge, too: Jim Cornette noticed
that Chris' real-life girlfriend just so happened to be super-hot, and
also happened to seem to possess a head on her shoulders. And that's
how Tammy Sytch (who had started dating Chris while he was still
training to be a wrestler) became "Tammy Fytch" on SMW TV. Tammy
started out doing her own thing in SMW, as kind of a
hostess/interviewer, and then morphed into a manager intent on proving
that wrestling isn't a man's world. It took a while before the
real-life couple became an on-screen duo, but eventually, Tammy was
managing Candido (and also Brian Lee). The group was a week-in and
week-out highlight of SMW; I know because when I got to college, these
were some of the first tapes I ever traded for.
 
Meantime, ECW was doing its thing up north, and "its thing" included
the memorable double-cross of the NWA in which Shane Douglas threw down
the NWA Title and started the Extreme Era of ECW. Stinging from the
embarrassment, NWA-NJ promoter Dennis Coraluzzo had to scramble to hold
ANOTHER tourney to crown an NWA champion he could trust to uphold the
belt honorably. He turned to Chris Candido, who'd broken into the
spotlight thanks to Dennis. And in another little footnote that might
surprise some fans, that's how Chris Candido became the NWA Champion in
late 1994; it's easy to belittle the value of the NWA Title after it
was stripped from Ric Flair in 1991 and before TNA actually managed to
get it back on TV in 2002, but it's a historical fact that Candido held
the NWA Title for about 4 months.
 
And in old school fashion, Candido actually defended the belt all over
the world: he worked NWA shows in New Jersey and Florida, his
"homebase" was still SMW (which actually had a strong TV distribution
system), and he even took the title over for a tour of Japan. All this
at age 23. And then, it got even better....
 
In early 1995, the WWF came calling. They were interested in both Chris
and Tammy, and Chris and Tammy were both plenty interested back. The
deal to bring the couple to the WWF was signed during the first couple
months of 1995. Candido, of course, had to drop the NWA Title as a
result (to Dan Severn), and spent several months in a holding pattern
as the WWF needed to get past WrestleMania 11 before it could focus its
energies on debuting Chris and Tammy.
 
[It was actually during this time that I had my favorite Chris and
Tammy story happen. At an ECW Weekend I spent in Philly, the two were
VIP guests backstage at the show, and when all the wrestlers and fans
went back to the hotel bar -- something of a tradition, I gathered, so
I was happy to play along -- the fans seemed to gravitate towards the
ECW guys. Chris (decked out in an outfit that I think had a WWF logo on
every item of clothing, you could tell he was proud) and Tammy didn't
get much love. Me and a friend actually did get sick of standing in the
third row watching Sandman drink beers and mumble his way through
stories, though, and wound up striking up a conversation with the two.
And two more happy, enthusiastic WRESTLING FANS you'll never meet. I'm
serious. We talked a bit out the WWF job, but mostly, we just sat
around like tittering schoolgirls obsessing over the awesome ECW Arena
show we'd all just seen. It was really neat. 
 
As a sidebar to my sidebar: at some point a drink or so later, Terry
Funk walked in, and immediately commanded an audience. About 90% of the
fans in the hotel bar and lobby swarmed to listen to Funk tell tall
tales from the road. Even Candido, once again displaying that Pure
Fandom, was up from our table like a shot to go sit at the feet of the
Funkster. And this was how I ended up alone at a table with Tammy (who
said she'd heard all the stories a dozen times over already), and how
-- because I was underage, had no fake-ID, and my friend who had been
getting my drinks had also joined the Funk party for a bit -- she
became the most famous woman ever to buy me a drink. A Beam and Coke.
Good times. I'll never forget the way Chris -- and Tammy -- clearly
loved the wrestling business. Given the way they seemed years later,
the next time I spoke to them, it seemed like maybe the business
finally got the better of them... but then Chris got his act together
again and spent the last year rekindling his affinity for wrestling in
a positive way, and that was so heartening to hear about, and it makes
today's news... well, it fucking sucks. 'Nuff said.]
 
In any case, after a few months of attending ECW shows as fans and
supplying alcohol to minors, the WWF finally had the spot ready for
Chris and Tammy: they would debut on TV as "The Bodydonnas," heel
fitness instructors who hate all the fat, disgusting fans. Oy. The
gimmick itself was in place almost immediately, it was just a question
of their names... and as only the WWF can do, they opted for the
significantly more lame of two options: instead of letting them debut
as "Chris and Tammy Power" (which got trial runs in dark matches), they
dubbed them "Skip and Sunny Bodydonna." Just keep that in mind the next
time you want to put a brick through your TV screen at what an awful
80s style gimmick "Simon Dean" is.
 
