But then something like this happens and everything stops. My friend Aurora hit me up on AIM on Monday night and said Chris Benoit is dead. His whole family is dead and ever since then mentally I’ve been in a kind of a fog. At first when you hear a whole family is dead you think either tragic accident or something far worse. I thought well maybe it was a gas leak. I mean air conditioning systems can easily fill a house with carbon monoxide or some other gas if there’s a problem with the ventilation. As the night when on it became more clear that it wasn’t a horrible tragedy, it was something far worse. Chris Benoit killed his wife and son and then killed himself. Like I said with denial I personally can’t even believe what I just typed but with each day new facts come out about this case and it makes it seem all the worse.
Chris by all accounts ritualistically killed his wife and son hours apart. It’s one thing to snap and kill everyone around you. What Chris did from all the reports was pretty damn premeditated. So seeing how he is a cold blooded murderer that brings up an issue for wrestling fans alike. Chris was beloved by so many so do we ignore Benoit’s career and say the hell with him because of what he did.
I honestly don’t know. I know plenty of people who have said I hope he’s burning in hell and I’m sure if there is something beyond this miserable world he probably is. But I am having trouble dismissing Chris Benoit the wrestler just because of what Chris Benoit the man did. When it comes to Professional Wrestling, to say it’s filled with choir boys would be a bold face lie. It’s quite the opposite. It’s actually filled with its fair share of pedophiles along with boozers, junkies, and other assorted weirdo’s. Chris Benoit I don’t believe was any of the above. Sure he probably did his fair share of steroids, but name me one person in the WWE who doesn’t. He probably also popped his fair share of pills but when you go at 100 mph in the ring like he did it comes with the territory. But when it came down to it Chris wasn’t any of that to the best of my knowledge (for all we know the autopsy could show he did an 8 Ball before he did what he did).
Chris didn’t pretend to be something he wasn’t. It wasn’t like he had some wacky gimmick and was a zany character. Chris Benoit was Chris Benoit. A no non-sense tough as nails son of a bitch in the ring who would keep coming at you till you had no more. Because of what happened, Chris will always be remembered not for the five star classics he had or the brutal battles he fought but he will be remembered as that guy who killed his wife and kid and then himself when he was probably roided to the gills. I don’t want to remember Chris Benoit like that. I want to remember him as the great wrestler that he was and after the last couple of days I just don’t know if I will be able to.
Last week things seemed simple enough on ECW. Chris Benoit had a hell of a match with Elijah Burke and he won a shot at the ECW World Title. An ROH wet dream was booked with Benoit vs. C.M. Punk for the ECW World Title. In a different time or perhaps in a parallel universe, this would be the main event of an amazing ECW Show at the ECW Arena and we would be marveling about how it was the greatest match ever. But it was not to be as Benoit never made it to the PPV for the match. Judging by the reports basically Chris lied about why he couldn’t make it to a show on Saturday and by all accounts he was dead way before the PPV even started. The horrible news of Monday wasn’t known yet so for all we knew, Johnny Nitro was a transition champion because Benoit was winning that belt soon enough.
I noted in my last column (I think) how Chris looked annoyed that he was drafted to ECW. In the grand scheme of things in the WWE, ECW is the bottom rung. It’s officially graduate school for Ohio Valley Wrestling’s top stars and a proving ground for all those other guys they can’t fit onto RAW or Smackdown. After the match with Elijah last week he had this weird look on his face. Almost a look of why am I back in this shit hole. It’s not like Chris wouldn’t be good for ECW. He sure as hell would have made guys like Elijah Burke, C.M. Punk, Monty…err Marcus Corvon, Kevin Thorn, and others a lot better as they would raise their game just to be able to keep up with him. But you could just tell when he was looking at that belt something didn’t seem right.
But hey Benoit was a gamer he could deal with this. I mean they were gonna ship him off to RAW after a few months anyway so what’s a few months on ECW. You’re still pretty much on Smackdown. It’s still the same building and shows with the same guys. It wasn’t like when ECW was on its own and was running shows on a shoe string budget last year because the WWE couldn’t be bothered with it. Even though it was a demotion it was hardly a drastic change for him. At the most at least he wouldn’t have to put over The Great Khali and Mark Henry. If I were a wrestler I would consider that a blessing.
Chris Benoit was everything one who is getting into wrestling should stride to be. He was the best at what he did and he could make almost anyone look good or in the case of Billy Gunn he could expose you for the talent less hack that you are. But none of that really matters because Chris Benoit is dead and he killed his wife and son and Chris Benoit the wrestler will never be held in the same respect again because of what Chris Benoit the man did.
