Chris Benoit RIP

fuckin' terrible. rip l'il dude.

uh waht

was just coming here to start this. one of my favorite wrestlers, RIP.

what??

http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=20000

Benoit family found dead

The WWE just told its talent and released on its web site that Chris Benoit was found dead by Atlanta police.

Benoit, wife Nancy aka Woman and son Daniel were all found dead. We have no other details at this moment. It is believed that Chris Benoit's two other children were in Canada.

All plans for Raw tonight have been scrapped and they will do a show on the life of Benoit.

You know why I watch wrestling long after I stopped being a kid? Because once in a blue moon, we got genuine real emotion out of it, like watching a movie or listening to a song that means something to you. The last moment I've experienced was Benoit winning at WM20 and Guerrero coming to the ring to hug him, that despite all the years of political bullshit and being told that they were too small and too bland, they finished the biggest night in the pro wrestling calendar on top.

He missed last nights PPV (he was supposed to fight C.M. Punk for the ECW belt) and nobody knew what was up.

:(
haven't watched wrestling avidly for a good few years but he was a consistent fave entertainer
oh man :(

his flying headbutt was nutz. great wrassler

WHAT!?!

i can't believe this.

jesus christ.

the way they coded his thumb-across-the-throat into WCW/NWO Revenge was awesome, and he was one of the reasons that game ruled.

fuck.

Is any reputable news organization reporting this? All the links are to wrestling pages and I figure the AP would notice a triple death of a even a minor celeb?

Someone wrote "This event could be a worked wrestling angle." on wiki but what the hell would be the point? Faking Vince's death is one thing, but Benoit wasn't involved in any big angles beyond having just been drafted to ECW.

and afaik Wrestling Observer doesn't report worked stuff as real, they've been bitching about how stupid the Vince death angle is since it happened.

I would say that after Eddy, there's no way they'd pull some bullshit like this, but you really never know with these guys.

the AP would notice a triple death of a even a minor celeb?

i figure atlanta local news would mention a triple death.

here's what the newsfeeds are saying.

No legit confirmation, yet.

Yeah the fact that we even have to question this really fucking sucks.

this takes a while for newswires to get confirmation, as well. yesterday i heard about rod beck's death like 4 hours before ap reported it.

i hope there's not a third likable celebrity sportsman about to die. x____x

IMO if this is for real they just cancel the Vince angle and have McMahon come out and apologize for the whole thing, including virtually ignoring Sensational Sherrie's death but that would be giving him too much credit probably.

http://www.myeyewitnessnews.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=a76b6326-1f90-4539-988e-cf4eb2b8cd7f

MORE DETAILS ON DEATH OF CHRIS BENOIT & FAMILY
By: Bob Ryder
6/25/2007 6:36:57 PM

Details remain very sketchy regarding the tragic news today that Chris Benoit and his family were found dead at their Atlanta area home.

Benoit had been scheduled to appear on a WWE house show on Saturday. Sources tell us Benoit called to first say he would be taking a later flight, and then to say he would not be attending the house show due to a family illness. According to one source, Benoit said both his wife and son were throwing up blood and he needed to stay to take care of them.

At last night's Vengeance pay-per-view, Benoit was replaced in his match by Johnny Nitro.

No other details are available at this time and police are on the scene at the Benoit residence investigating.

Jesus, that just sucks.

That sounds unbelieveably weird.

:/ RIP.

ebola

wtf: sensational sherri died TOO? jesus.

RIP. I never really liked wrestling much, but as a child, I watched it...at the time, he was probably my favorite. :(

RAW starts early tonight so we'll see what's up in about 20 minutes.

x-post yeah kingfish, Sherri died a couple weeks ago and people were pissed they were doing the fake Vince tributes instead of talking about her.

Good grief -- I don't follow wrestling at all but if this was some crazy virus or something, Jesus. What a horror.

wtf

VINCE IS ON RAW, GOOD MAN

No cable, will have to wait to watch it thru the usual means.

he was crying guys, this is real

there's no audience in the arena either, show was cancelled.

RIP :(

it kind of makes the whole vince's death thing seem even more stupid than it already does doesn't it

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/13567642/detail.html?rss=atl&psp=news

R.I.P.

:(

I haven't watched wrestling in a full decade now, but man... Benoit was always a favorite and a sure-fire reason to tune in when he was scheduled to appear. This is so unbelievably sad.

I dont know anything about wrestling but the circs around these deaths is mighty creepyweird. Vomiting blood and sudden deaths?

wow.

rip chris & family.

sadface.

from the AJC, nothing really new, but how classy is this line:

Officials would not say how the family died, other than to say they weren't shot to death.

the Benoit vs. Malenko match they're showing now is pure awesomeness. what a loss.

One of Chris' first tag-team partners died last month, as well.

for some reason the wikipedia page on pro wrestlers has this bizarre paragraph on benoit right in the middle:

The WWE community was struck with tragedy on June 25, 2007, as Benoit was found dead in his home with his wife, Nancy and his son, Daniel. Autopsy results revealed prior heroin abuse, which may have resulted in what some theorize was a suicide/murder. Among other controversy, the charred remains of child pornography were found among Benoit's possessions after his house was investigated.

wtf

seems to be gone already, and weird cranks coming out of the woodwork and writing shit like that on wikipedia are the reason his main article's been locked for the time being. I haven't seen anything of the sort anywhere else.

Sadly these highlight clips they're showing on RAW have probably been the best matches its seen in some time. The Road Wild match versus Malenko brought back some good memories.

Yah I like those outdoor matches, and Woman was in his corner and involved in the finish, so it was a good match to show.

oh wow they just showed a masked Japanese match against Jushin Liger

What What WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK

I know, Estie :(
I am seriously bummed out about this.

I know that wrestling deaths are unfortunately like clockwork (as Sherri's death recently proved) but this is something else. I am totally in shock right now.

it's because HE WAS THE BEST WRESTLER OF IN EVER man

Easily one of the best, yeah.

And Woman is dead too. And one of their kids. Fuck.

The last moment I've experienced was Benoit winning at WM20 and Guerrero coming to the ring to hug him, that despite all the years of political bullshit and being told that they were too small and too bland, they finished the biggest night in the pro wrestling calendar on top.

They are showing this match at the end of RAW tonight, jsyn

*JSYK*, gah I can't even make internet shorthand at the moment

wow. he was an artist.
m.

seems to be gone already, and weird cranks coming out of the woodwork and writing shit like that on wikipedia are the reason his main article's been locked for the time being. I haven't seen anything of the sort anywhere else.

-- marmotwolof, Tuesday, June 26, 2007 1:37 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070626/ap_on_re_us/wrestler_dead

(obv not the heroin and child porn stuff, but the murder-suicide speculation)

well yeah that's what I meant. suicide pact was the first thing that occurred to me.

Uh oh:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Sports/Story?id=3315501&page=1

Wrestling star Chris Benoit, his wife, Nancy, and their 7-year-old son, Daniel, were found dead in their suburban Atlanta home Monday. The deaths are being investigated as a possible suicide and double homicide, authorities told ABC News.

Lt. Tommy Pope of the Fayette County Sheriff's Department told ABC News that Benoit had missed several appointments over the weekend, leading concerned parties to ask police to do a "welfare check." When sheriffs arrived at the Benoits' home, they found the wrestler, his wife and their son dead.

There were no signs of gunshot wounds or stabbing, according to Pope. Authorities are not ruling out other causes, such as poisoning, suffocation or strangulation. Pope told ABC News that his department is looking at this situation as a "possible double murder, suicide."

Pope said "the instruments of death were located on scene," but he would not specify what those instruments are or where in the house the bodies were found. Pope added the department is "not actively searching for any suspects outside of the house...

That's not exactly a pact.

D: D: D:

Worst news I've heard in long time, and I haven't been following Benoit or any wrestling for that matter for months. RIP my favorite wrestler, I loved your missing tooth.

I'd be getting drunk now if I weren't a teetotaler.

Oh dear.

That's not exactly a pact.

No, but the details we're getting don't add up exactly. If Woman and his kid died over the weekend and Benoit today, and if it's true that they were throwing up blood on Saturday and were not shot or stabbed...perhaps either his wife poisoned herself and the kid then (or he did it to them) and it took him until today to make a decision about himself. It's hard to say.

THis might get pretty grisly, pretty quick:

WWE.com

Benoit's death part of a double murder-suicide
Written: June 25, 2007

According to lead investigator Lt. Tommy Pope, of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department, in Fayetteville, Ga., the deaths of WWE Superstar Chris Benoit, wife Nancy and son Daniel were the result of a double murder-suicide, WWE.com has learned.

Benoit failed to appear both at Saturday’s live event in Beaumont, Tx., and WWE’s Vengeance: Night of Champions in Houston Sunday night, after informing WWE of a family emergency. Several curious text messages sent by Benoit early Sunday morning prompted concerned friends to alert Richard Hering, VP of Government Relations for WWE, Inc. Hering, in turn, spoke with Fayette County sheriffs Monday, and requested that they respond to the Benoit residence to check on him and his family.

Authorities representing the Sheriff’s Department initially had a difficult time entering Benoit’s new Fayetteville home Monday afternoon, which had been guarded by two large German Shepherds roaming freely around the property. Once authorities entered the residence, they quickly located the bodies of Benoit, Nancy and Daniel. WWE was notified of the discovery at approximately 4 p.m.

