I guess I need to get this off of my chest. It has been ruminating in my cranium since Monday night and I have been putting it off, maybe thinking the longer I waited the easier this would be. I guess the simple way to put it would be to come up with some sort of excuse, like saying that words fail me, but that isn't quite true, words cannot fail anyone, rather I think I fail words more often than not, I am not sure I put my thoughts to paper in a manner that is befitting the topic at hand.
Maybe the best way to start is a confession for all of you newbies around this joint, and to those of you who aren't newbies but just don't know me all that well. I am one of those wrestling fans that everybody makes fun of. That doesn't mean I don't have a brain in my head, or that I am stupid and can't tell reality from that which is fake, I can and do. But just as someone would be willing to criticize me for watching it, I am sure there are plenty of things they like that they are not hounded over. After all, when was the last time someone said "You know Law and Order isn't real don't you?" Most people would know this without having it reminded to them at every turn, To me, wrestling is much the same thing, you enter with a suspension of belief and you go along with the storylines, and when two really good wrestlers are in the ring, their movements and ability to "sell" (for those in the know, it is the ability to fake that a move hurt more than it did) carries with it much the same appreciation that some would have for the exquisite moves of the ballet. When a storyline is furthered and a series of matches take place between a "face" (good guy) and a "heel" (bad guy) and they work in knowledge of their previous matches such as effective counter moves to moves favored by either the heel or the face, it can for me at least make for some entertaining television.
Having gotten that out of the way, let me make the next confession, if this is in fact a confession, and say one of the best people I have ever seen do this was Chris Benoit. He was not the best wrestler at cutting a promo, but inside the ring, his work was on par with the best the wrestling business has to offer these days. He was not one of guys who got by solely on physique and no talent, rather he was someone that when you watched him, you were seeing a performance from someone who understands the business and can let his actions in the squared circle tell a story far better than I can with a pen and paper.
That being said, unless you live under a rock, and some may provided they find a rock comfortable enough, the story that unfolded Monday about the events in the Benoit household are shocking, saddening and disgusting all at the same time. Shocking simply because one finds it hard to believe that Chris Benoit is capable of the events that transpired. For those that don't know, it is believed that over the course of the weekend, Chris first killed his wife, binding her wrists and ankles, choked his son to death the following day and up to a full day after that, hung himself off of the equipment in his home gym. This was a guy that until the events of this past weekend, pretty much everyone who followed wrestling had a decent amount of respect for, both fans and fellow wrestlers. It is saddening simply because at the end of the day, regardless of what may have happened to precipitate the events, three people are now dead as a result, and it is disgusting, at least for me, because I cannot imagine a scenario where a man would walk into his 7 year old son's room, a room that had posters of his father hanging on the walls, and proceed to choke the very life out of him.
The events of this weekend have changed my opinion of both the man and the wrestling "business" as a whole. It is easy to see why my opinion of Chris Benoit would change, regardless of the hours of enjoyment and entertainment he may have provided, at the end of the day he is just a murderer, mind you one with a talent, but a murderer nonetheless and that fact carries far more weight with me than anything he may have done previously. I am sickened by those that are looking to excuse his behavior simply because of who he was or what he may have done in the past. It is granting him a pass, when one is not called for. If the guy working the local McDonald's was really good about taking care of the fryer, cleaning it every night, making sure the proper oil was in it and made just out of this world french fries, and yet, in a fit of rage killed someone, we wouldn't give him a pass saying "Yeah, but those fries were so good, I am really going to miss him." And to those poeple that would take that approach, I am sorry but the psychological problems from which you suffer can't be remedied in this blog. Chris Benoit, accomplishments aside, will forever be remembered first and foremost as a murderer and that is the way it should be.
That being said, his actions were his alone, and it shouldn't tarnish wrestling in general, and as far as I am concerened it doesn't. The actions of the WWE following the double murder suicide however are inexcuseable as well. From the way the timeline unfolds, apparently Chris Benoit was to take part in a live event in Beaumont Texas on Saturday, and event that he asked his employer if he could miss due to a family situation. The WWE granted him the day off, thinking that he would be arround for the pay per view event on Sunday. In the wee hours of Sunday morning, Chris made a series of strange text messages to some fellow wrestlers, the messages stating his home address and that a door would be open or the garage was open and that the dogs (he had two german shepards I believe) would be in the yard. When Chris failed to show for the pay per view event on Sunday and the WWE was made aware of the text mesages sent, they asked the local police department to do a drive by and check up on the Benoit residence Monday. The police of Fayetteville, Georgia did that and upon arriving at the house they found three dead bodies, the Benoit family, with cause of death to be determined, yet they labeled it as a major crime scene. The WWE carries a live show on TV Monday nights. "Raw", and were wondering what they should do with the scheduled broadcast. They could have done a number of things, they could have opted to run a tape, they could have just cancelled and let the network instead run a movie or some alternate programming in the shows place. Instead, they chose to do a tribute show to Chris Benoit, knowing that the police were treating the scene as a crime and that the fact of what happened were still unfolding and it is plausible that Chris could have had a role in what unfolded there. Don't get me wrong, I am all for tribute shows to guys who gave their lives for a profession that they love and that allowed them the chance to entertain millions of fans, myself included, provided we know what happened that brought about their deaths to begin with. WWE could easily have waited a week to do a Chris Benoit tribute show, provided that facts had unfolded in such a way as he deserved one, but instead they went ahead with a three hour show, showing how great a wrestler Chris was, recapping his career highlights, having fellow wrestlers come on and talk about their interactions with Chris through the years and what he meant to their careers, some of them near tears with the news of his passing, meanwhile in Fayetteville, the police are doing a press conference that took place at 10pm, in the middle of that live tribute show, to say Chris Benoit killed his family. So, while the police are saying that Chris Benoit killed three people, his wife, his son and himself, WWE is running a show saying how great he was. It is grotesque in its timing and sensitivity.
The following night, WWE came on TV for their ECW show and opened with Vince McMahon, the owner of the WWE, saying that other than his opening remarks, they would not mention Chris Benoit again and proceeded to talk about the events that happened regarding the deaths of Chris Benoit and his family, yet he failed to do the one decent thing he needed to do, which was apologize for having a tribute for a murderer the night before. Myabe some people can get passed that, and they will tune in their TVs to watch wrestling either later this week, or early next week, I can just say that after this week, I will not be one of them.
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