Posted on 06/25/2007 3:53:58 PM PDT by HitmanLV
We are still awaiting further details, but PWInsider.com is extremely saddened to report that former WWE and WCW World champion Chris Benoit and his wife, former WCW and ECW personality Nancy "Woman" Benoit were both found dead today in Atlanta, Georgia. Obviously this will be a huge developing story in the days to come but at this point, we'd like to express our deepest condolences to the Benoits' family, friends, and fans at this time.
A meeting is currently ongoing at WWE TV and it is expected that tonight's three hour Raw will now be dedicated to Benoit's memory.
6:09 Update: WWE.com issued the following statement this afternoon:
"WWE is sad to report that Chris Benoit and his family have been found dead in their home. Police are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding the deaths. Tonight's Raw will be a tribute to Chris and his family."
I knew nothing of this until just a few hours ago. After 2 decades of being a wrestling fan, I went cold turkey a couple of years ago due to boredom with the product. I didn't see the poorly-timed "tribute" last night. This may sound morbid, but after going cold-turkey, I check the web every month or so just to see if anyone I grew up watching checked out. Way too many did.....but NEVER in this murderous way.
Your “cold turkey” approach sounds like the same thing I did about 2001. In the 80’s and late 90’s, though, I could tell you everything going on in wrestling. Now, I check Wrestlezone about once a week to read the highlights.
Oh, great. DU is going to blame this on Christianity.
Conventional wisdom wants to pin this on steroid abuse and ‘roid rage,’ but I doubt that’s going to stick.
Who knows what set Benoit off? The MSM will try to make steroids the bad guy, but it won’t stick.
Sorry, didn’t mean that to come across as a criticism of the update (for which I am very greatful) I just was hoping he wasn’t involved in the murders.
I dropped out of watching wrestling about 4 year back after my child was born, but I enjoyed Benoit’s matches and he seemed decent in one brief meeting I had with him. I just cannot imagine anything worse for a father to do than this.
If true, this is the way wrestlers get around the WWE's "Wellness" policy. Steroids are a scourge on the business and maybe one day, organizations like the WWE (and maybe even Major League Baseball) will get serious about it. Steroids and subsequently a juiced up wrestler give nothing to the business.
Scum. Like gypsy, carney, freakshow, mardigras trash. Scum. I had rather my daughter dated a muzlim than wrestling trash and wind up dead of roid rage.
I know what you mean. This may be the worst crime a celebrity (well, sort-of celebrity) has ever committed. O.J. and Robert Blake were accused of murdering their wives (O.J. did it, no opinion on Blake), but offhand, I cannot recall if any well-known public figure in entertainment has ever taken the life of their own child.
They already are.
It will be a while before we know to what extent, if any, steroids were a factor in this particular case. One thing that cannot be denied, however, is the fact that a lot of wrestlers in their 30s and 40s have died in recent years: MIke Awesome (42), Bam Bam Bigelow (45), "Jumpin" Joey Maggs (37), Eddie Guerrero (38), Chris Candido (30s), Big Boss Man (42), Crash Holly (32), Road Warrior Hawk (45), and Curt Hennig (44), just to name a few. If this many NFL or NBA players had died in such a short time span, there would be a congressional investigation.
Are you implying that McMahon was not in the limo when it exploded?
He was 40 years old. I am close to that age and I have a part-time job that has me walking up and down flights of stairs for long periods of time at local apartments. After an hour or so my legs always feel numb and my body aches.
I can't imagine how he made it that long. Those wrestlers are always in severe pain and you can bet they take pain pills to feel better. They wrestle all the time and I'm sure that many of them take some sort of upper to be able to get into the ring. Then they subject their body to being slammed and what not. On top of that you have the steroid abuse to keep the body in that sort of condition. There is no telling how it affected him mentally.
So yes, I pray for him. I pray that a loving God will find mercy for Chris. May they all rest in peace.
Here is what BSG had to say. I think he captured things pretty well:
Any comment on the Benoit situation, is this the end of pro wrestling, it seems like it would be hard to watch again after this.