At 10 p.m. Monday night, Lt. Pope held a press conference in conjunction with Scott Ballard, the district attorney for Fayette County. The press conference officially ruled authorities’ findings as a double murder-suicide from within the home.

WAGA, a FOX-owned and operated television station in Atlanta, reported that investigators believe Benoit killed his wife and 7-year-old son over the weekend, then himself on Monday.

The three bodies have been received by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s crime lab, in Decatur, Ga., where autopsies will be performed Tuesday morning. Toxicology reports will not become available for at least two weeks.

WWE.com has further information relating to both the investigation and the cause of death, but the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department has requested that WWE.com not release any additional details at this time.

The hardest thing in all this is to reconcile the fact that he was my favourite wrestler and someone I respected with the possibility that he did kill his wife and kid. For all the tributes and tears poured for Chris Benoit in the upcoming weeks in the wrestling world, it will be difficult to forget (if indeed it is true) that a murderer is being honoured. How do you add up a lifetime of achievements with a final unspeakable act? I don't know.

OMG!

Yeah, this is getting fucked up. Word is leaking out about where they found the bodies, etc. I'm wondering at what point even Vince will have to say, "okay, this is fucked up, we're changing how we're doing business," or will that have to wait until Shane takes over the company? I mean, all these wrestlers are dying over the past few years, either by their own hand or what they had to do to their bodies to succeed. I wonder if Eddy's death finally made him re-examine his steroids policy, and who he pushed, but i doubt it.

One of the horrifying things about all this is what these guys do to their lives and their bodies in order to entertain dorks like me. I hope that guys like La Parka and Hijo de Santo are taking care of themselves.

Not to change the topic, but Kingfish/others, do you like Lucha Libre? If so, check out Super Amigos. It's a doc about wrestlers using entertainment to do great things...

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d165/HarpoGarza/chrisbenoit1.jpg

I like how some ppl are trying to spin it from Chris Benoit: Dude who murdered his family to Chirs Benoit: Angel of Mercy.

<I>The hardest thing in all this is to reconcile the fact that he was my favourite wrestler and someone I respected with the possibility that he did kill his wife and kid. For all the tributes and tears poured for Chris Benoit in the upcoming weeks in the wrestling world, it will be difficult to forget (if indeed it is true) that a murderer is being honoured. How do you add up a lifetime of achievements with a final unspeakable act? I don't kn</I>

In these cases, it's sheer desperation. (God, how crap does that sound?) Of course I don't know the exact reasoning behind his acts (if he indeed killed his wife and kid.) but I suspect it wasn't really joy and happiness prompting to kill him, just the inability to realize there was life after a confrontation with his wife. I have heard that in these cases, a guy usually thinks his wife and children can't *survive* without him. So they drag everyone (in the family) with them. Or maybe he just couldn't picture a life without them.

What I mean is, one act, no matter what, can't wipe out his successes, I think. The guy was a good wrestler and this doesn't change it.

Probably doesn't make sense, but I'm trying.

wtf is that cankles xxpost

http://img.search.com/thumb/f/fb/Benoit_and_Guerrero_celebrate_at_WrestleMania_XX.jpg/250px-Benoit_and_Guerrero_celebrate_at_WrestleMania_XX.jpg

This seems a _LONG_ time ago now.

And yeah, I'm kinda too much in shock to write anything coherent here about this right now.

Meltzer says:

Sources in the Fayette County Police Department are now working under the theory that Chris Benoit killed Nancy on Saturday, son Daniel on Sunday, and then killed himself earlier today.

Benoit was found dead in his weight room. Nancy was found dead in the lving room. Daniel was found dead in his bedroom, accordig t an unnamed source in the department.

Lt. Tommy Pope told ABC News "the instruments of death were located on the scene," but didn't specify what those were or where they were found. Pope said the department was not actively searching for any suspects outside the house.

Look, wrestling is a scummy business and this isn't going to change a single thing about it. There's my reasoned response.

couple more Meltzer posts since that:

The WWE web site reported that Chris Benoit sent some curious text messages early Sunday morning, which concerned friends to alert Richard Hering, WWE's VP of Government Relations to call Fayette County sheriffs on Monday to check the residence.

Benoit sent the text messages to Chavo Guerrero, one of his close friends.

The story said WWE officials learned of Benoit's death at 4 p.m. from the local authorities. They gathered the wrestlers to the ring area where they were told only of the deaths of Benoit, wife Nancy and son Daniel. They were told the live show was being canceled.

WWE will go on with regular programming tomorrow in San Antonio, with Raw & ECW tapings not based on either a tribute to Chris Benoit or continuing the Vince McMahon angle.

WWE isn't looking too good right now after broadcasting a "tribute" to guy that people are now know murdered his family.

OK, that last post didn't make much sense...

WWE isn't looking too good right now after broadcasting a "tribute" to a guy that people now know murdered his family.

What I mean is, one act, no matter what, can't wipe out his successes, I think. The guy was a good wrestler and this doesn't change it.

Probably doesn't make sense, but I'm trying.

No matter what? So I tell my 7 year old son one of his heroes murdered his 7 year old son but "don't forget how great he was at Wrestlemania! Killing a kid your age can never take that away from him"?

xspot

Yeah, but what do you do in circumstances like that. You've got to fill the airtime somehow - how were they to know?

WWE is so fucked right now. They got lucky with the Eddie thing, they got lucky that Kurt didn't drop dead on their watch, this is where they take the hit.

Google news has this as the fourth most reported story in the world right now.

(xpost)

I'm not blaming WWE. They didn't know the full story at the time and there wasn't anything else they could do.

Onimo, so his success as a wrestler should be *erased* because of what he did? Of course the murder is wrong (and the suicide) but that doesn't mean you should forget he was a good wrestler.

Also, I'm sorry but I wasn't talking to a 7 year old.

Onimo, so his success as a wrestler should be *erased* because of what he did? Of course the murder is wrong (and the suicide) but that doesn't mean you should forget he was a good wrestler.

In Nathalie's defence, people still show love to Jimmy Snuka, who's probably the only person to have topped this.

Google news has this as the fourth most reported story in the world right now.

-- Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 26 June 2007 09:52 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

This is pretty incredible. I'm no wrestling fan and up until to-day had only vaguely heard of this man. I never realised it was such a big sport.

I didn't say anything should be erased, but the life of a child killer isn't generally to be celebrated.

I can still like a Gary Glitter song even if he turned out to be a fucking deviant but he isn't getting any RIP messages from me when he dies, and neither will this murdering fuck.

wrestling is a scummy business and this isn't going to change a single thing about it

Dom OTM, sadly.

was wondering how long it would take for someone to mention Snuka, now there's a guy...and he just wrestled on Sunday's PPV!

I didn't say anything should be erased, but the life of a child killer isn't generally to be celebrated.

I can still like a Gary Glitter song even if he turned out to be a fucking deviant but he isn't getting any RIP messages from me when he dies, and neither will this murdering fuck.

All true, but we have no idea of the circumstances (do we?). Someone who kills while insane for instance would probably illicit a different response.

The more I read the weirder this world seems...here's something you don't read in the sports pages very often...WWE’s creative team re-write the planned Chris Benoit vs CM Punk ECW World Title match. With Benoit scheduled to win the ECW title, creative agree on having Johnny Nitro take his place and beat Punk for the title.

True, but there's a bit of me that says no-one in their right mind kills their children so we'd have to accept insanity pleas from anyone who does this.

xpost

Roddy Piper did an interview recently where he talked about how depression was really common in wrestlers, especially guys who worked the Japanese or Southern styles and thus took a lot of head trauma. He actually mentioned Benoit as an example of someone with this "sickness".

xp Agreed

For someone new to this, this all seems truly bizarre.

WWE: RECAP OF WWE’S CHRIS BENOIT TRIBUTE SHOW

Michael Cole and JBL said that Benoit being quiet didn’t mean he didn’t have emotion. JBL alluded to Benoit kicking people out of the locker room for not having respect. HHH was next, and said that it’s tough to sum up Benoit’s life in a few moments. He said Benoit was about respect, and told a story about Benoit teaching a lesson to someone who disrespected Shawn Michaels. HHH said there is no one in the world he respected more than Benoit. They ended the show with Chris Benoit vs. Shawn Michaels vs. HHH from WrestleMania XX.

And the amount of steroids he took just so he could be a WWE main eventer doesn't even bare thinking about, let alone the roid rage that would occur from all that.

Plus, y'know, what's the point of stealing Kevin Sullivan's wife if you're then going to just kill her?

Lucky I've got wikipedia on hand to make sense of all these references.

Once Sullivan sent Pillman packing, the Dungeon and the Horsemen rejoined forces to get rid of Hulk Hogan and his friends. They brought in The Giant, Maxx Muscle and Big Bubba Rogers to help. They even formed the Alliance To End Hulkamania with the Horsemen in a failed attempt to do so. When they couldn't get the job done, Sullivan and Chris Benoit of the Horsemen picked up where Pillman left off and started a feud. This was a brutal feud and lasted over a year. Benoit stole Sullivan's real life wife Woman from him onscreen and ironically, in real life, too. Sullivan brought in Jacquelyn to help him and also added Konnan to the Dungeon.

