The Chris Benoit tragedy: Three years later

[Serious Jones]

I think the only person who will ever know the whole story is Chris Benoit.

First, there is no chance, and there should not be a chance, that Chris Benoit will ever be inducted into the Hall of Fame. That is one of the most ludicrous requests I have ever heard. He was a greatly gifted wrestler, but that doesn't justify what happened.

I think this was fully Benoit's doing. I do not think that he was in the state of mind that he usually was. This was not very premeditated, in my opinion. I don't believe that he was secretly becoming a murderer for years beforehand. I do think events and choices in his own life building up were the cause. Were steroids a catalyst? I'm sure. Was brain damage a catalyst? I'm sure. In my mind, both of those combined, and the third, possibly most important catalyst, Eddie Guerrero's death, pushed him over the edge.

We know from his actions that Chris was a Christian man who believed that Eddie was in Heaven. We'll never truly know what happened, but I speculate that in his disturbed mind, he saw ending his family's life and his own was a way to get them to Heaven, which is where he believed Eddie to be. I'm sure that Chris had a reason, and it's a shame that there will never be a definitive answer.

Another important fact is that the deaths weren't done at the same time. In his altered state, he may have killed Daniel and Nancy, but then perhaps he snapped out of it. This could have been where he realized what he had done and placed Bibles by their bodies. If he ever got out of his murderous state of mind, he must have realized that his life was over. His family was dead, and he would surely be caught and humiliated in front of the world before being executed. Committing suicide was an understandable decision, if that were the case.

I feel as if Chris reached a normal state of mind before committing suicide, and that was where he made his peace. I believe in a God of unconditional forgiveness, and I would assume that Chris did, too. I choose to believe that the whole Benoit family is in a better place.

This is all just speculation of course. Just what I would like to believe happened.

 

[WaldoBrown]

As far as Benoit, he is where he belongs..............rotting in HELL for what he did.

you have balls i like it you just went out and said it but i gotta disagree cause i learned long ago in catholic school (although i dont really practice a religion anymore) that god can forgive one bad deed for a life full of good deeds so if benoit was as nice of a person as they all say he was he'll probly be chillin smokin a fatty with owen and eddy

but yeah uh what did dino bravo do? cause i looked it up on wikipedia and it said he was murdered for being involved with illegal tobacco smuggling sounds kinda lame and cheesy to me plus dino bravo sucked at wrestling anyway

BUT REALLY my point is who cares if benoit is in heaven or hell or purgatory or burried beneath the dirt we should be talking about his career and where he would have been had this tragic end not happened

me





i believe he would have died anyway haad he not murdered himself/family i believe in the following years his body would have just gotten worse and his brain too and we could have even seen a similar end to that of misawa's

im not a doctor or anything just from hearing how badly messed up benoits body and head were from years of in ring torture same with misawas i think it could have been the end of him like that either that or he'd be another old fart in tna trying to remain atop (bite my tongue i know)

 

[#hamler]

Benoit doesn't deserve the forgivness. Maybe he made a mistake but the mistake is unforgivable. Well anyways, WWE has made sure to never say his name again, and i doubt he will be put into the HOF. That would be wrong. I think Benoit was a great wrestler, but i have no respect for him. When he killed his family, i was 15 and I couldn't believe a guy i watched and grew up watching and Idolizing would go off and do this. But he did, it's plain and simple. If people are gonna blame steroids, thousands of wrestlers take roids and i think he is the only one to kil his family from it. I wish people would stop making excuses for the fucker but I also wish it didn't have to happend, but it did and I don't care if Chris was going through hell and bac there no reason to do what he did... So with all do respect to everyones opinion...fuck benoit and his legacy...just my opinion.

