So I'm gonna go ahead and write this since I mentioned it in my last article but after this I'm done with this whole Benoit topic, I'm sick of reading about it, hearing about it, and talking about it and I'm sure most of you are too. Last time I talked about the fans reaction to the Benoit tragedy but another aspect is the WWE's reaction. Now I've never been one to cut them any undue slack but I personally think they have handled this as well as they possibly could. A lot of people in hindsight have criticized them for doing the tribute show but you have to consider they didn't get the news untill 4pm with RAW going on the air LIVE that night at 7pm so there wasn't much time to ponder the situation. Obviously at that time they had no details and looking back people say "well they should have suspected something", I don't think so. Your mind doesn't usually automatically go to that extreme especially when it was someone that was apart of their "family". So, with short notice in just a couple of hours time they threw together a nice tribute for Benoit just as they had done for Eddie and Owen before him. Now it's up for debate if there was some speculation on their part that caused them to cancel the live show and send everybody home but I think that was more towards the fact that Vince was gonna appear on camera and drop the 'limo angle' and even in the face of something like the death of Benoit and his family you still couldn't predict how the crowd would respond to it all.
So they did the tribute and AFTER RAW went off the air the details became public, WWE quickly pulled all tribute videos off WWE.com and the following night Vince acknowledged it on the air on ECW that they had made a mistake. Yet regardless of that assholes in the media proceded to go right ahead and blast him for doing a "tribute to a murderer." So many awful things have come out of this situation but one of the many is I've realised just how easily the general public's opinion is swayed but what the media reports. As I mentioned before, me being known as "the wrestling guy" in most circles all kinds of people at work and people calling me at first were like, "man what do you think caused him to snap", then after a night or two of assholes like Nancy Grace and Geraldo saying it was "roid rage" now everyone is stating as a fact, "wow, those steroids are dangerous, can't believe they made that guy kill his family" Now I'm not saying it is or isn't a result of steroids, I don't know but I'll tell you for damn sure that cunt Nancy Grace doesn't either but that doesn't stop her from saying it 100 times during her show. Now you've got Debra "Mrs. Stone Cold" McMichael Marshall squeezing out a couple more minutes in the spotlight to go on tv and bury the wrestling industry that helped make her a household name, at least for 15 minutes. Just like in the last steroid scandal for Vince they try to find people who are gonna come on there and make wrestling look like a joke and who are bitter. They are getting Bret and I hear "Warrior" is gonna be on one soon. Brian Christopher came off like a moron on Anderson Cooper, so far Chris Jericho is the only person who has saved some face. Ken Wayne gave a good interview except that he's hard to take serious when he's calling it "the rasslin business". (Of course that's the name of this site so what the hell do I know)
In the end this tragic event will mostly go down as another opportunity for assholes like Phil Muschnick and others like him to drag wrestling through the mud and try to put the full brunt of the blame on Vince McMahon and I just don't think that's fair. Yes, a lot of guys use steroids and yes a lot of them have died because of it, and a lot more will but Vince McMahon didn't draft them into the wrestling business and he didn't put a gun to their head to work for WWE or use steroids. They are grown men and ultimately it was their decision. Was it "roid rage"? Was he just crazy all along and it finally came out? Was it some other drug? Truthfully, regardless of what the reports come back with no one will truly ever know or understand so it's better just to accept that it happened and move on. This type of shit happens everyday, it's just this time it happened to be someone everyone knew (or at least thought they did) and loved. There's two schools of thought on this, you can damn him to hell and hate his guts. or you can "look on the bright side" and remember him for his great wrestling talent. But either way, don't try to pin the shit on Vince, for once something's not his fault, that is of course unless he tries to make an angle out this or something. I can see it now, the Pegasus Kid and The Black Tiger pull up in a lowrider to say they were the ones that blew up the limo. I better stop before someone sends this to them and they decide to do it.