Ok, maybe 'sense' isn't the right word.

Her wrestling name was Woman?

yah man we mentioned that like three times already

plus hahaha dom you are a bad man

This is completely insane and incomprehensible

Benoit definitely did a lot more extreme type of stuff due to his time in Japan, but it's hard to imagine how any head injury could lead to this

I don't know what else to say

Dearest WWE, please forget that the dude's a murderer and replay Radicalz and HHH vs The Rock, Mankind, Rikishi and 2Cool from early 2000 Raw. kthxbai

If its true he killed his wife then waited over a day and killed his son and THEN himself, something was VERY fucked up, cause thats not heat of the moment roid rage. This is pretty bizarre, and again I know nothing about the WWE environs.

Dearest WWE, just play old matches from now on. You're done, right? Nobody really likes John Cena.

John Cena vs Umaga > Benoit vs Liger.

You remember when Princess Di died the commentators on the funeral were all "And here comes the Queen Mother, attending a funeral she must have never imagined she'd go to"? That must be how Dynamite Kid feels right now.

yah man we mentioned that like three times already

-- marmotwolof, Tuesday, 26 June 2007 10:35 (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah, I think I must have just skipped over those before assuming that it was some kind of weird wrestlerfan talk meaning "wife".

Nearly 400 different "Chris Benoit RIP" groups on Facebook already.

It's kind of hard to explain the wrestling industry to an outsider, it's basically the equivalent of the scummiest, gonzoist porn, and the wrestlers are the girls being raped day in day out.

If its true he killed his wife then waited over a day and killed his son and THEN himself, something was VERY fucked up, cause thats not heat of the moment roid rage. This is pretty bizarre, and again I know nothing about the WWE environs.

I just hope he didn't do that thumb across the throat thing before he did it :-(

If its true he killed his wife then waited over a day and killed his son and THEN himself, something was VERY fucked up, cause thats not heat of the moment roid rage. This is pretty bizarre, and again I know nothing about the WWE environs.

Preliminary timeline has something to the effect of:

1) Went home, possibly to deal with what he told the office was a "family emergency", possibly because he just vanished
2) Killed his wife and son, not by gunshot so possibly by beating them to death
3) Spent at least 24 hours still in the house
4) Text messaged WWE personel, including Chavo Guerrero, to say that his wife and son were "coughing up blood" so he needed to look after them
5) He then kills himself, again not by gunshot (overdose?) in his weight room. Possibly surrounding by burned paper, which possibly is child pornography
6) Police discover him around 5-10 hours later.

I just hope he didn't do that thumb across the throat thing before he did it :-(

lol

Dean Malenko has to be updating his life insurance around now, right?

It's kind of hard to explain the wrestling industry to an outsider, it's basically the equivalent of the scummiest, gonzoist porn, and the wrestlers are the girls being raped day in day out.

Sometimes literally.

And we haven't mentioned the shitting in people's gym bags yet.

So when it comes to the worst people in wrestling, Benoit is above or below Antonio Pena and Fritz Von Erich?

Well that Benoit/Liger match didn't seem that hot, it was just cool to see him in the mask. I assume you mean the Royal Rumble match I haven't seen.
xxxxx-post

Yeah don't worry Ned. We should link you to that epic wrestling urban legends thread if it still exists...

Yes.

Nobody really likes John Cena.

My kids love John Cena, though not as much as they love Rey Mysterio.

I don't think I'll tell them about the gonzo porn male rape shitting in bags aspects of wrestling till they're at least 10.

It's kind of hard to explain the appeal of the wrestling industry wrestling to an outsider, it's basically the equivalent of the scummiest, gonzoist porn, and the wrestlers are the girls being raped day in day out.

Wrestling = dance + action movie + soap opera

In basics, at least.

Ned the point is about exploitation and lack of control over one's destiny, which is about the industry; comparing wrestling itself with scummy gonzo porn could be a point but you've yet to make it - i certainly don't associate tanaka's powerbombs or muta's green mist with rape

Dom that equation sounds about right

damn the old death valley driver link goes to some anime poll now.

P.S. I am well aware that Cena is in fact massively popular :D

I didn't say anything should be erased, but the life of a child killer isn't generally to be celebrated

Nor that of a person who killed his wife. In that sense you are right.

It's just extremely sad. :-(

I'm not even a wrestling fan. The closest I got to wrestling is reading Barthes' defense of wrestling. heh

Yeah ok bringing rape and shitting into it is making me a bit WTF guys.

Rape and shitting makes pro-wrestling what it is, Trayce.

That and the hookers.

Raping and shitting is just scratching the surface of this rather sleazy business.

Ned the point is about exploitation and lack of control over one's destiny, which is about the industry; comparing wrestling itself with scummy gonzo porn could be a point but you've yet to make it - i certainly don't associate tanaka's powerbombs or muta's green mist with rape

-- Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 26 June 2007 11:11 (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah, sorry. I actually meant to get rid of rest of the sentence so that it just said...It's kind of hard to explain the appeal of the wrestling industry wrestling to an outsider..but I got confused with all the formatting - I being dumb.

And I've fcked it up again...sigh

so hey im not guna read this whole thread but whats the tally on wwe dudes that have died now from weird sucky situations (not from old age) ??

Do you _really_ want to know? We're probably talkign at least 40 people here.

http://steveswrestling.com/info/obituaries.html

ok here's the lovely first page of that urban legends thread, Ned:
http://web.archive.org/web/20041126020259/http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/index.php?showtopic=19896

Srsly is this a common thing for WWE? WTF!?

4/12/87 Mike Von Erich Suicide 23
9/12/91 Chris Von Erich Suicide 21
2/18/93 Kerry Von Erich Suicide 33

5/23/99
Owen Hart
Fell From The Rafters
34

I have to look this up now.

In recent times:

Chris Benoit (murder/suicide)
Sensational Sherri (drunk herself to death)
Mike Awesome (hung himself)
Bam Bam Bigelow (deliberate overdose)
Earthquake (cancer whilst broke and working as a shoe store salesman)
Johnny Grunge (sleep apena caused by morbid obesity)
Eddy Guerrero (heart attack caused by overuse of pain killers to ensure he could keep wrestling, he apparently hadn't slept in the two weeks befoer his death)
Chris Candido (staph infection caused when he broke his leg in a match on unclean canvas)
Big Boss Man (steroid induced heart attack)
Hercules (steroid induced heart attack)
Road Warrior Hawk (steroid induced heart attack)
Pitbull #2 (suicide pact with wife)
Miss Elizabeth (drug overdose, could have been saved if her boyfriend Lex Luger hadn't also been overdosing at the same time)
Mr Perfect (steroid induced heart attack)

That's just the past four yaers.

You forgot Crash Holly

I just got a text from ILX's very own Ferg O'R which reads "Oh god, I thought you were just gonna tell me that Barry Darsow was dead or something. Seriously, fuck this shit". Which kinda sums it up.

Crash Holly died in 2002 didn't he? Anyway, he killed himself in Stevie Richards house because of a divorce with his wife.

November 03, according to wikipedia.

I've just hunted down a wrestling forum - the postings are alternating between anger, remorse, rememberance and trying to decide wether to use "In Loving Memory" by Alter Bridge or "My Sacrifice" by Creed for a YouTube tribute.

I thought Crash Holly choked on his own vomit after having a few refreshments at Stevie's?

From Dom's link:

Kerry Von Erich really had his foot amputated because he thought he could walk across a room on his just-surgically repaired foot for a cheeseburger, thus crushing it.

omg.

Didn't Kerry wrestle on with only one foot for a while, before topping himself?

The DVDVR Forum at each other's throats on this issue is perversely amusing.

Didn't Kerry wrestle on with only one foot for a while, before topping himself?

Yep.

DVDVR's on-going battle between 15-year-old morons and guys who need to valdiate themselves by arguing with 15-year-old morons is always a treat.

Can we get the RIP taken out of this topic title, as well? I'm sure at the time it was appropriate, but it's a little creepy now.

is my link (actually I think Alan Conceicao was the first to post it on ILX)

Sorry marmotwolf. I've read a few pages and I'm beginning to hope it's all made up.

5) He then kills himself, again not by gunshot (overdose?) in his weight room. Possibly surrounding by burned paper, which possibly is child pornography

Ok, where is this part being reported? Besides the already deleted wiki entry? This is fucked up enough without rumor and speculation being passed around as fact.

Dom basically OTM throughout the thread. Wrestlemania XX is basically ruined now. It feels like a million years ago.

AFAIK, wrestler's deaths aren't nearly as common in Japan. I've often thought that was due to the vastly different style of touring over there -- six weeks wrestling a tour, six weeks of break (more or less), rather than the American style of constantly travelling and wrestling 12 months of the year. If American wrestling *really* wants to clean itself up, then the schedules need to change more than anything else. It'll never happen though.

^^^ this

Although there are exceptions to the rule (Shinya Hashimoto, Jumbo Tsruta, Plum Mariko)

Yeah, re WM20. I mean...whatever feeble enthusiasm I could still muster for this stuff post-Guerrero has been totally annihilated now.

