Kevin Sullivan: Master of the Sickness

The Wyatt Sicks have recently become one of the focal points of WWE Monday Night Raw. Their main purpose is to keep the legacy of Bray Wyatt alive, and most fans appreciate them for that reason. Bo Dallas and the rest of the group are looking at this as an effort to continue & eventually finish Bray’s story, and so far it’s been very well received.

Bray was certainly a unique character, but also one that grew up within the wrestling business. Mike Rotunda, Bray’s father, married into another wrestling family and even named Bray after them. Windham Rotunda was always destined to be a wrestler, following in the footsteps of his father and his namesakes. However, when he found success in his chosen profession, it wasn’t with a character inspired by Mike, his grandfather Blackjack Mulligan or his uncles Barry & Kendall Windham. In fact, Bray Wyatt’s greatest inspiration was a man that feuded with the Windham family in the Florida territory.

Kevin Sullivan started out in the Boston area (that Boston accent never left), wrestling as an amateur before turning pro in the early 1970s. He went across the world, wrestling everywhere from New York’s WWWF to Montreal to San Francisco. It would be in the Sunshine State of Florida where Kevin would attain his greatest fame and make his mark on the business. Promoter Eddie Graham was considered one of the most astute minds in wrestling, and he took numerous young wrestlers under his wing, teaching them the ins and outs of booking & wrestling psychology. Dusty Rhodes & Bill Watts spent some time under that learning tree, & Vincent J. McMahon held Eddie in the highest esteem. Graham saw something in Sullivan early on, and Kevin would become one of the family’s trusted associates while learning lessons that led him to become one of the most powerful people in wrestling behind the scenes.

It was in Florida where Sullivan would embrace the dark side, inspired by the Satanic Panic that had right-thinking & God-fearing people across the world all worked up and afraid. While Sullivan never explicitly stated that he worshipped the devil, he perpetuated situations that certainly implied that he was influenced by the forces of evil. While Sullivan was shorter and not as physically imposing as the top wrestling stars of the 1980s, his deviousness and general bizarre nature made him a viable opponent for the likes of Dusty Rhodes, Blackjack Mulligan and other heroes of Florida wrestling.

Sullivan would lead his Army of Darkness in efforts to terrorize the state of Florida. Longtime wrestlers Mark Lewin & Bob Roop became the Purple Haze & Mayha Singh under the evil influence of Sullivan. Luna Vachon made her debut in wrestling as one of Sullivan’s minions. A woman Sullivan met and would eventually marry became his valet known as Fallen Angel. She would later become known as Woman, and she & Kevin would go from Florida to World Championship Wrestling where Kevin would become part of the creative team while wrestling on the mid-card. Nancy would continue on as Woman, managing several other wrestlers before following Kevin to ECW during a change of backstage leadership.

Kevin & Nancy had a volatile relationship, as they both had big personalities and wanted their own way. There have been allegations of abuse going both ways…we don’t have all the facts and we never will at this point, but it’s safe to say that their relationship was never going to last forever and they knew that. Sullivan had two other marriages, and fathered four children.

My first time seeing Kevin Sullivan as a fan was his return to WCW in 1994. He arrived at the side of his storyline brother Dave and would end up teaming with Cactus Jack, having some crazy brawls over the Tag Team Championship with the Nasty Boys. Sullivan was theoretically a babyface, but that didn’t last long. Sullivan had a lot of positive qualities as a wrestler, but “sympathetic babyface” wasn’t one of them. His hatred towards Hulk Hogan led to the creation of the Dungeon of Doom, where he served as the Taskmaster. Sullivan led the likes of the Giant, Kamala, Zodiac, Meng, the Shark and others into battle against Hogan and other WCW fan favorites. The DOD wasn’t the coolest or most compelling faction of all time, but it did replicate the old WWF formula of giving the Hulkster monsters to beat.

As Sullivan’s in-ring career began winding down, he would feud with two younger members of the Four Horsemen looking to make names for themselves. Brian Pillman’s last WCW match ended with him telling Sullivan “I respect you, Booker man”, which was supposed to lead to something but Pillman got paid by the WWF instead. Tough to blame Cincinnati Bengals legend Pillman for that.

Sullivan’s attention turned to Chris Benoit, a young wrestler known for his exceptional in-ring ability. Benoit was not known for his personality, so Sullivan came up with an interesting idea to give their feud some heat. Woman was already one of the valets for the Horsemen, and she began working more closely with Benoit to give people the impression that she was cheating on Sullivan. The already strained marriage wouldn’t survive the angle, and Woman would end up marrying Benoit several years later. As Sullivan would say later, he booked his own divorce.

In the meantime, Benoit & Sullivan would have a number of memorable brawls on PPV events. The feud brought out a more vicious side of Benoit’s character than we had seen before, and helped elevate his profile. Sullivan would lose a retirement match to Benoit at 1997’s Bash at the Beach, and spend the remainder of WCW’s existence as part of various creative teams.

After WCW closed, Kevin mostly stayed out of the mainstream public eye. He’d make appearances in places like TNA, MLW & Ring of Honor, usually in assistance to a younger devious wrestler trying to embrace their inner Devil. Sullivan’s wrestling character was so convincing, a small group of fans that didn’t want to believe the events surrounding the deaths of Chris Benoit, Nancy & their son perpetuated a theory that Sullivan had committed the heinous acts. Of course, Sullivan had zero involvement in their lives by 2007 and had zero interest in being involved, but some people really wanted to believe. I guess those crazy fans are still out there, which is kinda insane but on brand for 2024.

The last time most of us saw Kevin Sullivan was on the Who Killed WCW? documentary that aired this year. In a program that mostly featured WCW veterans trying to paint history in a way to make themselves look good, Sullivan seemed like one of the more reliable sources. Not long before the show ended up airing, the seventy four year old Sullivan suffered what his family called a “devastating accident” that left him in the ICU. The accident led to several complications that he would not recover from in the ensuing months, and he passed away on August 9.

Kevin Sullivan will be remembered as one of the quintessential bad guys of 1980s wrestling and one of the top backstage minds of his generation. Ideas he came up with helped WCW temporarily become the top promotion in wrestling. Even after his departure from the main stage, wrestlers looked to him for guidance & inspiration. I suspect they still will.

If the “Prince of Darkness” Kevin Sullivan had the production values of today’s WWE behind him, it’d look a whole lot like Bray Wyatt & the Sicks.