Back when I was in middle school and the early stages of high school I like many others my age got into wrestling. It was at its prime, WCW was peaking with the introduction of the NWO and the WWF introduced Degeneration X and the Rock was starting to peak people's interest. Eventually I waned off watching but I have always been familiar with the characters.The Canadian Crippler, Chris Benoit had been around forever. He was a mainstay at WCW and when that organization folded the WWE(F) snatched him up immediately. One thing was certain from his on stage persona, he was a guy who they could always run out to be a pissed off foaming at the mouth mother f'er. Well this weekend he canceled his appearance at the WWE's pay per view due to personal reasons, on yesterday he along with his wife and their son were found dead in what is believed to be a murder suicide, with the death of the wife and son believed to have occurred over the weekend and Benoit dead sometime yesterday.
This is obviously completely tragic and I fully understand the WWE's decision to cancel their live show last night. What I disagree with, is that they instead aired a 3 hour dedication to Benoit. I fully agree with this being a tragedy and I'm not going to fully destroy a guy who apparently killed his son, wife and himself, he obviously had serious mental problems which he needed help for. I just think that airing a 3 hour tribute to a man who just committed 3 murders is wrong. The guy was a famed wrestler for many years, however what he did despite his mental status was horribly cruel and wrong and had he not killed himself there's no way a tribute would have taken place. I'm sorry but suicide makes the story sadder but it does by any stretch alleviate the depth of wrong involved in killing an innocent 7 year old boy.
Note: The one commenter was right Benoit jumped ship just prior to the WCW collapse. Not sure how that's overly relevant to the story line, but he was correct in pointing out that I am not a wrestling historian.
Comments
Of course, tomorrow the story might have changed and then the WWE will be completely to blame, so we'll just have to see I guess.
The WWE didn't know it was a murder/suicide, as all the other comments stated. Blaming the WWE is ignorant, and wrongly placed.
Also want to point out the Benoit jumped ship about 2 years before WCW folded. He came in with the late Eddie Guerrero... strange how in the past year, We've lost both...
It wasn't hinted that it was a double murder suicide until last night around 11:00 PM CST.
Also, Benoit joined WWE in January of 2000, 13 months before WCW went bankrupt and was bought by Vince McMahon.
Might be a good idea to get your facts straight.
The reason WWE has egg on its collective face this morning is because the circumstances surrounding the deaths were immediately suspicious. They really should have erred on the side of caution on this one and not risked airing a 3-HOUR tribute to a man now believed to have been a double-murderer.
Of course, I suppose it's way too much to ask an organization to wait until they know some facts about a situation before reacting.
Especially one that plays fake sports/fake reality show make-believe for a living.
These circumstances should be suspicious enough to warrant putting a hold on a tribute video to anyone with two ounces of common sense.
Not to mention prudence dictates you shouldn't take ANY action in a case like this until there are more facts out than the ones available to the WWE.
Yes, they may not have know the truth at the time of the tribute video. But it doesn't mean they are absolved from being completely irresponsible in their behavior.
I hate to be cynical, but this just reeks of Vince doing anything he can to bring publicity to the franchise, be it positive or negative. Bad form.
Actually, non-fans would have ignored it. The fans would have just come back anyway.
The WWE has properties all over the place, airing all days of the week. They could have waited. They should have waited. A sane business would have done a risk analysis of how this could have gone.
Instead, they've made a move that makes the Owen Hart incident pale in comparison. (At least that time, they didn't spend 3 hours telling their public how much Hart enjoyed heights.)
Chris was one of my favorite wrestlers, his attitude, ring moves, everything. Only to come and find out that his blue-collar type attitude deceived us all. The name "Benoit" should now be one of those words that people throw in as a verb in the same jest of 'je ne se quir.' What does Benoit mean exactly....what else but to decieve. And it should be used as such:
Jim Benoited his wife into believing he spent 5,000 dollars on a vacation, when it was really to pay off his gambling debt.
Luke pulled a Benoit on his friend Mike, by convincing him, that he was a virgin.
I'm not much of a wrestling fan these days but it seems like sometimes to certain people that view the WWE as a con (it's not, it's just a fictional TV show like every other TV show out there... yet for some reason people still get up in arms over fictitious storylines, but if the same thing happened on another TV show nobody would bat an eye. But that's a totally different story.) the WWE will be damned if they do and damned if they don't.
NOBODY knew it was a double-murder suicide when the show went on last night.
You think McMahon just wanted to profit from it?! Then why in the hell did he give the 16,000 people that were going to attend RAW that night their money back and just show clips of old Chris Benoit matches instead, thus ruining several of the shows ongoing storylines in the process?!
You people make no sense. They did the right thing at the time. But as soon as I learned what really happened I immediately thought "Oh god... the press is gonna kill McMahon again and totally ignore the fact that they didn't know he killed them when they put the show together!"
They needed to put SOMETHING on to fill the 3-hour timeslot. The USA Network AND the stockholders would be irate if he didn't. Considering what they knew at the time, a tribute made the most sense. There was no glorification of a killer there, just paying tribute to a dead wrestler.
The little mistakes kill off any credibility you have with your writings.
The tribute may have rubbed people the wrong way, but like they said, you can't blame the WWE retroactively.
perhaps they could have ran a "Best of RAW" or something instead of a tribute (at least on the West coast, when the facts were known)
However, all the people killing the writer for getting facts straight should get the facts straight themselves.
Simone is correct to condemn this. Benoit is a piece of trash that strangled his wife, injected his 7 year old with HGH because he didn't think he was big enough (there were confirmed track marks in his kids' arm plus a toxicology report), then smothered his son, then hung himself. I hope he rots in hell.
B) You're right in that they didn't release it was a hanging + strangling til yesterday morning but still the writing was on the wall.
C) I'm not going to say don't watch wrestling anymore if you like it cause this was so bad. I just think that if the writing is on the wall perhaps a little patience would have been a smarter choice.
D) I am in fact a moron so that guy was right on. And who said I have any credibility?
In my opinion, it's the WWE making a knee-jerk promotional decision without thinking it through. I'm sure McMahon thought it was good to strike while the iron was hot on goodwill toward Benoit. But the fact is, no matter whether you think it was a good decision or not, the WWE should be embarrassed. Even if you are a WWE apologist, you have to admit that in 20/20 hindsight, knowing all we DO know now, it was a horrible move to air such a tribute.
''Last night on Monday Night Raw, the WWE presented a special tribute show, recognizing the career of Chris Benoit,'' McMahon said. ``However, now some 26 hours later, the facts of this horrific tragedy are now apparent.''
``Therefore, other than my comments, there will be no mention of Mr. Benoit tonight. On the contrary, tonight's show will be dedicated to everyone who has been affected by this terrible incident. This evening marks the first step of the healing process. Tonight, the WWE performers will do what they do better than anyone else in the world -- entertain you.''
So if you want to give them the benefit of the doubt its your choice.
Personally I think that they should have played it out and waited, as to me the only natural thought to the news was murder suicide and perhaps thats a sad statement into my feelings about wrestlers and of america in general.