I'm pretty much still at the slack-jawed incomprehension stage and I'm not really sure what to expect beyond this, at least Guerrero went in a way where I didn't feel too ridiculous about crying like an infant over it.

nobody's perfect and i'm not trying to defend somebody who kills their wife and kid (a likely theory)... but we're all susceptible to insanity. if you've ever known or cared about somebody that flipped out and did the impossible, the unthinkable, you'd realize how even benoit deserves a RIP. (at very least so he won't rise up and give us a double ju-ju'ed, rot-oovered figure four!!)

i'm not trying to wipe his crimes clean... i'm just saying that we're all voyeuristic benefactors of the attention-whore wild men of the world. it doesn't feel quite right to completely abandon and malign the guy.

eh,
m.

Yeah, OTM.

I really wish they'd just not do any TV shows for at least week, though they obviously will. I don't quite trust them to to not exploit this in any way, on their past track record.

Yeah, I'd like to think that Randy Orton won't be on RAW in six months, cutting a promo about how Benoit is in hell, but you never know.

I mean, it's one thing for them to have a wrestler die and be able to ring the bell ten times, do a tribute to him and carry on, slightly tastelessly, "it's what our fallen comrade would have wanted" way, but how the fuck do they react to something like this? They were running a fake death storyline on RAW and Jonny Nitro's gonna look a bit awkward on ECW carrying a belt an apparent double-murderer was booked to win instead of him, who's gonna feel comfortable watching this shit anytime soon?

I guess they got to justify the Guerrero storyline stuff as keeping his name alive and generating money for his widow and kids, but in this case, uh-

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v629/KoC/isvincedead.gif

Via Metafilter:
----------------------------------------
this was posted at Arstechnica:

Talic 2007-06-26 01:48:33 AM
Grain of salt, naturally. But this is coming from someone who lives in the area

A Cousin of a GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigations) has heard in his circle is that Chris Benoit's wife killed their son Daniel, called Chris and told him to rush home because of an emergency which is why he missed last Sunday's Vengeance PPV. Upon arriving home Benoit killed his wife in a rage for the death of his son and then killed himself Monday morning. His wife's body was found in the master bedroom, strangled with the cord from an alarm clock. The son's body was found in his room apparently suffocated with a garbage bag. Chris then wrote a suicide note explaining what had happened, apologized to his family, his other children (from a separate relationship), and his fans. He then fashioned a slip-knot noose from from rope taken from the garage and hung himself from the banister in the foyer of his suburban Atlanta home.

That doesn't seem to fit the facts as I've heard them so far.

There's just a whole lot of speculation at this point. I read last night that Benoit was found in his weight room.

this calls to mind oj simpson and kobe bryant for me, with the whole "you think you know someone" deal, or at least, "you think you'd like to pretend you know someone because you see them on TV a lot".

anyway, i watched a ton of wrestling as a kid, and it never completely went away for me, because benoit was one of those guys that had me watching. he was so ridiculously good at what he did, that no matter how silly and intelligence-insulting pro wrestling could be, he always stood out as someone i had to pay attention to.

aw shit, Mike Awesome is dead, too?!

that GBI bit doesn't make sense. wasn't he found in the weight room, not the foyer?

xp

i had no idea that mike awesome hung himself. i saw him vs. tanaka, during one of their epic series of ECW bouts, at the elk's lodge in queens - probably the best match i've ever seen. iirc they EACH got powerbombed through a table that night. man this thread is full of such horrible news

Hell, i still remember Mike Awesome doing one of his suicide dives over the top rope when I saw ECW in 1999. Jesus.

Anybody got a quote from Bret yet?

I haven't watched RAW yet, as I just got home from work and I'm trying to keep up with everything happening thus far.

If nothing else, Chris Benoit went from "debatable legend" to "immortality" tonight as far as wrestling fandom for the ages goes, although probably in the worst way possible. I'd like to pretend that his name won't get dragged through the muck and that it was just a horrible accident, but I think by now we all know there's a very seedy underside to wrestling that no one talks about, and this is more evidence of that.

Ideally, I'd like to remember Chris for what he did on-screen: The humble guy from Canada who was deemed "too small" by promoters and who had to fight for every push he got, who won pretty much every title there was to win and had nothing left to prove in the ring, who could be counted on for at least one good match on every PPV, and sometimes two of them. I've followed his career for 20 years, from his start in Calgary to now, and although it saddens me that he died, it saddens me more than we had to learn what kind of a person he really was on his way out of his life. If he did what they say he did, then I'm glad he killed himself rather than having to watch him (and wrestling) get dragged through the media circus of a trial and conviction.

It's just all kinds of bad on every level. I'll be appearing as a guest on Sideshow Radio at www.sideshowrn.com on Wednesday night, and hopefully we'll have more facts by then. Obviously Benoit discussion will dominate my interview.

Scott Keith still as much of a douche as he was in his 2001 heyday.

Anybody got a quote from Bret yet?

http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Alberta/2007/06/26/4290834-sun.html

Eric Sulczewski's ham-fistedly trying to bring Dostoevsky into it on insidepulse :/

Kayfabe and real life came into serious conflict on June 25, 2007, when the actual death of Chris Benoit necessitated an appearence on the "memorial show" for the character of WWE chairman Vince McMahon. The episode had originally been scheduled as a memorial for McMahon, whose character had been "killed" in an automobile explosion on a previous episode, but the actual deaths of Benoit and his family lead to McMahon appearing in person on the episode to establish that he, the person, was alive, although his character was apparently dead, but that Benoit in actual fact WAS dead, and that as such the episode that was to be a memorial to McMahon would instead be dedicated to Benoit.

-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe

i had no idea that mike awesome hung himself. i saw him vs. tanaka, during one of their epic series of ECW bouts, at the elk's lodge in queens - probably the best match i've ever seen. iirc they EACH got powerbombed through a table that night. man this thread is full of such horrible news

The Awesome story is bizarre, he was making a decent living on the indie circuit wrestling, then he left wrestling to work in real estate and spend time with his family, and then about six months later a bunch of his friends find him hanging from the light fittings in his home.

It was inevitable that someone would shoot die during the McMahon limo angle, I just assumed it would be Viscera or Eugene.

xpost

eric s is a waste of internet space, as is 98% of the IWC.

98% sounds generous.

I look forward to RD Reynolds blaming this on Stephanie McMahon, though.

"He died to save wrestling"

Props to Scott Keith on getting that "by the way, I'll be on some shitty net radio" plug in at the end.

Whoa, I hadn't heard those things about Mr. Perfect and Lex Luger!

RIP Chris Benoit. It's been a while since I watched wrestling but you were a bad ass. And Canadian :(

xxx...post wow@ tracerhand, breaking kayfabe on tv and stuff? do they ever do that?

I liked Scott Keith better when he wrote Fluxblog.

xp

Me, I'm looking forward to the Pat McNeill song parody.

xp

OTM on scott keith

i cant wait until chris hyatte works pat patterson into this somehow

Is Hyatte still going? The guy's like watching some band who had a top 10 single a decade a go playing smaller and smaller venues until they're being ignored at a county fair by a crowd of 20

I haven't read Hyatte in years but I think he has a blog or summthin.

Fun Fact: I once contributed to a Hyatte column!

http://hyatte.blogspot.com/

There you go.

I'm going to check the Ultimate Warrior's blog to see if he's put his unique spin on things yet.

nice to know hyatte hasn't changed

going out of his way to volunteer information, check
attempt at being tasteless with unfunny joke, check

on a semi-related note, does anyone know whatever happened to mike micasa? that guy rocked

Micasa is now a lawyer.

The compiled death valley driver sleaze/urban legends list:

http://www.angelfire.com/wrestling3/kotdm15/listsleeze.html

Wish I could be more on topic re: Benoit but I really don't know what to say.

Eric S is cool, I've always liked him. Everyone else is wringing their hands over the sad state of the wrestling biz, and Eric S is saying "hey, random people have serious problems and can do randomly stupid and violent things. It happens." It's as good as any other "theory" currently floating around.

I'll give the benefit of the doubt to guys like Keith. A great wrestler just died, I'll forgive everyone who writes something that will look stupid in hindsight six months from now. If he, and anyone else, is still lionizing Benoit one minute while going on about how much they lost respect for Steve Austin because of *his* personal issues, then fuck them. (this is not a defense of Austin or what he's done, obv.)

The pro wrestling industry seems to me like the porn industry described in Boogie Nights. A lot of emotionally fragile people (the "talent") are put in trying situations on the job, and pumped up on drugs and a wild lifestyle. And a lot of them wind up dying -- young, and tragically.

What gets me is how the leader of this circus atmosphere eggs it on. While he obviously isn't directly responsible, I'll bet when the dust settles, there will be grounds to believe that Vince McMahon bears some responsibility. How many modern-day pro wrestlers have died tragically in just the past decade? If that many high-level stars died in the NBA or NFL under similar circumstances, it would be a national scandal.

Benoit and Eddie are exceptions though (at least I hope so) in that they died while still stars. Plenty of ex-football players have had heart attacks and died in their 40's and 50's, but drug use in the NFL is the worst kept non-secret in American sports. It should be a scandal, but it isn't.

... there will be grounds to believe that Vince McMahon bears some responsibility.

not to be a dick, but this is about as fatuous as saying bud selig bears some direct responsibility for providing home-run sluggers with steroids.

^^^ this.