One thing that is really annoying me about this whole situation is the media coverage it’s getting. Yes it’s a movie of the week on Lifetime waiting to happen, but the media coverage on the cable networks is mind numbing. First off the WWE isn’t going to let ANYONE appear on any of these shows so there goes any comments from anyone who worked with him recently. TNA isn’t going to let anyone go on any shows because well it’s TNA and well we don’t really need Kurt Angle on tv commenting about someone out of his mind.
But you got people like Bill O’Reily, Glenn Beck, Geraldo Rivera, and others who have no clue about anything to do with wrestling just driving home the whole “WELL IT WAS ROID RAGE”. I hate to stick up for the WWE on this, but Vince has got a point. We shouldn’t rush to judgment because we don’t know if it was steroids. I mean steroids take a while to work and it’s not like you can load up a needle and take a shot and suddenly you’re the incredible hulk (well unless you’re Bobby Lashley). It was revealed on the news that Benoit was being treated for low testosterone. Now you would think with a guy like Benoit, testosterone would be coursing through his veins. But one of the nasty little side effects of steroid us is basically your balls shrink and your testosterone levels drop to nil.
Low testosterone would explain if Benoit was moody and depressed, but it still doesn’t explain why he ritualistically killed his wife and son. As I said I don’t believe we will ever know the answer to that, but there could be a way to get a piece of the puzzle.
Christopher Nowinski who is championing the cause of post concussion syndrome has a theory that might explain what went wrong with Chris Benoit.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/us/27wre...and&emc=rss>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/us/27wre...and&emc=rss
But Christopher Nowinski, a former professional wrestler who worked with Mr. Benoit, and who was forced to quit because of head injuries, said he believed that repeated, untreated concussions might have caused his friend to snap.“He was one of the only guys who would take a chair shot to the back of the head,” Mr. Nowinski said, “which is stupid.”Mr. Nowinski has written a book called “Head Games: Football’s Concussion Crisis” (Drummond Publishing Group, 2006), about chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a condition that can cause memory loss, depression and “bizarre, paranoid behavior.”Mr. Nowinski said that he had been trying to persuade the coroner examining Mr. Benoit to allow a brain exam to look for the telltale neurofibrillary tangles in the brain’s cortex, but that he had thus far been rebuffed.“Part of me hopes there was something wrong with his brain,” Mr. Nowinski said. “The Chris Benoit I knew was always more concerned about everybody else’s well-being than his own.”
Credit to the New York Times
I think this would make a lot of sense. When ever Chris did that back Suplex off the top rope he would smack the back of his head with a lot of force and energy on the mat. It wouldn’t surprise me the least if Benoit had a bunch of concussions that no one knew about. It’s not pleasant to think about a brain exam. I remember after John Wayne Gacy was executed they scooped out his brain and sent it to a lab to see if could shed light on why he did what he did.
It’s a very touchy subject and it’s up to Chris’s parents. I would hope they would sign off on this so that maybe we can get some sort of answer. It’s not a sure thing, but it could help in the long run so that something like this never happens again.
If you do that DIGG stuff, do Bix a favor and DIGG this article to spread the word on this issue.
http://digg.com/world_news/Making_an_effort_to_have_Chris_Benoit_s_brain_examined_for_signs_of_damage
You have to sign up to do so, but it’s worth it as this is an important cause. Even if this didn’t happen, there are plenty of other wrestlers and football players out there dealing with this.
All I know is this is a week we all wish never happened. The world of wrestling has lost one of the all time greats in Chris Benoit, one of the classiest women and with out a doubt the best heel valet ever in Woman, and an innocent little boy who did nothing but love his father and be by all accounts a perfect little gentlemen anytime he was backstage at a WWE show.
Eric Bischoff said it best on his blog when he said God bless Nancy and Daniel. God forgive Chris Benoit.
Chris for all we know could have asked for forgiveness when he slipped that cable around his neck and the 240 pounds on his weight set snapped his neck as he hung. If he didn’t kill himself he certainly would have deserved the death penalty. But in the end it’s not for me or you reading this or anyone else to pass judgment on him. We don’t know what was going on in his mind for sure. All we know is what he did and if there is anything beyond this would he is paying a price we all can’t imagine.
All you can ask is you hope they all are at peace. If your inclined to say a prayer for his other two children Daniel and Megan. They could probably use some peace themselves.
That’s it for this week. I hope I never have to write something like this again but I’m sure its only a matter of time until wrestling’s next tragedy.
But for now let’s remember the good times.
HE TAPPED…HE TAPPED…BENOIT WINS, CHRIS BENOIT IS THE HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE BAH GAWD WORLD
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