And although Skip brought something to the WWF that they didn't have (a
flashy in-ring talent who did moves like top-rope frankensteiners) and
although Sunny brought them something that they hadn't had in a while,
too (some eye candy), the gimmick, predictably, didn't exactly get
over. After debuting in April or May, Candido was already a joke by
July: he found himself embroiled in a feud with legendary WWF jobber
Barry Horowitz. And worse: Horowitz won. From a top free agent signing
to jobbing to a jobber at SummerSlam, all in just six short months.
 
But a strange thing was happening... even as fans were being given no
reason to take Skip seriously, they were sure as hell warming up to
Sunny. Before the end of 1995, she was well on her way to becoming the
"Most Downloaded Babe on AOL," or whatever that title was. Realizing
that the Bodydonnas may yet have value, the WWF changed gears in late
'95, trying to turn Skip into a tag team wrestler. First, they tried a
deal where he and Sunny wanted to reform "grunge rocker" Rad Radford
(the late Louie Spicolli); but that plan had to be dropped when
Spicolli was released following an overdose scare. So they went to Plan
B: introducing Tom Pritchard as Skip's brother Zip. As a tag team, and
with Sunny as their manager, they finally *did* find their niche, even
winning the WWF Tag Titles for a few months in 1996.
 
But by now, the WWF could see which way the wind was blowing: Sunny was
becoming a phenomenon, and the Bodydonnas were kind of lame. She was
split off from the team so she could become a full-on babyface (and
frequent staple of the new for-adult-readers RAW Magazine's photo
lay-outs), leaving the Bodydonnas to conduct a manager search that
ended with a thud, in the form of a cross-dressing guy named "Cloudy."
That gimmick was torpedoed immediately, leaving the Bodydonnas in
limbo. They were semi-feuding with the Smoking Gunns at the time (as
Sunny had become their manager), and during that run, Candido suffered
an injured neck during the summer of 1996.
 
During that hiatus, Candido learned where the WWF's priorities really
lay: they pretty much asked him to step down from an active wrestling
role, but offered him his choice of alternatives (manager, trainer,
even interviewer/announcer). The message was clear: "We want to keep
your girlfriend, so we know we can't fire you; but we also have no use
for you as a wrestler, so please take another job." Candido, though,
was not exactly in the mood to retire from the ring at age 25.
 
Fortuitously, this all happened at a time when the WWF and ECW were
forging a secret partnership. As soon as his neck injury healed,
Candido was permitted to appear immediately for ECW although his WWF
contract could still, technically, have been enforced. Upon arriving in
ECW, Candido adopted the "No Gimmicks Needed" gimmick, making it clear
that his Bodydonna days were behind him.
 
Although another minor injury had a pretty major "trickle down effect"
(Candido was injured and could not compete on the first ECW PPV,
opening the door for Rob Van Dam to step in and have his breakthrough
night), it was pretty smooth sailing for Candido in ECW. He slid into a
primo spot as a member of Shane Douglas' Triple Threat. Of course this
meant that Chris was never the top level guy, but he was a featured
role player who could provide a comedic counterpoint to Shane's
over-the-top intensity.
 
When the Triple Threat had run its course (because Shane once again
opted to leave ECW in order to join WCW), Candido found himself forging
an alliance with Lance Storm. In 1998, Candido came full circle, once
again winning the ECW Tag Team Titles, this time with Lance. 

And things came full circle in another way in 1998: Tammy Sytch
rejoined Chris on TV, this time in ECW. But this was perhaps not as
happy a reunion as you'd think. Tammy's release from the WWF came
amidst rumors of attitude and drug problems: already, Tammy's
appearances on WWF TV had become sporadic throughout late 1997 and into
1998, and people were wondering why the WWF wouldn't more-heavily
feature such a highly-marketable stone-cold babe on TV. To be fair, a
big part of that reason was the emergence of Sable as the new Flavor of
the Month; but when the WWF outright released Sunny/Tammy, most took
that as confirmation of the other reliability issues.
 