Off-topic: the worst comments on this, by far, have come from Bret Hart. FFS Bret, everytime a wrestler dies it's not like reliving Owen's death all over again. Nuclear war will break out and Bret will be talking to the cockroaches, telling them about Owen and how Vince is trash and how he'll never forgive him for screwing him.

not to be a dick, but this is about as fatuous as saying bud selig bears some direct responsibility for providing home-run sluggers with steroids.

No offense taken. Actually, I think your analogy is headed in the right direction. Selig doesn't bear direct responsibility for a player taking steriods, but he (or, maybe better put, the persons responsible for managing pro baseball) can set a culture that encourages players to take steriods, or at least is "willfully blind" when they do it. Same in wrestling, except even more so (given the circus-like nature of the "sport").

A Cousin of a GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigations) has heard in his circle is that Chris Benoit's wife killed their son Daniel, called Chris and told him to rush home because of an emergency which is why he missed last Sunday's Vengeance PPV. Upon arriving home Benoit killed his wife in a rage for the death of his son and then killed himself Monday morning

This sounds like spin. Yes, he killed, but he only killed a child killer? I bet this is the story that goes around years from now. "They say he killed his family but the real deal was this..." Why can't anybody wait (even for an autopsy!) anymore?

selig has gone after steroids harder than any other commissioner in history

Hahaha

Landis was such a softy on steroids.

look i realise that it's not saying much but still

You guys are reminding me of Chuck Tanner during the coked-uppedest days of the Pirates. Willfull ignorance is a wonderful thing.

http://www.icebin.net/upload/milk/mark_mcgwire_l.jpg

selig has gone after steroids harder than any other commissioner in history

To be clear, I'm not saying otherwise. I'm just working from the analogy.

I just checked. In the past 15 years alone, the death list (including non-wrestling "talent") includes:

Buzz Sawyer -- 1992 -- Drug Overdose
Kerry Von Erich -- 93 -- Suicide
Dino Bravo -- 93 -- Gunshot Wounds
Owen Hart -- 99 -- Fall From Ceiling to Ring
Bobby Duncum, Jr. -- 00 -- Drug Overdose
Rhonda Singh -- 01 -- Drug Overdose
Chris Adams -- 01 -- Shot to death
Curt Henning -- 03 -- Cocaine Intoxication
Miss Elizabeth -- 03 -- Alcohol/Painkillers
Crash Holly -- 03 -- Drug Overdose
Eddie Guerrero -- 05 -- Drug Use
Bam Bam Bigelow -- 07 -- Drugs
Mike Awesome -- 07 -- Apparant Suicide

There are many more. And if you include those who died of conditions often aggravated by drug-use, e.g., steriods, the list skyrockets to include, among others, Brian Pillman, Bobo Brazil, Yokozuna, Rick Rude, Davey Boy Smith, Rocco Rock of Public Enemy, Hawk (of the Road Warriors), Ray Traylor, Alfred Hayes and others. I've excluded wrestlers who had retired long before death.

hey, at least Vince McMahon has started juicing himself up with the 'roids! he shares the burden!

I didn't think this could get any more tragic.

bam bam bigelow too???? christ amighty

Associated Press' 12:52 p.m. updated story says Benoit strangled his wife and smothered his son before killing himself. The article says steroids "may have been a factor," but test results will take weeks or months.

AP Story

Fucking hell, Chris Adams is dead?!

Also, i thought Eddy died due to heart damage from steroid use.

Christ, this might be a bit too morbid, but should we start a list of "Wrestlers who are surprisingly still alive"?

Still Alive, somehow:
----
Joanie Laurer
Kurt Angle
Jake the Snake Roberts
Raven

Sean Waltman got cleaned up, didn't he?

Chuck Tanner was on coke?

Fucking hell, Chris Adams is dead?!

Yeah. Apparantly, Adams' best friend shot him to death. According to the linked article, the two began roughhousing. The other guy claimed he began to be in fear of his life; he reached over to the nightstand, grabbed a :38 caliber pistol and shot Adams to death.

I didn't know Adams had also served a federal prison sentence for attacking an airline pilot "during a drunken rage."

Adams Story

god i didn't even know yokozuna was dead

granted i haven't "followed" wrestling since like seventh grade but still

OMG. New reports (admittedly, gossip at this point) suggest Benoit "may have strangled his wife on Saturday and waited until Sunday to smother his son in his bed," with one source saying "Benoit was text messaging friends during Sunday's WWE 'Vengeance' Pay-Per-View program and may have been watching the show with his son before killing him."

CTV Story

This is now the lead story on cnn's website ... wow.

Now that the facts are coming out, WWE has removed virtually all mention of Benoit from their website, incl. tributes.

It's past time to remove "RIP" from this thread title.

The grownup thing to do is to just think of it as "Rot in Pieces"

Unfortunately, that cnn bit is just a link to an AP story.

World Wrestling Entertainment said on its Web site that it asked authorities to check on Benoit and his family after being alerted by friends who received "several curious text messages sent by Benoit early Sunday morning."

is this timeline correct? that the texts were sent in the morning, not during the PPV?

DA press conference on CNN now

DA sez:
Woman died friday
Daniel on saturday morning
Chris later on saturday

?! Who the fuck was sending text messages on Sunday?

Benoit put bibles next to their bodies, huh.

This is turning into some sort of Blair Witch Project backstory.

Chris was a motherfucker with some dark secrets I don't think we want to know.

6 Degrees of Kelsey Grammer

Apparently some of the things mentioned here were raised at the news conference:

They went on to note that "60 wrestlers" have died under the age of 45. "It's astounding. Astroniomically astounding. Nobody really focuses on it because wrestling is kind of a circus, an athletic soap opera. We don't really care about the players, apparently, because this is a continual cycle or drugs, road shows, alcohol, and they're travelling 250 days a year. The more wild your show is, the more money you make. That in the end turns out to haunt you. The doctor said typically wrestlers take more steroids than their should. Reporter Trace Gallagher and Shep Smith agreed that WWE is "under the fence."

Smith and, I think, Gallagher are FOX anchors, thus not to be trusted. But this isn't a political issue, so the only objectionable contribution from them was just a needlessly smarmy gloss on the subject.

Latest is that Daniel had needle marks on his arm from being regularly shot up with growth hormones...

(this was on CNN Headline News)

This is going to get worse, isn't it.

Yes. This sucks in a completely different way than I first thought.

They said Woman was bound by her hands and feet, held face down with a knee in her back and strangled. Daniel had no marks but may have been strangled with some sort of choke hold. Benoit hung himself by his weight machine cable.

Good Lord. He's a monster.

Urgh, re growth hormones...

The Sun reporting rumours that the "curious text messages" contained biblical quotations and details of Benoit's will.

another announcement reposted at Scott Keith's blog:

2007-06-26 22:31:49
Latest from WWE….

WWE® Shocked At Latest Developments In Benoit Tragedy, Concerned By Sensationalistic Reporting

STAMFORD, Conn., June 26, 2007 – World Wrestling Entertainment is stunned and saddened by the details released by local authorities concerning the double homicide-suicide involving Chris Benoit, his wife, Nancy, and his son, Daniel.
However, WWE is concerned with the sensationalistic reporting and speculation being undertaken by some members of the media following the press conference held by the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney. During the press conference, the investigating authorities made the following points, all of which run contrary to the media speculation that “roid rage” was a factor in the senseless murders and suicide:

1. The authorities stated that all drugs found in the house were believed to be legal prescriptions.

2. Steroids were not, and could not, be related to the cause of death (asphyxiation). Authorities had no factual basis to speculate as to Benoit’s state of mind, and rightly did not do so.

3. Toxicology tests have not even been completed, so there is no current evidence that Benoit even had steroids or any other substance in his body. In that regard, on the last test done on Benoit by WWE’s independently administered drug testing program, done on April 10, 2007, Benoit tested negative.

4. The physical findings announced by authorities indicate deliberation, not rage. The wife’s feet and hands were bound and she was asphyxiated, not beaten to death. By the account of the authorities, there were substantial periods of time between the death of the wife and the death of the son, again suggesting deliberate thought, not rage. The presence of a Bible by each is also not an act of rage.

5. WWE strongly suggests that it is entirely wrong for speculators to suggest that steroids had anything to do with these senseless acts, especially when the authorities plainly stated there is no evidence that Benoit had steroids in his body, pending the toxicological reports, and that they had no evidence at this time as to the motive for these acts.

WWE is continuing to monitor the ongoing investigation being conducted by local authorities.

good ol' Vince, doing CYA all the way

Stay classy, WWE.

Sorry; I meant to say, ''Nice way to stay classy, WWE!''

The presence of a Bible by each is also not an act of rage.

interesting conclusion

Speaking of which, CNN just updated:

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/06/26/newt1.1545.benoit.fm.jpg

WWE star killed family, self
Police: 'Roids found at scene of Benoit murder-suicide
Posted: Monday June 25, 2007 9:24PM; Updated: Tuesday June 26, 2007 6:03PM

[...]

The bodies were found Monday afternoon in the house, situated off a gravel road in this suburb about 20 miles south of Atlanta.

Benoit's 43-year-old wife was killed Friday in an upstairs family room, her feet and wrists were bound and there was blood under her head, indicating a possible struggle, Ballard said. Daniel was probably killed late Saturday or early Sunday, the body found in his bed, the district attorney said.

