Ever since I met Suolas Ive been a wrestling fan. I loathe watching soccer, rugby etc but I did develop a genuine interest in the matches that were screened and not because my boyfriend liked it. I got involved, hissing at my favorite wrestlers nemises and cultivating a primordial bloodlust for some. So today Suolas calls me at work and tell me to check my email in a strange tone, not liking the sound of his voice I demand to know what it is and he basically tells me this; Chris Benoit, the rabid wolverine as he is known is dead - one would expect steroid abuse, heart attack etc from someone in the pro wrestling league yes? The strange and highly upsetting news is far different - it seems like a double murder suicide sceanario. Here is a statement of how the timeline events that took place
Saturday:
- Chris Benoit misses the Smackdown/ECW house show in Beaumont. He informs WWE management that he is flying home due to a family emergency.
Sunday:
- Benoit is not in Houston for Sunday night’s Vengeance PPV. Ahead of the night’s show, several in the company are hopeful that Benoit will return in time for the show but when it becomes evident that he will not be back for the show, WWE’s creative team re-write the planned Chris Benoit vs CM Punk ECW World Title match. With Benoit scheduled to win the ECW title, creative agree on having Johnny Nitro take his place and beat Punk for the title.
- “Curious text messages” were sent by Chris Benoit to several in the company throughout Sunday. The Wrestling Observer reports that Benoit had sent messages to Chavo Guerrero.
Monday:
- After learning about the text messages sent by Benoit, WWE’s Richard Hering spoke to local authorities, requesting they check Benoit’s home.
- Local authorities check the home of the Benoit family around 2.30pm local time and find the bodies of Chris, his wife Nancy, and son Daniel. Initial evidence leads authorities to believe that Nancy and Daniel were killed at some point during the weekend before Benoit killed himself on Monday.
- World Wrestling Entertainment are informed of the deaths at around 4pm local time in Corpus Christi ahead of a 3-hour live RAW broadcast. Vince McMahon held a meeting with everybody in attendance in the ring to inform them of the tragic news.
- WWE immediately make the call to cancel the live broadcast of RAW. The planned show (which was to be built around the death of the Mr. McMahon character) is cancelled and replaced by a 3-hour tribute show. Fans who bought tickets for the live show are told of the news when arriving at the Arena and turned back.
- ABC News are told by Lt. Tommy Pope that “the instruments of death were located on the scene” and that they are not searching for any suspects from outside the Benoit house.
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Ive said this before in another post If youre not happy with your life or its direction - dont take the childrens life or anyone elses for that matter. Is it the fucking vogue now to take out your families as well as oneself now??
Wrestling as basic drama has always been about good versus evil. It has also been about redemption, about human nature writ large, rendered raw. I can remember many times a match where you watched a guy you only as a 'heel' to cross over to the 'face 'side. If Benoit did indeed turn against his own wife and child, It was simple, and required no beautiful Shakespearian poetry to accompany it.. I will refrain to comment on Benoit any further until I know the forensic findings, I have such a lot of respect for the guy and he was in one of my all top five matches. A lot of things irk me about this tragedy and fear some findings will shed a lot of respect for him. I hope my intuition is wrong.
11 comments:
I'm sorry Judith, I just can't help but giggle at the thought of you watching WWF with bloodlust in full swing.
Puss
It is a sight to behold puss :)
I am in shock! I saw it on CNN.com this morning and when my husband rang from work I told him - how awful, and how very, very weird. When Eddie G died last year he died a hero, this looks like a very different kind of thing...
There's some kind of neuroses that some men get that makes them think that their families would be better off dead than not have them around (he decides to leave or kill himself or whatever).
Sucks for the family, eh? The more i read about this shit the less inclined i am to get myself a man.
This is tragic and completely unexplained. I have no frame of reference to really comment anything meaningful as I cannot look my children in the eye to take their lives...I just don't understand that concept....
I agree with one thing you wrote...Is this Vogue to behave this way nowadays? Seems that it is as it is becoming more and more popular
Just tragic....
Flyinfox_SATX
Not to make excuses for the man, in no way am I doing that. But from being a lifelong pro-wrestling fan, I see performers telling a story and putting their lives on the line night after night for thousands of carniverous fans. I see pressure, Pressure to perform, pressure to look good, pressure to stay in shape, pressure to stay safe, stay alive, pressure to be able to get up the next day and go through it all over again even though the excruciating pain is almost crippling. And the pressure to survive his Best friend (Eddie Guerrero RIP2005) who had been taken Just when he got it all back. What these Men -and I use the term in admiration- go through for the love of doing it, for the job, whatever I would not wish on my worst enemy. There is a lot of tragedy in Professional Wrestling, just like there is anywhere, any street, any country.
I'm deeply shocked and saddened that in whatever state Chris was in, it was the wrong thing to do in Every case. Not just the childs, Not just his Wife's but His as well. This man was due to be the Champion that very night, Top of the mountain. The best of the best. Something is Very wrong there.
RIP Chris, Woman, Daniel.
You will be missed.
I have never enjoyed wrestling. I do enjoy slot machines though.
This story is insane and there is something wrong with anyone who decides to take out anyone else just because they choose to go. Sad. Sick.
In my humble opinion, suicide has to be judged in context. Depending on the circumstances, it can be an act of heroism, an honorable exit from misery and pain, a manifestation of psychosis, or whatever. I don’t pretend to know what was going on in the dude’s mind but I will not let that stop me from voicing an opinion. He f*cking killed his wife and son after all, and that gives me the right to blabber away I think.
Logically, he did one of two things. He either silenced a credible threat to his carefully managed image, or he murdered the two people most likely to reinforce the image he worked so hard to project. I wonder if his family would be alive today if he had believed in his heart that wife and son would erect monuments to his glory after his passing. Maybe he slaughtered his loved ones in an attempt to spare them the grief of his suicide, but it’s hard not to see selfishness masquerading as honor in all of that. Of course, if it turns out the guy died trying to save his family from attackers, then I take it all back. Short of that happening, I have a feeling that after the media is finished milking the story for every last gory detail, his footnote in history will contain few kind words.
I know very little about this, but I do think people who have to kill others before killing themselves must be complete fuckups. Sorry if he was a hero of yours and all, but it seems that you probably sort of feel the same anyway. I mean, what is with that?
Anon
I understand what you are saying and do agree theres insurmountable pressure to perform, stay in shape and have a family when on the road. But no matter how great the guy is, and the circumstances which we will never fully know or understand, in the cold light to day he is quitessentially a murderer, maybe on diminished responsibility he commited these crimes but everyone knows the difference between right and wrong and squeezing the life out of a person.
Slaggy, Pool, Asterisk *,
I was reading that somewhere a psychologist said that if someone kills and then commits suicide its either an act of redemption or cowardice. Funny I didnt think killers where noble people..
What a tragedy. I've been following it on the news as well.
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