Tammy's arrival in ECW in 1998 started a period of almost exactly one
year of on-again/off-again status for the company. Paul Heyman quickly
realized the reality of the situation and why the WWF had let Tammy go,
and did not want to be a facilitator to her problems: if and when Tammy
could be proven sober, Paul was happy to use her. When she couldn't,
Paul was happy to send her home. This also began to rub off on Candido,
who's own struggles with various drug abuses would become well known in
later years and which he'd address openly and honestly.
 
Being unable to count on the couple for more than a month or two at a
time, Paul never felt comfortable pushing them in a major way, even
though Tammy was probably the biggest and most popular WWF cast-off to
ever come through his door. This meant a career stall-out for Candido,
who went from a top card staple to being a mixed-tag sideshow kind of
guy... the last straw came in 1999, just as ECW got their national TV
deal. Paul actually made Tammy admit to her problems as part of a TV
angle, in hopes that would inspire her to stay clean and remain on TV.
It didn't work. Mere months after that, Tammy was done with ECW, and so
was Chris.
 
In 2000, they showed up together in WCW for a brief run. Candido
actually had a cup of coffee as the Cruiserweight Champion, although
NOT exactly at the apex of that division. Rather, in one of the
absolute most embarrassing periods of that prestigious (and
still-active) title (thanks, pre-Jesus Vince Russo!), Candido actually
lost the title in a convoluted, nonsensical mixed tag match. Don't ask
me: I don't think even *I* was watching WCW that closely by that point,
and I was getting paid to at the time...
 
Later in 2000, Candido had the gall to get injured in a WCW ring. And
in true WCW form, Eric Bischoff decided, "Hey, you're hurt? No, YOU'RE
FIRED." Hey, it worked really well for him with Steve Austin, didn't
it? So Chris Candido, a former globe-trotting NWA Champion who held
title in ALL of the "Big Three" of the late 90s wrestling boom, was
unemployed. WCW didn't want him, bridges had been torched with ECW, and
the WWF was doing gangbusters business at the time and didn't need to
be hiring. In retrospect, it doesn't seem fair, but that's how it
happened.
 
And tough circumstances like that could beat anybody down. By all
accounts (or at least, by some combination of Accounts and Urban
Legend), these circumstances sure as hell did a number of Chris and
Tammy. Drug use spiraled out of control to the point that there were
almost monthly stories of some incident with the couple, and once the
obsessive internet jack-off types get their hands on stuff like that,
it's their style to extrapolate: even if it's not a conscious
exaggeration or anything, there came a point by 2001 where EVERY Chris
and Tammy story was told through the filter of "They are dirty, dirty
drug addicts." Which might be fair in the sense that they WERE, quite
honestly and seriously, struggling with that issue. But which was
unfair in the sense that some of the interpretations and extrapolations
that got published still might not have been totally accurate. 
 
I will say this: my last meetings with the two came in 2001, and they
were not the same people I'd had a blast with in Philadelphia six years
before. They're only a few years older than me, and on that second
meeting, they sure as hell seemed like old souls, like they'd aged 10
times faster than I had since last we met. It didn't seem like
wrestling was fun for them anymore.
 
But they clung to the business. Tammy dabbled in the ill-fated
"Wrestling Vixens" nudie website, with partner Missy Hyatt. Chris kept
getting work on all manner of indie shows, some better than others.
Probably his best gigs were during the (relative to other indies) "boom
phases" of XPW (in California) and MLW (in Floriday). But as the
personal issues compounded and it even began to affect their work (or
at the very least, their physical appearances and conditions), they
were also working the high school gym circuit. I remember about a year
or 18 months ago flipping past my cable access channel (they sometimes
have indie wrestling from around Ohio one) and seeing Chris Candido
working a match against some scrawny, no-talent punk in front of what
appeared to be 40 people. Tammy was nearly unrecognizable at ringside.
 
But it was also probably just about a year or 18 months ago that they
began earnestly trying to get their acts together. Tammy, realizing
that the business had probably not done as much for her as she'd done
for it, seriously scaled back her "career." At times, I think she
considered herself fully retired, but I don't know for 100% sure if
that stuck. For her, being off the road and being able to focus on
having a normal life was a huge help. And Candido managed to clean
himself up, too (and the fact that he no longer had to worry about
Tammy was probably a huge boon to his mental health, as well). Last
fall, the word going around was that Candido really wanted to get his
wrestling career back on track, and was once again in the right mindset
to embrace the business and head out on the road without destroying
himself.
 
