Thanks Paul.
I've been trying to form some coherent thoughts on this and put them on paper, but the...senselessness of the whole sordid affair has left me quite numb.
I've been a wrestling fan for 17 years. Longer than I've read comics. Longer than anything else I've put my mind to. I seriously don't know if I can continue supporting an industry that has broken my heart. Again.
Bill Simmons on ESPN.com (a sportswriter and wrestling fan) also said something that dug to the heart of it. He said that non-wrestling fans might not understand, but it would be if a guy like Derek Jeter --- a highly respected sports guy who parents would be proud to have as a role model for their kids --- turned into a murderer and child killer.
I watched the RAW show on the West Coast. I'd just turned on the TV and they were showing old Benoit matches with the "Remembering Benoit" graphic. I commented to my girlfriend how tragic this was, and how Benoit was the most respected guy in wrestling. She asked what the cause was; I didn't know, so we both checked the internet. The slow sickening feeling spreading through my stomach after reading the words "double murder/suicide" is not one I'll soon forget.
Rest in peace, Nancy and Daniel.
Hello Paul,
I'm an old friend of Susi's, and she referred me to your blog after reading a similar, if shorter, post on my live journal on the matter.
This is an extremely well-written article, but I wonder whether you might clear up a couple of things. Firstly, do you have a source for the claim that Darren Matthews (I don't really feel like using on-screen names on a subject like this) was one of the guys who got Benoit's text messages? I didn't read that, and gathered it might have been kept quiet. But it fits in the context of what else we know, considering he was one of Benoit's best friends, and might well have been his travelling partner.
I also wanted to ask what he actually said, if you have any record of it. I didn't see the show, but I did read a post on a message board saying something similar about Dean Malenko: it was as though he was making the on-screen tribute, probably because everybody knows how close they were and would have expected it, but secretly knew that something was very wrong. Might you also have seen something like that in what Malenko said?
By the way, since I'm here I might as well nadd that I don't quite see where the people who criticised the 'Vince's death' storyline are coming from. The WWE storylines are a work of fiction, and everyone knows that, so why should it be different from any other televised work of fiction, which depicts death all the time? I think the WWE did the right thing in pulling it after what happened, just as other television programmes are regularly re-scheduled when a time of tragedy resonates particularly badly with a storyline of theirs, but I don't think that the mere fact that wrestlers die, often prematurely, should in general have very much to with what is or isn't a good storyline. I'd only wonder whether the storyline was a good one or not; from what I've heard it doesn't much sound like it, but that's an aesthetic criticism rather than a moral one, and not having seen the WWE for a few weeks I can't really comment on that.
Best wishes,
David
You can find the tribute videos pretty easily on YouTube. Malenko's one doesn't strike me as particularly conflicted.
The text messages have been published and they're addressed to "C and S." According to Bryan Alvarez's Figure 4 Weekly, which is pretty well connected, C is Chavo Guerrero; S is at least widely understood to be Regal (whom Benoit met when he was calling himself "Steve Regal"). Like many wrestlers, although Regal has never formally changed his name, he's still principally known to friends and colleages by his stage name.
Thanks - I checked them out on Youtube. Malenko's video - I'm really not sure now, but then I was only going on what someone else had said anyway. I guess it's the look in his eyes - a look of horror, of sorts.
C, I guessed, was Chavo - S for 'Steve Regal' I hadn't figured out, but it sounds right, and makes sense too considering how close they were. Thanks for clearing that up, too.
I'm tempted to note that Benoit probably murdered his family, but has not been definitively proven to be the culprit. But I believe he did it regardless.
Also ABC News radio announced that the Wikipedia website had the details of Nancy Benoit's death posted before the cops discovered her corpse, and the person who posted that information was doing so off of one of WWE's computers.
So says me.
Er, not quite, Mr. Ardnt.
Further investigation revealed that it was simply somebody in the same city as WWE's headquarters, and he had made a bunch of similar, ridiculous posts to random Wikipedia entries. For example, that Chavo Guerrero was addicted to crack and raped a boy.
The person who edited the Wikipedia entries has since come forth and said he felt horrible for joking about Mrs. Benoit's death when it actually happened.
So far, Paul's comments have been the most rational, sound-minded ones that I have read from somebody not within the wrestling industry. Thank you for your open-mindedness when writing about the situation, Mr. O'Brien. It's a refreshing change from all the demonization and fact-ignoring that's going on over here in the States.
ABC was wrong!?
Perish forbid!
Technically, it's conceivable that a third party could have broken into the house and killed the lot of them over a 48-hour period. But it's extremely unlikely, bearing in mind that Chris Benoit was speaking by telephone with WWE staff *after* Nancy and Daniel died (as inferred from the state of the bodies).
The post to Wikipedia seems to have been nothing more than a trolling effort inspired by Benoit's no-showing the Saturday and Sunday night shows. The Saturday no-show was attributed in the wrestling news websites to family problems (which was the excuse he gave the WWE), so that much at least was in the public domain by the time of that Wikipedia posting.
I watched Vengeance last night, and that match was uncanny. First of all CM Punk comes to the ring obviously pissed off, and then the change to the bill was announced over the house mic when th announcer introduced Jonny Nitro. It was only then that the announcers said anything, which made me think they might have still been waiting in case Benoit showed up - I'd otherwise have expected them to mention the change at the top of the card. Then, throughout the first few minutes, the entire crowd was chanting "We want Benoit!", and Nitro turned to the crowd and replied, about Punk, something like "He wants Benoit too, but he's pissed off because he got Jonny Nitro". The announcers repeated the 'personal reasons' explanation several times, but the first time Tazz said it, he sounded very uncertain - his exact words were "personal reasons, er, from what we understand" - i.e. he just didn't know.
Judging from his comments on the tribute show, I think CM Punk was just annoyed because he'd been looking forward to the biggest singles match of his career, and now he was going to wrestle a Raw midcarder in front of an audience who were obviously going to be pissed off by the last-minute switch. I suspect he took it at face value as a no-show.
Very insightful comment, Paul, just one minor addition:
. But the steroid rage theory has its problems. The deaths took place over several days, which doesn't fit neatly with a sudden mood swing.
Right. But there is the possibility that the first murder did actually happen due to roid rage. Just a possibility: An argument with his wife that made Benoit snap and kill her, even though did not want to do this.
The second murder and his suicide in that case would not have happened due to roid rage, but due to panic, depression, whatever. In a way they would be consequences of that first fateful action. Of course, this is just a hypothesis: But the fact that the murders took place over three days does not make it impossible that the steroids played a part in this.
By the way, did you read Chris Nowinski's Head Games? The points he touches on (albeit he's talking about American Football, not about wrestling) are really noteworthy. Made me wonder whether WWE should ban chair shots.
Whatever the circumstances, a tragedy all the same, and another black eye for pro wrestling.
Its just so sad to see guys I watched for so many years as a child and as an adult die in circumstances ranging from sad to utterly ghastly.
Im of a mind to beleive that the wrestling life had to have contributed to this incident in some way, and we can only hope that things can get better after a horrible episode like this. Not just for the industry, but the men and women we love to watch perform.
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