Bill Simmons: (3:41 PM ET ) I am still gathering my thoughts, waiting for all the facts to come out. It just doesn’t seem like any non-wrestling fan realizes how huge this story is to everyone who actually follows wrestling - in my opinion, it’s the biggest sports story of the year even though wrestling technically isn’t a sport. Benoit was one of the 12-15 greatest wrestlers of the past 30 years. For the wrestling world, it’s like the OJ thing all over again - only its worse because his little son was involved. It might be the single worst sports story since the Rae Carruth thing.
Bill Simmons: (3:43 PM ET ) The weird part was the WWE inexplicably running the 3-hour Benoit tribute on Raw last night - by the time it re-aired on the West Coast, reports were starting to come out that it was possibly a double murder-suicide... I don’t know how they let that show continue to run. One of the weirdest TV moments ever. I was really creeped out.
Carl (Lansing, MI): How come people condem wresting becuase of this but not the football because of Rae Carruth? Is it becuase people are looking for a reason to bash it? I never really liked it a ton after college, but I never understood why people have so much HATE for it.
Bill Simmons: (3:45 PM ET ) Well, the bigger issue here is that pro wrestling has suffered an abnormal number of early deaths - actually, abnormal might not even be the right word. it’s almost an epidemic. There have probably been more wrestlers die before the age of 45 in the past 15 years than every sport combined. And you knew the tipping point was coming, eventually, and now it’s here. I don’t know if wrestling will survive this one.
Adam (NY): So what does WWE do from here? With the macmahon death awkwardness floating over their heads I think they’re going to lose a huge portion of their audience. They have to, right?
Bill Simmons: (3:48 PM ET ) Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. I think this could be it - it’s going to be the dominant story of the next 2 weeks and everyone is going to bring up the death stats and all the crazy incidents that have happened, I don’t think the average person realizes what a damaging sport this has been (physically and psychologically) to the people who do it. Again, I think we’ve reached the tipping point. Sorry to be so somber, but the Benoit thing... i mean, it’s hard to explain how big he was in wrestling circles.
http://www.steveswrestling.com/info/obituaries.html
Other wrestling deaths.
You know, I think McMahon would do well to clean up his organizations. He should stop looking at the bottom line and instead take a look at his people.
Everyone knows there is no way to get a body like Luger or Steiner unless you use steroids. No amount of physical exersize will do that. McMahon knows this as he has admitted to using steroids.
These wrestlers have no union. They are free to make their own choices, of course, but an organization should care a little bit more about its employees than that.
I guess when you are blinded by greed the only thing that matters at the end of they day is money.
Pathetic.
As for the WWE, their "wellness policy" is a joke, kind of like speed limits. Problem is, today's wrestlers need to have a muscular build to appeal to today's fans. In prior decades, wrestlers relied less on good looks, strength, and athleticism, and more on in-ring psychology, charisma, and promoters building them up. Fat, hairy brutes, as opposed to today's muscle and fitness models. They regularly wrestled into their late 50s. Ric Flair may be the last of that breed. Can you imagine an entire WWE roster full of Ric Flairs? No one today would watch.
Of course, steroids have a price, and may have just claimed another payment...although Benoit's actions seemed too premeditated/coordinated to have been simple 'roid rage.
He took it to the gutter for sure. I liked it when the good guy was the American flag waver and the bad guy was the one whose nationality was of the nation that was the enemy of the times... Iron Shiek, the russian guy...
I guess PC helped kill that
I haven't watched it in years because they took all the fun out of it.
My cousin and I used to really like Bruno Samartino.
Yeah, those days are long gone.
Not really. Wrestling is pretty far from PC. Peoples tastes change as the times change. The promotion drives some of that change, and in other cases reacts to it.
Not too long ago, there was an incident where one wrestler, Jake Roberts, put his hand on Randy Savage's wife/manager Elizabeth, intending to put a wrestling move on her. The incident was shocking and memorable - for mainstream wrestling, women weren't attacked very much. This incident turned Roberts into a much bigger bad guy, and it sold tickets because everyone wanted to see Savage beat him up.
These days, women are routinely manhandled by the male wrestlers. The audience is desensitized to it. It doesn't sell tickets. A woman can get power bombed one day and be back on tv (maybe with a neck brace) just a couple of days later.
Not too long ago, if in the storyline a wrestler seduced one wrestler's woman (wife, manager, valet), he would more often than not be the bad guy. These days, stealing another guy's wife or woman is applauded by the audience.
None of this has anything to do with PC.
Ain’t that the truth!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.