 

[Dum Dum Dudley]

If any fellow Brits are roaming this thread, they might agree with me when i make the comparison between Benoit and Raoul Moat. For those that don't know, Moat was recently in the news for shooting a policeman, his ex-wife and then taking his own life during a police shoot-out. People have been laying cards and flowers on the piece of land where he died and this has caused outrage in the press. Although Moat never achieved anything of note, I feel that this makes the Benoit decision a lot easier. It suggests that no matter what you have done or achieved in your life, if you kill another human being, you lose the right to whatever nostalgic views people have of you.
Take Benoit. There is no denying he was a gifted technical wrestler, but he commited an awful crime to a child. Imagine if that was your son or brother. People argue about whether Benoit should be in the HOF and say 'well, based on his wrestling career then yes he should be inducted'. I personally think that is the most ******ed thing I've ever heard. How can the WWE, in today's PG climate, honour a child killer and, essentially, put him on par with the Bret Hart's and Steve Austin's of the wrestling world?!? It's madness.

 

[JM Punk]

I still have his theme song on my iPod and I have a hard time listening to it, because it reminds me of what happened during the final days of his life.

Like most, I love Chris Benoit the wrestler......but he is a piece of garbage for what he did to his wife and son.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

I wrote on the main site about this at the time and a year on... Three years on there are still few answers...

I do feel there is value in Chris Nowinski's theories, I myself got a concussion since then and it does change you... as many as Chris took throughout the years, it'd be impossible for him not to be altered.

However it remains that a disabled murderer is still a murderer... and few will be able to ever truly seperate Chris Benoit the man from the wrestler they loved... How can WWE induct him to a Hall of Fame? Who amongst his friends could raise their head over the parapet and take the flak a speech would cause... Who would be the one to say..."What he did was wrong and I hate him for it, but I loved the man I knew for what he did for me?"...

If it ever happens, I think Jericho will be the one to induct him... but I just don't ever see it...not now... If it was just Nancy and if you believe, in Attitude era WWE we already have had this in Snuka... but in PGWWE there is no way a child murderer can ever be praised... that is a real shame cos a generation will lose knowledge of Benoit.

What should happen, is kids are told... "If ever you feel unhappy talk to someone"... the Benoit story is a great one to tell kids that even "heroes" can be sick and need help if they do feel sad... but now we will never see that cos PGWWE can't afford it,...

 

[Prax]

As much as we've heard and read about the Chris Benoit tragedy, I still think there's a lot we don't know. What led up to what he did, what caused him to do it and even some things during and after what happened. No one who was there is around to tell us what exactly happened.

One thing I really dislike about the whole situation is how WWE is completely ignoring what happened. They should be using this as an example, as a reminder that if the performers in the wrestling industry aren't taken care of, something like this COULD indeed happen. Instead, even now, you see people being pushed to the limit, doing Shooting Star Presses, 450 Splashes and jumping off ladders through tables...

I'm not saying those things shouldn't be done, especially if the industry has a way of doing it as safely as it possibly can, but the way they're handling it just reeks of hypocrisy.

They'll fire a guy for choking someone with a tie, but they'll do nothing about people being dropped on their heads from 15 feet above...

Go figure.

 

[TristanCross]

It wasn't steroids. They already determined from the autopsy that as a result of Benoit's concussions from wrestling, he had the brain of an 80 year old man with Alzheimer disease.

 

[Tenta]

Why didn't we see this coming?

I mean, that's really all it boils down to; we should have seen something like this. Maybe not Benoit, but definitely a wrestler. Given Benoit's sordid past in wrestling, I'm shocked it didn't happen earlier. If you ever read Matt Randazzo's Ring of Hell, it points out all that led to Benoit's actions. The brain damage from the countless headbutts and other hard bumps the man took directly on the head, let alone the weapon shots. The stress of a lifestyle in which Benoit just wasn't built for. The psychotic breakdown of watching two of his best friends die in the business. I'm shocked if, at this point, no one's put together the pieces. Plenty are to blame, not just the WWE, though they'll receive all the blame, because they're the biggest brand.

Looking back, yes I was shocked. Now that I consider it all? Abso-fucking-lutely not.