Chris Benoit is a tale that the wrestling community especially WWE wish to be part of forgotten history.
But to me, the story should serve as a cautionary tale of living over the edge and beyond suspicion.
I believe it should be brought more to light his situation.
Don’t get wrong there’s no way I can celebrate or honor a murderer, but I believe if we don’t learn from the past we will, unfortunately, continue past mistakes.
For those of you who don’t know the Benoit-family saga.
Let me bring you up to speed.
Chris Benoit was a WWE superstar who to me and most fans had the title of being one of the best technical wrestlers.
Despite his relative petite stature for the business.
He compensated for that through pure heart and skill.
And due to his work ethic, he gained a lot of belts and respect from fellow competitors along the way during his illustrious wrestling career.
That’s why the news of him killing his wife Nancy and 7 year old son Daniel and then hanging himself in the family home in Fayetteville, Georgia mansion was met with dismay.
His murderous rampage from June 22 to 24, 2007 really shocked the wrestling community actually the whole world, and it left more questions than answers.
The brutal nature of his unforgivable actions led to his name being wiped off from all WWE records, and to me rightly so.
It was definitely the right action to take in respect to the victims’ family, but now being more older I feel the man was vilified in death, but people didn’t take contributing factors into consideration. Which to me is an insult to the Benoit family and his late wife’s family.
Because even if you erase him from history.
You can’t erase the victims’ family pain.
They deserve to know why Benoit did what he did.
To me what people wish to know ‘’what were the warning signs’’.
I think there were several that could easily have slipped under the radar.
For example,
I always stated tirelessly a human body isn’t designed to absorb all those lethal kicks in the squared circle, and those kicks will definitely haunt the recipient in the near future.
And my assumption was backed up by a study of Benoit’s brain which showed he had the brain of an advanced age in a debilitated state.
Also the death of his close friend/fellow wrestling superstar ‘’Latino Heat’’ superstar Eddie Guerrero didn’t help matters.
It’s been said repeatedly in countless documentaries he was never the same since he died, and ‘’he was existing not living’’.
And that could have been a contributive factor in his future actions.
Not everyone has the tools to cope and deal with grief.
What is sad about life is you can see what someone presents externally, but you never can know how someone is feeling internally.
Maybe if he got some support.
Who knows it’s always been a guessing game till this day.
And when you hear of the alleged drug abuse.
So he can survive in the ring and have the perfect build.
It hurt me that this man had a complex due to his size and never felt totally complete, so maybe was living with self-loathing despite his accomplished career.
He never truly felt accepted.
He was by the fans, but not by himself.
And also the true tragedy of any crime is the aftermath.
The sins of a father is the worst pain a father can inflict on a child.
Due to Benoit’s actions his other son David Benoit was cheated out of a potential wrestling career ,and essentially blacklisted from the sport he grew up in and learned to love.
Watching the docu series ‘’Dark Side Of The Ring’’, I felt his pain ,and what works against him unfortunately he’s the spitting image of his father.
To me, this innocent lad is a living casualty by his father.
What I respect about him he talks about his dad with a sympathetic tone, but also with a balance of a diplomatic way of not condoning his behavior.
He hates what his dad did, but I don’t think he hates his dad.
It’s a tough predicament for this young lad.
You can easily conclude from the documentary Chris Benoit was a ticking time bomb.
It’s like a series of unfortunate events set him off.
No person is designed to absorb all that amount of tragedy.
It is sad wrestling is a form of sports entertainment, but in most cases the laughs are rarely heard in the wrestlers’ private lives.
And it always puzzles me why most wrestlers die relatively young.
(Living beyond 40 is an accomplishment in the industry how tragic is that)
What’s sad about stories like this the killer takes the secrets to the grave
I feel wrestling organizations like WWE shouldn’t bury this story. They should unearth it so people can examine, and draw their own conclusion.
It’s not a reflection on the company.
As no-one should be made to feel guilty and accountable for actions that they could never have predicted and most importantly prevented.