Benoit, 40, apparently hanged himself several hours and as long as a day later, Ballard said. His body was found in a downstairs weight room, his body found hanging from the pulley of a piece of exercise equipment.

A closed Bible was placed next to the bodies of the wife and son, authorities said.
[...]

Monday's show was supposed to be a memorial service for WWE owner Vince McMahon. In a storyline concocted by the WWE, McMahon was supposedly "assassinated" in a limousine explosion two weeks earlier. McMahon appeared at the beginning of Monday's telecast and acknowledged the bombing was made up.

The McMahon storyline has been dropped.

nice selection of ads for the wwe press release page:
http://b.casalemedia.com/V2/41973/45105/SSad_300x250july.gif
right under CB's pic

holy fuck. I hadn't heard about this.

WWE YANKS ALL CHRIS BENOIT MERCHANDISE FROM SHOPZONE WEBSITE
by Mike Johnson @ 10:42:00 AM on 6/26/2007

In light of the Benoit family tragedy, WWE's Shopzone merchandise website has pulled all merchandise related to Chris Benoit. Searches for Benoit's name in the website's search engine are returned "discontinued."

Benoit's name has been removed to the degree that the listing for the DVD of Wrestlemania XX now reads, "Triple H defends his World Heavyweight Championship against Shawn Michaels."

People are gonna be pretty pissed at the ending of that one

At this stage my real concern is what Matt Hardy thinks of all this

http://www.1wrestling.com/news/newsline.asp?news=29062
http://www.1wrestling.com/news/newsline.asp?news=29060

WWE - Hard Knocks - The Chris Benoit Story (2004)
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #33 in DVD

It was 600 something when I looked yesterday IIRC

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=2917133

0 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
* R.I.P. Benoit. U WILL NOT BE MISSED., June 26, 2007
By Gabe R. Sloan (Toms River, New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews
now me bein a wrestlin fan n me first hearing of this i was so sad to hear benoit. n i thought he shouldve been in the hall of fame. but learnin about todays events. he doesnt even deserve to be mentioned again. i would personally burn this dvd to know about this. also the wwe pulled evry single thing involving benoit n thank god. i hope u dont rest in peace benoit. may the devil own ur soul n torture it forevr. u will not be missed.

Comment (1) | Was this review helpful to you? YesNo (Report this)

5 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
* Burn in hell, June 26, 2007
By GOPmetalgod72 - See all my reviews
No matter how talented he was the fact is that he murdered his wife and seven year old son. This man is human scum and hopefully is burning in hell. R.I.P. to his wife and son I hope your in a better place. One star because this dvd is gonna go up in price once the gory details are more widley know. Also thanks to the WWE for pulling him off their website I bet they wish they would have waited on that tribute to what a great family guy he was. As for the dvd review sorry fanboys it doesn't matter cause in the real world he was/is a scumbag and a baby killer.

Comments (2) | Was this review helpful to you? YesNo (Report this)

Sometimes i really need to ask myself: ARE these reviews helpful to me? (YesNo)

Some wrestling rumor site is reporting that Nancy Benoit had a safe deposit box with evidence of Chris Benoit's past violent outbursts, which was to be opened in case of her death.

and they opened it
AND TUPAC WAS INSIDE

GOPmetalgod72

;_; for the days of username changes

Haha god even everyone at my work is talking about this, its big news.

Bret Hart on Scarborough now, talking about depression and such

Hart acquitted himself well. I guess out of necessity, he hit the WWE's talking point ("Don't jump to conclusions about steriod abuse"). But he also candidly acknowledged that steriods might have been responsible.
And no mention of Owen Hart at all.

http://www.google.com/trends

1. nancy benoit
3. chris benoit woman
4. nancy daus
11. nancy elizabeth daus sullivan benoit
21. wrestler murder suicide
22. woman wcw
23. world wrestling entertainment
30. wrestler kills family
31. miss elizabeth
33. dead wrestlers
43. kevin sullivan
45. chris benoit text messages
56. pro wrestler chris benoit
58. benoit murder
62. owen hart
63. wrestler dies
67. chris benoit and wife
79. chris benwah
90. wwe wrestling
97. wwe manager woman
100. chris ben wa

101. benoit balls

Vince in a clip at the start of tonight's ECW said that there will be no more mention of Benoit now that they are aware of the circumstances, and the show is instead dedicated to everyone affected by the tragedy. They've even put Cena in the first match to get on with things. (He is not normally an ECW wrestler, non-fans)

hah when I clicked that link Dom, I got:
1. asphyxiation

thousands of wrestling fans going "waht does this word mean"

They probably should go dark for a few weeks, but in the absence (financial inability, I suppose) of that, just going out there and putting on matches may be the best option.

xp

http://i13.tinypic.com/6fuhabo.jpg

I'm guessing a bit here, but I'm pretty sure the WWE isn't finacially unable to go dark for a few weeks. It is unwilling to do so.

x-post

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l7/NakedReporta/come2daddy.jpg

Too soon.

I don't think I get the first one.

Apparently, the contents of Benoit's text messages has been revealed:

Early Sunday morning, between 3:51 and 3:58 a.m., Benoit sent five text messages to co-workers:

Text Message 1 to two co-workers (sent 6/24 at 3:53am)- Chris Benoit’s cell phone
“My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane, Fayetteville Georgia. 30215”

Text Message 2 to two co-workers (sent 6/24 at 3:53am)- Chris Benoit’s cell phone
“The dogs are in the enclosed pool area. Garage side door is open”

Text Message 3 to two co-workers (sent 6/24 at 3:54am)- Nancy Benoit’s cell phone
“My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane. Fayetteville Georgia. 30215”

Text Message 4 to two co-workers (sent 6/24 at 3:55am)- Nancy Benoit’s cell phone
“My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane. Fayetteville Georgia. 30215"

Text Message 5 to one co-worker (sent 6/24 at 3:58am)- Nancy Benoit’s cell phone
“My address is 130 Green Meadow Lane. Fayetteville Georgia. 30215”

The story is linked here.

this is my fav

http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x224/ravenmackewa/benoit.jpg

the 'i did it' t-shirts (that were referencing the carbombing of mr. mcmahon's car) have also been taken off the site.

http://tvweek.com/news/2007/06/mcmahon_to_apologize_for_benoi.php

(this already happened, but...)

The comments there, yeesh.

You know things are bad when WWE drag out Rowdy Roddy Piper in an attempt to distract us from reality.

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/6687/toysrusut4.jpg

Detailed timeline, fyi:

http://www.wwe.com/inside/news/detailedbenoittimeline

I never, NEVER thought I'd see the day when Bill Apter was on Fox News. Fucking hell.

I love the fact that you have to watch 30 seconds of WWE *commercials* before you can get to McMahon's message about how appalled WWE is about the tragedy.

Fuckers.

Unfortunately, it doesn't just feel like three lifetimes ago when the Texas crowd chanted "We Want Benoit" during the ECW Championship match between C.M. Punk and Johnny Nitro at this past Sunday's Vengeance Pay-Per-View ... it WAS three lifetimes ago.

I'm tempted to start a rolling BenoitBalls thread on ILWWE.

One of his neighbours said that his kid had fragile X syndrome and Benoit tried really hard to keep it quiet.

Text Message 99 to two co-workers (sent 6/24 at 3:53am)- Chris Benoit’s cell phone
“I am the small cat”

I laffed

Oh dear, I just remembered Edge & Christian's kazoo rendition of Chris Benoit's theme music.

"Chris Benoit is here and he's really mad / Chris Benoit is here and he's really an-GRY"

IIRC, they also did kazoo themes for Crash Holly (RIP) and erm, Kurt Angle. Uh oh.

One of his neighbours said that his kid had fragile X syndrome and Benoit tried really hard to keep it quiet.

I don't know what that is, but fair enough, surely?

FRAGILE X: ON TNA PAY PER VIEW THIS SUNDAY

CHRIS SABIN, JAY LETHAL, JERRY LYNN, AND AUSTIN STARR IN A FIGHT TO THE DEATH OVER MACROORCHIDISM AND THE DEADLY TNA HIGHWIRES

I don't know what that is, but fair enough, surely?

Well, yeah. Apparently the neighbour's kid had it too and they wanted him to be a celebrity face for the cause but he didn't want it to get out at all. But they thought he was undersized and were injecting him with stuff.

what goes around, comes around, I guess.

We probably need a "Chavo, what a poor cunt" section of this thread as well, considering how his past two years have involved him finding his uncle dead and being alerted to the fact that one of his best friends has killed their wife and kid.

Well, yeah. Apparently the neighbour's kid had it too and they wanted him to be a celebrity face for the cause but he didn't want it to get out at all. But they thought he was undersized and were injecting him with stuff.

It sounds like you're saying that Daniel's parents -- on their own intitiative, and without an expert opinion -- concluded that Daniel was undersized and they were therefore injecting him with growth hormones. Is that correct?

they thought he was undersized and were injecting him with stuff

I can't help thinking this had something to do with Benoit being repeatedly told he was too small for wrestling.

Yeah, for sure. (also Kerwin White).

Rolling Benoitballs Thread

Benoitballs thread ^

xposts

Seriously. I feel really bad for Chavo. The guy had what he thought was a casual chat with a man who'd just killed his family, and he had no way of knowing it. Perhaps he should simply get out of the business at this point, like that one living von Erich brother did.