WWE showed some interest, but as is my understanding, kind of told
Chris that he needed to prove himself again before they'd hire him. It
wasn't a question of what Chris could or would do in the ring or on the
mic, it was a question of whether he could be counted on to do it
reliably. Fortuitously, this was just about the same time when TNA came
calling. Dusty Rhodes (although currently on the political outs with
TNA today, he had plenty of stroke back last winter) is a huge Candido
fan, and was the driving force behind bringing Chris in for a look.
 
And as TNA continues to be a company without an identity, that can't
decide if it's a retirement home for Monday Night War Cast-offs or if
it's the showcase for the most talented in-ring athletes in the world,
Candido managed to convince TNA that he straddles that line: he's done
it all in this business, held titles in WWE/WCW/ECW, has an impeccable
resume, AND he can still take care of business once you ring the bell.
After one or two provisional appearances at TNA tapings, Candido became
a tacit regular. Although he had not yet signed a full-time TNA
contract, it was understood that Candido's TNA job was secure based on
his few months of service.
 
In fact, Candido's profile in TNA was on the rise: from being a regular
on Impact, Candido was called into PPV duty this past Sunday. What had
originally been booked as a singles match was changed around to
accommodate the inclusion of Candido in a tag match on the PPV stage.
Unfortunately, just minutes into that match, Candido (graphically)
broke his ankle.
 
He underwent reconstructive surgery the next day, and showing his
dedication to TNA, appeared at Impact tapings on Tuesday. TNA, showing
it's dedication to Candido, put him into a major role at the tapings,
as the wheelchair-bound manager of the Naturals. Candido was actually a
ringside participant as the Naturals defeated America's Most Wanted for
the TNA Tag Titles in a match that I believe is scheduled to air next
week.
 
Or that *was* scheduled to air next week. TNA will have some tough
choices to make. The edition of Impact that airs on FSN later today
might have already been locked in and unchangeable at the time they
found out about Candido's death last night. That will make for some
awkward moments if Candido is a part of today's show, and I'm already
kind of queasy at how that will feel to watch. It also raises questions
as to what TNA does in regards to next week's show: do you excise all
Candido bits and try a re-do/reset at tapings on May 11, do you ignore
Candido's death until you exhaust this set of tapings, or do you shoot
straight with fans and tell them about Candido but also admit that this
footage was taped prior to his death? It's a tough spot for TNA, and I
don't envy them...
 
In addition to TNA, Candido was also accepting other indie bookings,
and after his injury, was telling people on Tuesday that he intended to
make all those bookings, even if it was in a non-wrestling capacity.
Further, his enthusiasm and good spirits had him telling people that he
fully believed he could recover quickly and be back in the ring in six
weeks. 
 
Ironically, that "six week" prognosis probably has a veiled
implication. Because back-channel chatter is that Candido had done
exactly what WWE had asked him to do with his few months of work in
TNA, and that they were talking yet again. Not necessarily about a
full-time WWE gig, but about Candido appearing on the ECW Reunion Show,
which is, of course, in about 7 weeks. Because Candido did not have a
TNA contract, he would have been free to accept such an offer (and
there are also rumors that TNA has relaxed its stance and would let
their talents work for the WWE/ECW show if they want). Whatever the
reason for Chris' optimism, there was no doubt among any who saw Chris
on Tuesday that his love of wrestling was back, that you could see it
in his willingness to go out and help a young tag team score their
biggest win ever even if he wasn't gonna be able to contribute that
much physically, and that this ankle injury was only gonna be a mild
bump in the road to his OWN  return to form.
 
Tragically, that ankle injury (suffered in an unscheduled match) now
looks like it might have been the indirect cause of Candido's death.
Blood clot or staph infection or whatever, the current thinking is that
it's complications from his surgery that took Chris Candido away far
too soon.
 
Candido is another one of those guys who maybe most fans don't think of
as a huge contributor to wrestling's boom era, but again: he held
secondary titles in all of the Big Three, and that speaks volumes about
the quality of his work and the faith promoters put in him ahead of
dozens of other qualified candidates who never got to taste gold. What
sucks double-hard is that the Chris Candido who worked so hard to earn
that good faith might have gone away for a while, but he was, by all
accounts back during this past year. And well on his way to picking up
where he left off back in 1998 or 1999, when last he was on top of the
wrestling game. That would have been awesome to see.
 
And of course, we must remember that whatever we fans have lost, it's
selfish to put Candido's death in those terms. He was a son, a brother,
a boyfriend, and there are people who feel this loss way more than us.
Condolences do go out to Candido's fans on this tough day, but they go
even more so to his family and friends. All OOur thoughts are with
you....