For a lot of people, the news about pro wrestler Chris Benoit reportedly murdering his wife, 7-year-old son and then killing himself, is shocking but in a detached way – like so many of the terrible, unthinkable crimes that we hear about.
For me and the millions of pro wrestling fans out there, though, it hits differently. For a lot of us, Benoit was “the guy” – arguably the most talented of the in-ring performers out there. Growing up, he was always in my top two or three favorites guys to watch wrestle, and I probably saw him wrestle live a half-dozen times, dating back to the late ‘90s.
We, as fans, admired him. My friends and I are too old and too clever to really look up to them the way a little kid might see people on TV as his “heroes” – we knew that a lot of wrestlers are shady guys in a shady business. But Benoit seemed different. Very simply, he was great at what he did, which is admirable for anyone in any profession. He worked hard and seemed to earn everything he got.
I have Chris Benoit action figures. A DVD set with a retrospective of his career and his best matches. I’ve played as him in countless video games. When he won the world championship at Wrestlemania 20 in spring 2004, it was an incredibly happy moment – that someone I had watched for so long and never got that kind of opportunities before was able to achieve essentially the highest distinction in his field. Sure, it was pre-planned, scripted, what have you, but us fans know what it took to get him there.
So when I found out yesterday afternoon that he was dead, along with his wife and child, I was devestated. It didn’t seem right – like maybe someone had hacked onto the WWE.com Web site and planted the story as a practical joke. When it became clear that it was real, it was hard to concentrate on the rest of my day. Sure, this wasn’t someone I knew in person at all, but I had watched him weekly on TV for about 10 years straight – attachment is bound to develop.
I called a friend, whose favorite wrestler was Benoit. He couldn’t believe it. I called my mom, too, who is also a fan and watched Benoit with me many times on TV and at live events. She was upset.
Last night was one of the most surreal TV watching experiences of my life. The WWE regularly has a live Monday night show, but obviously couldn’t continue as planned given the circumstances. So they did what they thought was right at the time, a tribute show with his best matches and taped words from his co-workers on what Benoit meant to them. Since we get it on a tape delay from the east coast, there were much more details out by the time it aired here – making it even more difficult to watch, as I tried to reconcile my own fond memories of him as a performer with the unfathomable details that followed. Not to mention the words from his colleagues, who were doing their best to pay tribute to the man they knew, seemingly with no idea of what he apparently was ultimately capable of doing.
Given the mysterious circumstances, you fear for the worst – but still, until the news planted the idea in my head that Benoit did this, I couldn’t accept it. Yeah, we don’t know these guys very well – or even at all – but from everything we had ever heard about Benoit, both on TV, in that DVD retrospective of his life, and from backstage reports – this was a good guy, in a business where a lot of people are not.
As the details trickle in, we realize that we really didn’t know this guy. And although it’s a lesson that’s surely been learned many times before, we really don’t know any of these people on TV or in the movies or on the radio whose work we appreciate. It’s reassuring to tell yourself that they’re good people. Especially in pro wrestling, where so many people seem like they might not be. We wanted Benoit to be a good guy. We needed it.
Being a wrestling fan, you’re used to a lot of let downs. You’re used to seeing your favorite perfomers die at a young age. In November 2005, Eddie Guerrero, another guy I had loved watching for years, died of heart failure at the age of 38. It was incredibly sad, but still, something we felt prepared for. The industry is seemingly designed to break your heart. Owen Hart even died in the ring on a live pay-per-view event. But these were tragic accidents or the result of unfortunate dependence on chemical substances – not violent crime. Not murder. To hear that one of your favorite performers – in any genre, really – is not only dead, but a murderer – it’s hard to process. Hard to reconcile that with the guy that you thought fondly of for so many years. We’ve all had people whose work we admired meet tragic ends, but not many like this. Yeah, it’s not about us – it’s incredibly callous to take a tragedy like this and try to make it about bystanders. But Benoit was a public figure. People are affected by this, whether they really should be or not.
Like all hobbies and distractions like this, professional wrestling is supposed to be fun. Something you turn on for a few hours a week to forget about whatever else might be going on. Escapism. But being a performer and a fan carries with it so many burdens at this point, it’s going to be incredibly hard to have fun with it going forward.
Most folks probably won’t be surprised to hear that a professional wrestler was capable of such a crime. As a wrestling fan, you always have to sort of apologize for it – say that there really are good athletes involved, that the fans know it’s fake, that it’s often entertaining and funny and exciting to watch due to the skill of the performers. Sometimes I feel that maybe my friends and I are too smart to like wrestling as much as we do, but ultimately I’ve always decided that we just are able to appreciate it on a level that the vast majority of people will never understand. Still, you hear so many people say that it’s barbaric, violent, sexist, bad for society and promotes violence in its fans. That it breeds unhealthy behavior and tragic ends are almost inevitable for many involved, and is simply vapid entertainment at best and televised mayhem and raunch at worst.