Daniel, I don't know whether there was an expert opinion, but the investigators found needle marks on his arm and theorised that that was what they were doing.

But yeah it makes Benoit's whole obsession with the business and the STRUGGLE AND SACRIFICE aspect of his persona seem a whole lot less wholesome now.

They should really just give Chavo a fat pension and let him take it easy.

^^^ this.

In other news, Mark "The Undertaker" Calloway has invested $2.7 million dollars into building an office complex in Colorado.

Chris Harvard chimes in with probably the sanest thing I've heard in regards to all this.

Christopher Nowinski, a former professional wrestler who worked with Mr. Benoit, and who was forced to quit because of head injuries, said he believed that repeated, untreated concussions might have caused his friend to snap.

“He was one of the only guys who would take a chair shot to the back of the head,” Mr. Nowinski said, “which is stupid.”

Mr. Nowinski has written a book called “Head Games: Football’s Concussion Crisis” (Drummond Publishing Group, 2006), about chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a condition that can cause memory loss, depression and “bizarre, paranoid behavior.”

Mr. Nowinski said that he had been trying to persuade the coroner examining Mr. Benoit to allow a brain exam to look for the telltale neurofibrillary tangles in the brain’s cortex, but that he had thus far been rebuffed.

“Part of me hopes there was something wrong with his brain,” Mr. Nowinski said. “The Chris Benoit I knew was always more concerned about everybody else’s well-being than his own.”

OK, apart from the last paragraph.

"How to talk to your children about Chris Benoit"

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=3318243&page=1

The Onion probably need to do their own one for that.

"because murder-suicide is such a severe form of domestic abuse"

As opposed to just murder, obviously.

In a non-shocker, ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd is sounding off on the WWE press release (&, by proxy, wrestling fans, consisting of only boys and socially retarded men, because wrestling is like cartoons, and adults don't watch cartoons, except The Simpsons).

"Chris Benoit got unhappy because he had a pain in his head and it made him do some bad things, so he has gone away to the sky to be judged by God. However if you don't go to sleep by 9pm he will appear under your bed and German suplex you repeatedly."

I roffled like mad when I saw that abcnews piece earlier today. Unfortunately, I googled for "how to talk to you children about Katie Vick" + "abcnews", "how to talk to you children about Dr. Heinie" + "abcnews", and "how to talk to you children about Eric Bischoff's implied rape of Linda McMahon" + "abcnews" and didn't come up with anything.

Positives to come out of all this:

1. Dave Meltzer making enough money out of extra ad hits to his website to hopefully finally get a fucking sub-editor

Maybe he'll hire a hot new writer who'll revolutionise the IWC because he's such a straight-shooter who tells it like it is

My ears are burning...

Internet Rape Jokes Community

Beth Ditto being raped: ***** classic

New Bret interview: http://video.canada.com/Video.aspx?23863&ch=global

Bret first mentions Owen 45 seconds in.

Beth Ditto being raped: ***** classic

I'm going to steal that for 1p3.

Hey, why haven't CNN/MSNBC/Fox gotten New Jack on to discuss all this?

Whatver happened to that CZR dude?

http://the-w.com/

hahaha yeah, only New Jack could properly put these things into perspective.

what was it, there was some little "wrestling behind the scenes" docu that came out about 2 years ago or so which interviewed a bunch of guys like New Jack, Vampiro, DDP, Chyna, et al. It really wasn't all that good except for the part where they talked to New Jack in a bar, and then it was hilarious. Seriously, it should have been like 2 hours of just talking to him.

Seeing that guys like CRZ, Bob Ryder, and Scott Keith are still out there is like encountering high school classmates on Myspace; you haven't thought about these people for years, and then you only knew them in one certain context, and now here they are, still here only fatter with wife & kids & other quotidian aspects.

Something like 101 Reasons to Not Be A Pro Wrestler, I think.

New Jack is the best interview subject ever. On the topic of Bubba Ray Dudley: "I hope you buy a boat, and the boat has a hole in it, and you go out to see and drown you nasty bitch"

xp

"YOU CAN BE DENZEL'S FRIEND!"

Man, if I ever buy a racehorse I'm calling him "Denzel's Friend"

man i love the dudley boys - best heels ever

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Hyson

Probably best you don't watch their TNA run, TH. "Brother Ray" is probably the worst wrestler in the big two promotions right now. Or, if he isn;'t, he's second behind Domino.

xp

MELTZER SEZ:

Benoit was using steriods as far back as the late 80s when he was training in New Japan

I GOT NEWS BUDDY: THAT WASN'T A MASK

http://server3.uploadit.org/files/Lionsault-wmlefront.jpg

Daniel, I don't know whether there was an expert opinion, but the investigators found needle marks on his arm and theorised that that was what they were doing.

I assume that, by this point, if Daniel Benoit had an actually-diagnosed condition that required his parents to inject him with growth hormones, it would have become public by now (on the other hand, maybe HIPAA -- the federal law that protects private medical information from disclosure -- prevents it at this point). Given Chris Benoit's business and his own possible use of steriods, I wonder if a doctor would have permitted the parents to oversee the injections.

dom to me there's something about their crapness that makes them even more effective heels

Ah, good ol Spike Dudley. Haven't heard about him since the ECW/WWE ppv two years ago. Dude looks like Trotsky/Leonidas or something.

CHRIS BENOIT TRIBUTE TRAX SUGGESTIONZ

Husband don't know what he's done
Kids don't know what's wrong with mum
She can't say, they can't see
Putting it down to another bad day
Daddy don't know what he's done
Kids don't know what's wrong with mum

So this is how it feels to be lonely
This is how it feels to be small
This is how it feels
When your word means nothing at all

Black car drives through the town
Some guy from the top estate
Left a note for a local girl
And yet he had it all on a plate

So this is how it feels to be lonely
This is how it feels to be small
This is how it feels
When your word means nothing at all

Husband don't know what he's done
Kids don't know what's wrong with mum
She can't say, they can't see
Putting it down to another bad day

So this is how it feels to be lonely
(Feels to be lonely)
This is how it feels to be small
(Feels to be small)
This is how it feels
When your word means nothing at all

So this is how it feels to be lonely
(Feels to be lonely)
This is how it feels to be small
(Feels to be small)
This is how it feels
When your word means nothing at all

Nothing at all
Nothing at all

Old story now, I guess, but:

Wade Keller, founder of PWTorch.com, a professional wrestling Web site, said that steroid use is simply part of the WWE culture. "It's considered the price you pay to be a pro wrestler," Keller said, placing the blame for rampant steroid use in part on Vince McMahon, the chairman of the WWE board.

"The No. 1 guy who runs this industry has a body fetish," Keller said. "He's obsessed with bodies, and he's always pushing muscular guys to the top because they have that comic-book image."

For some reason, when I've heard up to now that "Benoit may have used a chokehold" to kill his son, I assumed he smothered him (like with a pillowcase). An ABC News story I read says that "chokehold" may mean exactly that: That Benoit used a wrestling chokehold to murder his 7 year old son. If I remember right, I think a chokehold was one of Benoit's big wrestling moves.

That's just so unspeakable. It's so personal. Things about this story continue to amaze me.

Keller's a fucking idiot.

Debra McMichael on a Fox affiliate:

- She called the domestic and drug abuse in WWE "out of hand" and brought up the statistic of 60 wrestlers under the age of 45 having died in the last ten years.

- Debra went as far as claiming that her story is very similar to Nancy Benoit's story, mentioning that Nancy had sought help from law enforcement in 2003 for domestic abuse.

- Debra also stated that like Nancy, Austin had basically forced her to write a letter to authorities saying the original complaint was a mistake.

- Debra said that she had personally seen Steve Austin take steroids.

- Debra said that had she spoken up earlier about how out of control domestic abuse is in wrestling, maybe Nancy and Daniel would still be alive today.

- Debra said that she "knows what it's like" to have someone who is really big sitting on top of you hitting you.

- Debra said she is glad she is alive after going through what she went through with Steve Austin.

the statistic of 60 wrestlers under the age of 45

where does this stat come from? Does anybody have an actual list?

This all certainly beats the actual rasslin' for entertainment value. ("This" being the speculation/media frenzy, not the murders themselves.)

where does this stat come from? Does anybody have an actual list?

OK, as many wrestlers who were of at least mild note who died under the age of 45 since 1997:

"Gentleman" Chris Adams 46
Gary Albright 36
Randy "Pee Wee" Anderson 42
Angel Azteca 43
Mike Awesome 42
Chris Benoit 40
Big Boss Man 41
Bam Bam Bigelow 45
Battlekat 40
Chris Candido 33
Chris Cash 23
Brian Hildebrand 37
Big Dick Dudley 37
Bobby Duncum Jr. 34
Earthquake 42
Miss Elizabeth 42
Terry Gordy 40
Johnny Grunge 40
Eddy Guerrero 38
Russ Haas 27
Owen Hart 34
Shinya Hashimoto 40
Curt Hennig 44
Crash Holly 32
Junkyard Dog 45
Mike Lozansky 35
Plum Mariko 29
Giant Ochiai 30
Brian Ong 24
Brian Pillman 35
Pitbull #2 36
Renegade 33
Rick Rude 40
Rhonda Singh 40
"British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith 39
Louie Spicolli 27
Jeep Swenson 40
The Wall 35
Biff Wellington 42
Yokozuna 34

That's 40, which is just including wrestlers of "note". If you start including indie dudes, I'm sure you can easily push it to 100.

haha new jack is the best. check youtube for some of his interviews, with bonus clips of the stabbing!

