Wrestling is all too real at times
By Shaun Best
It's been nearly a week and it still hasn't fully sunk in. There's times that I still can't believe it. Chris Benoit one of the best if not the best technical wrestler in the world murdered his family then killed himself.
I remember coming home from a night out Monday speculating to myself what wacky TV the three hour Raw would provide late into the night. As I went for a quick check online an hour or so before Raw for last minute news I froze as the article on the Wrestling Observer said the Benoit family had been found dead at their home.
My first gut reaction was that this was an angle done in poor taste but, after staring at the screen I realized that this was real. Two subsequent Myspace messages and the shrine that had become WWE.com confirmed my horror.
I posted a short eulogy on Myspace and Facebook expressing my sorrow and regret then shed a few tears before going to watch the Raw tribute show. It was here that I started to wonder what had happened as I knew of Benoit dashing back to deal with a family emergency at the weekend. I read about that before Vengeance. However as I sat watching Raw I couldn't shake from my mind that first article (the only one I had read to date) on the Observer that said all three members of the family were found dead. I immediately jumped to the conclusion that foul play was involved, perhaps a robbery had gone wrong or maybe they had been poisoned. I chastised myself when the thought crossed my mind that maybe Benoit was to blame. With Raw on through the night in the UK I taped the second half and watched it Tuesday morning before work. Due to an early work start and limited internet access through the day I stayed offline until the evening when I discovered the harrowing truth. That ugly thought I had was true. Chris Benoit was a murderer. The fact he stayed in his house for a whole day after murdering his family still sends chills down my spine.
As the hours and days have passed more details have become known but these only serve to ask more questions. Questions that will never be answered. While I never met Chris Benoit in person I had a lot of fond memories and have been at countless shows where he put on excellent match after excellent match. He was a workhorse, a general, a mentor, a pure joy to watch in the ring. As a Wrestling community we identify with our heroes that we see on our screens on almost a nightly basis through TV, tapes, or DVDs. Hell these days being a wrestling fan is almost a job in itself what with all the weekly cycle of programming. We see the superstars more than we do some of our acquaintances or family relations and from the time they enter the ring to the time they leave we identify with them as role models, inspirations and/or heroes.
I can no longer say that about Chris Benoit. All of those classic matches, all of those moments have been erased. I hate the fact that I can no longer see the realisation of a dream at WrestleMania 20, the epic matches with Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho and the Owen Hart memorial match from 1999 in the same light again. That is a great shame. Gone are all the accolades earned as the Pegasus Kid In Japan along with the successes from WCW, ECW and WWE. The door to the Hall of Fame will remain firmly closed and aspiring wrestlers and fans will identify Chris Benoit as a cold blooded killer rather than a great wrestler. What an awful waste. Suffice to say I have cut up my once cherished Chris Benoit t-shirt and placed it in the bin.
I feel for Benoit's two remaining sons and his remaining family. They have my deepest sympathy for what they will have to go through for the rest of their lives. In addition I sympathise with everyone who gave touching tributes on Monday night who must now be questioning whether they ever knew their friend at all.
The steroids factor will continue to be debated in light of all this. Yes steroids had turned Benoit into a monster but at the end of the day we all make individual choices and whatever state Benoit was in he made the wrong one. Unfortunately due to the WWE schedule I think steroids will remain to be a problem and that is an issue that needs to be addressed. Although I'm a big wrestling fan, I am in favour of scaling back on some of the shows as I think the business needs to take better care of the men and women that entertain us. How many more steroid related deaths are we going to get? My fear is that the business is going to get a lot worse before it gets better and that's a horrible thought. I sincerely hope that I am proved wrong. Wrestling is all too real at times.
Shaun Best
