7 Things Fans Should Know About Sunny

Unfortunately, the past decade or so has not been kind to the original WWE Diva and Hall of Famer, Sunny. Born Tammy Lynn Sytch, she arrived on the scene with her boyfriend, "No Gimmicks Needed" Chris Candido. Her girl next door looks got her a look by the WWE, and it wasn’t long before she would wind up with a job Up North. After starting as a reporter, she quickly rose to bigger and better roles and her fame rose just as fast.

As a life-long wrestling fan, Sunny has often spoken about being a fan of The Rockers (and no we’re not going anywhere near that bonfire). She and her high school sweetheart, Chris Candido, were huge fans, and Candido had big-time dreams of becoming a wrestler. He eventually made it to Jim Cornette’s Smoky Mountain Wrestling and his girlfriend followed him down south. Once Corney met her, it wasn’t long before he convinced her to go on camera. In SMW, she had several big storylines, including managing champion, Brian Lee.

7 The Original ECW Expose - 10/08/1999

When WWECW launched, they had a segment called The Extreme Expose - Kelly Kelly, Layla, and Brooke Adams gyrated around for several seconds. But the real Extreme Expose happened several years earlier when Sunny, going by her real name in ECW, arrived on ECW On TNN to tell all the sordid details of what it was like to be a woman in the locker room. Nowadays most of the information she doled out is common knowledge thanks to this very interview and other shoot interviews with the original Diva. However, all it really was a set-up for a quick promo to announce she was back.

6 AOL’s Most Downloaded Woman 1996

On whatever device you’re reading this article on, if you were too young or not even alive in 1996, please try to understand. First and foremost, whatever you’re reading this on just didn’t exist, and the Internet was very much in its infancy. To download anything, instead of just holding down a picture and clicking “copy,” you had to click download and wait for a very long time, since there was no such thing as Wi-Fi.

Combine that with the fact that in 1996, some of the most beautiful women on the planet were the likes of Jennifer Aniston and the aforementioned Pamela Anderson; Sunny being the most downloaded woman of the year is a pretty big accomplishment in the history of early digital media.

5 Heat With The Mortician

Sometimes in the office, there’s always going to be someone who just rubs you the wrong way. There is just a clash of personalities and two co-workers just don’t like one another. That is essentially the beginning of the heat between Paul Bearer and Sunny. According to some, the two would often act like petulant children around one another, with Bearer going so far as to nastily refer to her as “Ms. Sytch.” Depending on whose story of this feud you subscribe to, there’s also the added layer than Paul adored Chris Candido and couldn’t stand how he stuck around for her and how Sunny treated Candido in return.

4 Montreal

Here’s one more log to toss onto the fire of The Montreal Screwjob. After the events of Survivor Series 1997, Mick Foley wasn’t the only superstar who didn't show up to Raw the next day. Despite dating Shawn, Sunny and Bret Hart were friends too, and she didn’t agree with what happened to The Hitman. Much like Foley, she sat the next night out in protest.

3 Braiding Yoko’s Hair

There was a reason that Gorilla Monsoon often referred to Mr. Fuji as The Devious One. The diminutive manager was notorious for his ribs. No rib was too mean-spirited or disgusting for the Hall of Famer. No one was safe from Fuji’s ribs either, not even the demure Sunny. He had convinced her to help with washing Yokozuna’s hair.

Unfortunately, The Mighty Yoko had a mighty stench coming from his hair. He was too big to wash it at this time, and it took her a long time to wash the funk off.

2 Sunny Was A Pre-Med Student

Part of Tammy’s backstory when she showed up at Smoky Mountain was that she was studying pre-law in Massachusetts. The truth is that she was indeed studying pre-med before heading to Tennessee to be with Chris Candido while he realized his wrestling dreams.

While she had the gorgeous looks of the girl next door, Sunny wasn’t just another pretty face and actually was studying premed at the University of Tennessee before she joined Chris in the ring.

1 Goodwill With The Fans

Search all over the Internet for stories regarding Sunny. While her life has become unfortunate, she also somehow hasn’t become the kind of laughingstock other former superstars had become. That’s a lot of goodwill that she has cultivated with fans over the years. Despite it being real easy for the IWC to make mincemeat out of a fallen idol, she is still propped up in the eyes of a lot of fans, hopefully she’ll eventually kick out of all of her personal troubles and get the help she needs to get clean and stay clean.