My worst fears...

The Chris Benoit story has turned out the way I feared. I didn’t know this to be fact when I wrote last night but I definitely feared that it was a murder-suicide. If it was just Benoit I would have thought that it was another heart attack resulting in a wrestler’s early death. But once I heard that it was his wife and son as well and that they were investigating it as a homicide but were not searching for a suspect there was really only one conclusion. Though I will say I was in line with someone I read on one of the wrestling blogs who wrote “I’ve never wished more to hear the words carbon monoxide poisoning in my entire life.”

This is just horrendous and devastating news. I really can’t come to grips that he actually did this. It seems more like a soap opera, or a bad movie, than anything else. I can’t imagine it really being the guy that I watched and admired for fifteen years. I’ve never experienced anything like this. Kurt Cobain killing himself was troubling, Jeff Buckley drowning was tragic, horrendous might be the right word for this. How can you kill your seven year old son?

If you’re not a wrestling fan, and especially if you’re not part of the internet wrestling community, it might be tough to understand just what Chris Benoit represented prior to yesterday. He had no desire to use wrestling to become a movie star or make the cover of magazines. All he wanted to do was be the best wrestler in the ring at all times. And to those of us who followed wrestling with more of a passion than is probably healthy, we admired him for that. We saw his dedication to his craft, his love for the business, and his desire to give the fans the best show possible night after night and I hate to say it now but we worshiped the guy. Watch old matches and in the crowd you will see signs that read “Benoit is God”. When he finally, after 18 years in the business, won the world title at Wrestlemania XX I knew people who celebrated the same way I did when the White Sox won the World Series. For those of us who loved the craft of wrestling, who followed the sport online and discussed the minutiae of matches on message boards, Benoit represented all that we loved about wrestling.

And now it is all gone. I’ve been on the message boards a bit the past two days, just lurking and seeing what people are saying. The reaction has been one of utter disbelief. Until the press conference this afternoon everyone was looking for just one thread of hope that the worst wouldn’t be true. Now we’re trying to come to grips that someone we have followed and admired and idolized has done something so horrible I can’t even put it into words. And something that was so opposite of what we knew him to be. I know that all we knew was a wrestling character but over the years you came to feel that you knew him. This wasn’t some guy wrestling in a clown costume, this was a guy who came to the ring using his real name and his real personality. And I never in a million years would have expected this.

(A few people have posed a question that I will have to address as well. Sitting in my DVD collection right now is a 2 disc set of Benoit’s best matches. I really don’t know what I am going to do with it. I certainly don’t know if I could bring myself to watch it again.)

As to whether they should have had the tribute show last night, I’m a bit torn on that one. In the WWE’s defense they had only learned of this an hour or two before the show was to begin and did not have the full story. However, I’m pretty sure that they knew the direction this story was headed. I watched most of it and I could tell from the interviews that the wrestlers gave that this wasn’t just a tragic accident. They knew what had happened, they just couldn’t explain it on television. Which made honoring his memory feel odd even while I was watching it. I turned it off at points less because I felt saddened and more because I feared that doing this was wrong. I even wished last night that they just would have said that Benoit, his wife and son were found dead and that due to the tragedy the show would be cancelled and that a tribute would be scheduled for later. USA could show reruns of something else for once. That would have saved me from seeing wrestlers talk on camera about how they found out that one of their best friends died an hour ago.

That said, this is Vince McMahon who has always held the belief that the show must go on. To the point of having The Undertaker win the world title in the same ring where Owen Hart had fallen to his death an hour earlier. It’s one of the aspects of pro wrestling that I can’t stand.

I know that I can’t make any sense of this act. I can’t even make sense of what I am feeling right now and my only connection is that this is someone I have watched on television week after week for years. It’s just more senseless death in a year that has seen more than its fair share. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends. At the end, maybe that is all you can say.

Don't know what to say...

I’m not sure if I know how to write this entry.

That wasn’t the plan tonight. This was going to be a pretty simple night for me. Get home, have some dinner, maybe head out and see Once again. Come back and tell some stories from the weekend. All I wanted was a quiet, simple night. While I was getting ready to go out I decided to flip on the TV and since Raw was going to be three hours tonight I thought that I’d catch some wrestling before I go. I was confused when I saw that they were at a commercial a few minutes in to the show. And then I was confused when I saw an empty arena and the announcers speaking in hushed voices. And then I saw the tribute message at the bottom of the screen reading “Remembering Chris Benoit”.

And I just sat there stunned.

(For those who haven’t heard, Chris Benoit, his wife and his young son were all found dead in their home this afternoon. There are a lot of theories and rumors floating around and I don’t want to think about any of them right now.)

See, I haven’t hidden the fact that I still watch pro wrestling. I even realized a few weeks ago that I’ve been a fan for over 25 years now. Usually I explain my interest as that it is an escape from the real world. For an hour or two a week I can sit back and watch controlled mayhem, intense interviews and at the end of the day see good defeat evil. It’s safe, enjoyable and you know how the story ends. But really I watch because there are a few performers who I feel are the best around and who can make me forget that what I am watching is choreographed. And Chris Benoit was at the top of that list.

He may have been the best technical wrestler of the past decade. The second he stepped inside that ring he told a story that emphasized that what you were seeing was completely real. It was intense and athletic and exhilarating. Add to that the fact that his story was one that had always inspired me. Here he was, a small guy in a business of giants, who through pure hard work and dedication made his way to the top of his profession without stepping on anyone along the way. He didn’t play politics, he was just the best at his job and in the end that couldn’t be ignored. I know it sounds strange but I truly admired the guy. There was a reason that in every wrestling video game I own I always wrestled as Chris Benoit.

That’s why I can’t believe that I’ve just watched a tribute show to him. I don’t think it’s even sunk in what has happened. I’ve watched this guy wrestle for fifteen years. I can still describe a move he did in his first match that was unlike anything I had ever seen before. And now he’s gone. And joins Eddie Guerrero, Owen Hart, Brian Pillman, Road Warrior Hawk, Curt Henning, Rick Rude, and sadly a host of others who all died before they even reached middle age.

I’m not sure if I want to be a wrestling fan anymore. It’s tough to watch your heroes die. My thoughts go out to his family. I fear that this story is only going to get worse.