And maybe they’re right.
At this point, the press conference is over. It appears that there was a history of domestic violence. That there was a good deal of time between the killings. That his wife was found bound at the feet, possibly the hands. There’s no idea of motive, and people are trying to say that maybe the steroids caused a mental illness.
This was supposed to be one of the good guys, and to paraphrase my friend, it’s turned out that he’s probably the worst guy. And that’s devestating.
— s 06/26/2007 01:29 PM #
— Hathery 06/26/2007 01:33 PM #
— akon 06/26/2007 01:35 PM #
Silver bullet finally got ya wolverine..
— nollaig 06/26/2007 01:38 PM #
And congratulations on landing Akon as a reader of your blog.
— Tony 06/26/2007 01:41 PM #
Hide Vince Hide….
— here they come 06/26/2007 01:46 PM #
— Gene 06/26/2007 01:48 PM #
Noone just loses their mind and takes innocent lives because of steroids.
— BH 06/26/2007 02:27 PM #
Benoit and Guererro were incredibly close friends, and I wonder how much of an impact Eddie’s death had on Chris’s psyche.
I’m curious to hear Lance Storm and Chris Jericho’s feelings. I’m hoping Lance posts something to his blog soon.
— Corwin 06/26/2007 03:40 PM #
— Ann C. 06/26/2007 06:03 PM #
and wrestling is no more fake than any other major sport…most of america just doesn’t want to believe that
— Mark Beef 06/26/2007 08:11 PM #
He lost his mind in the infinite pain of depression.Those who can’t accept this are in a massive denial,far bigger than of those who can’t accept what he did.The approach of “inexplicable evil” doesn’t help to prevent similar tragedies in the future,but people continue to have their heads in the sand.So lets wait to see the next similar tragedy!
— juptlur 06/27/2007 03:48 AM #
— Geekwad 06/27/2007 09:26 AM #
That’s like saying fans of “Dexter” shouldn’t be surprised if Michael C. Hall ever starts murdering people. Actually, no, it’s even sillier because obviously Chris Benoit’s character never did anything even resembling murdering his family on camera.
— Albert Ching 06/27/2007 10:19 AM #
Professional wrestling as it is now practiced panders to—no, exhalts in—the basest of human desires and drives. As the audience, we get to wallow in rage, jealousy, schadenfreud, jingoism, greed, vanity, xenophobia, sexism, bullying, etc. What sort of person dedicates their entire life to that sort of culture? One could argue that the format demands conflict, and so bad guys. Well, the only difference between heels and faces is the music they play when they enter the ring. You know the dichotomy is a complete fiction; they are ALL heels, or they’d have got some other job.
Your own article admits that many of the people responsible are the scum of the earth. It’s a crooked game, and I’m NOT talking about the wrestling. You’re trying to come to terms with how your almost-hero could turn out to be merely a fucked-up jerk like the rest of us, and I’m wondering how it could be so mysterious. I guess a smark is still a mark.
— Geekwad 06/27/2007 11:20 AM #
— Albert Ching 06/27/2007 11:37 AM #
— Justin 06/27/2007 03:23 PM #
— Tony 06/27/2007 10:13 PM #
Like you I’ve been watching wrestling for 20+ years and I always admire the work ethics, passion and intensity of Chris Benoit. The news of his death and that of his wife and son hit me like a ton of bricks. But and details surfaced about the circumstances of his family death I knew there was more than we would ever knew. Searching through the various blogs I found out that his son suffered from Fragile X, a mental impairment that causes austic like symptoms. We will never know the real reasons behind this tradgey but in my opinion I believe Chris did what he thought was best for his family and himself. My conclusion is based on the comments made by his colleagues, and aquaintances about the type of person they knew Chris to be, a loving, caring, respected family man. And I’m talking about the pizza parlor Chris and his family visits every July 4th, a routine his family for a number of years to the clerk at his neighborhood supermarket. In my heart I truly believe Chris did what he thought was best, unfortunately he was a very private person and never thought about leaving a note to explain his actions. While Chris was not as charismatic as Hulk Hogan, he overcame the odds and his in-ring action spoke louder than words. Chris Benoit, thank you for the wonderful memories, I UNDERSTAND!! You and your family will now rest in peace. Say hello to Eddie and Owen.
WestIndies
http://www.khou.com/video/news-index.html?nvid=154648&shu=1
— WestIndies 06/28/2007 04:47 AM #