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/5167/benoitpl4.jpg
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/images/7/77/Chrismeetschrist.jpg-file.jpg

He died so image macros may live.

LOLverines

rabid LOLverines, even

this was way upthread but can somebody fill me in on why Superfly Snuka's an asshole? whatever it was, I missed it

That's 40, which is just including wrestlers of "note". If you start including indie dudes, I'm sure you can easily push it to 100.

Easily. Again, if this was a list of comprarable MLB or NFL players who died this young under these circumstances, it would be a national scandal.

this was way upthread but can somebody fill me in on why Superfly Snuka's an asshole? whatever it was, I missed it

He beat his girlfriend to death and then got Vince McMahon to cover for him.

http://web.archive.org/web/20011202075138/site.yahoo.com/muchnick/supsnukandgr.html

Dammit, the wiki on Snuka doesn't have the info.

In other words, Slayer is currently the featured article on the frontpage.

xp

yowch

thanks Dom

MCMAHON MADE a remark at one point in their discussions that was at once insightful and chilling. "Look, I'm in the garbage business," the promoter said. "If you think I'm going to be hurt by the revelation that one of my wrestlers is really a violent individual, you're mistaken."

Yeah, that kinda ran through me that line.

Yet Balls Mahoney still walks the earth. The injustice.

What did Balls do?

RIP BALLS MAHONEY HOPE U HITTING ST PETER WITH THE STIFFEST CHAIRSHOTS RIGHT NOW.

I've just joined this group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381599608

Balls Mahoney is a practising Satanist, right?

Easily. Again, if this was a list of comprarable MLB or NFL players who died this young under these circumstances, it would be a national scandal.

uh ...

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2313476

I guess the difference is that football is played by good ol' American boys, whereas only the worst scum would get involved in pro wrestling.

http://wfigs.proboards48.com/index.cgi?board=wrestlingfigs&action=display&thread=1182832952&page=1

Not the same. First, the entire focus of the article is on NFL players dying young because of obesity problems ("'Clearly, these big, fat guys are having coronaries,' said Charles Yesalis, a Penn State professor of health policy and sport science."). The article doesn't mention steriods or drugs.(n.1) That's not comparable to the types of deaths mentioned in Dom's list or my list upthread, i.e., the way these wrestlers died.

Second, a 2004 USA Today article -- published before Benoit's incident -- notes that "research shows that wrestlers are about 20 times more likely to die before 45 than are pro football players, another profession that's exceptionally hard on the body."
_______________________________
(n.1) To be fair, I'm sure steriods are a problem in the NFL, too.

Sorry, that was an x-post to NoTimeBeforeTime's comment.

xx-post
"once this blows over"

I'm somewhat baffled that people over 10 years old "play" with wrestling figures...

*cue some wiseguy posting "I'm somewhat baffled that people over 10 years old watch wrestling."*

Again, if this was a list of comprarable MLB or NFL players who died this young under these circumstances, it would be a national scandal.

Or rappers, as I was thinking yesterday.

Rappers dying violent deaths, that is.

I'm somewhat baffled that people over 10 years old "play" with wrestling figures...

Yeah. I haven't really watched wrestling since I was a kid. But something about this story made me very sad and -- I admit -- morbidly fascinated. Maybe it's because of all the pro wrestlers I remember, Chris Benoit seemed perhaps the most level-headed and normal. Maybe it's the horrible nature of the crime. Maybe it's because I have a 6 year old daughter. Who knows.

Rappers dying violent deaths, that is.

Yeah, I think that's a better analogy. Someplace upthread I analogized pro wrestling and the porn industry as depicted in Boogie Nights, and everything I've read over the past few days reinforces that view.

The fact that Benoit was kinda looked on as a bastion of all that is good and holy in an industry full of sleazebags certainly adds an extra dimension to all this.

I have been having that wiseguy thought, but it's not bafflement, just surprise: I knew wrestling was popular, obviously, but I'm amazed by the number of people around me who apparently have a long-term working knowledge of it.

Most of the knowledge I have is from about 88-93 (age 8-13) and 98-00 (when I first got on the net and started reading all the smart-mark stuff), other than that I've gone through long periods of not paying it any attention.

I play catch up on the net once in a while but the reason this really got to me was I had just started watching wrestling again in the past few weeks and I was excited to see Benoit drafted to ECW since he would be the biggest star there and finally be a relatively big deal again after sort of being lost in the Smackdown shuffle. I even considered ordering last Sunday's PPV to see him (surely) win the ECW belt, but then it was forty fucking dollars and I wasn't that excited. When I read the results and found out he no-showed I was like "well, thank god I didn't order that!" but jeez...

Similarly, my years were from '86-'90 and from '99-'02 or so, with here & there since 2004 after moving to Portland and finding a group of guys at the local dive bar who regularly watched the stuff on sundays.

92 to 94, then 98 to the present day, although fuck me 01-04 was a tough period to get through.

I watched a fair bit of wrestling during the 90s boom. Saw most of the wwf attitude era, bits of the demise of wcw and once in a blue moon ecw.
Kept one eye on it through the web and only recently started watching the occasional bit of TNA as it's popped up on one of the channels on Virgin cable.

01-04 I basically have no knowledge of, I didn't have cable or internet for most of that time. What made it suck so bad Dom, the merger?

Mine was through the 80s, and I guess a few brief returns since (e.g., the big Steve Austin and NWO storylines had me briefly interested). I thought the Brett Hart movie -- Dancing With Shadows, I think -- was pretty darn brilliant, but that was more about back-office politics than it was about wrestling per se.

Don't be so quick to jump on this guy if you thought he was such a good guy all this time. Maybe he still is. He's just a good guy who killed his family and then himself. See, he wasn't trying to get something for nothing, right? That's good. Maybe they were askin' for it? You just don't know.

oh god we forgot about the googlers

Warrior still hasn't blogged yet. :(
Could it be that for once in his life it occurred to him that maybe he should keep his mouth shut?

I must say I'm tickled that wrestlers have blogs now.

I think it's just him, and "wrestler" is kind of stretching it.

I've enjoyed Samoa Joe's livejournal for a coupla years now. Doesn't post much on it.

oooh link

nm, found it:
http://xsweatpeax.livejournal.com/

haha, even big-ass pro wrestlers get hooked on Oblivion

he has pretty ok taste in music

I watched wrestling as a kid, but then lost interest around the time of the first Wrestlemania. So I'm pretty much one of those people who blame Vince McMahon for "ruining" rasslin'. That in itself would be bad enough, but add to that what a tremendous sleaze the guy seems to be, and- gah.

I remember pretty vividly when that Snuka incident happened. Afterwards I could never really get excited about him again. That archived article linked to upthread is horrifying.

I love this Tom Snyder report from '79 on the Memphis wrestling scene. The crowds are having so much fun in it; to me it really captures what pro wrestling at it's best could be. Pre-'84 or so, it was such a unique phenomenon, with all kinds of interesting regional differences...There is something about the footage of the crowd's reactions in the piece that I find to be very poignant.

its, it's, bah.

He's just a good guy who killed his family and then himself. See, he wasn't trying to get something for nothing, right? That's good. Maybe they were askin' for it? You just don't know.

He's just a good guy who killed his family and then himself. See, he wasn't trying to get something for nothing, right? That's good. Maybe they were askin' for it? You just don't know.

He's just a good guy who killed his family and then himself. See, he wasn't trying to get something for nothing, right? That's good. Maybe they were askin' for it? You just don't know.

He's just a good guy who killed his family and then himself. See, he wasn't trying to get something for nothing, right? That's good. Maybe they were askin' for it? You just don't know.

Yeah, there's a (twisted) song in there, somewhere.

New information, about the alleged degree of Daniel's "Fragile X" condition. Allegedly, the couple were arguing about how to care for him.

Keith still flailing away:

I think that more interesting than the story itself is the range of reactions, not just on this blog but everywhere. I don’t think anyone’s defending him or even attempting to, but it’s interesting to me that reactions are ranging so wildly between shock and disbelief (which is mostly where I fall at the moment) all the way to outright hatred and comparisons to Hitler. In all fairness, Hitler killed a LOT more people before doing himself in, so Benoit had a long way to go.

It does raise an interesting question — do the deeds of the performer retroactively affect the quality of the performance? Someone noted in another thread that defending Benoit’s in-ring work is like trying to seperate Hitler the dictator from Hitler the painter. I don’t think that’s such a crazy notion, frankly. If you have moral high ground enough to judge the entire body of work of a man because of his deeds in real life, then bully for you. It must be nice to be so righteous. I think it’s sad, and it’s a tragedy, and Benoit proved to be a horrible human being who got exactly what he deserved, but in the end unless you were related to Nancy and Daniel it’s hard to justify acting like you knew them any better than Benoit’s longtime fans knew him. In the end, there’ll be a TV movie or an episode of Law & Order, and we’ll all go on with our lives doing the best we can to cope or mourn or forget about it or whatever. I’m glad I didn’t know Benoit the person, because it would have made it a lot tougher to like Benoit the performer, and if nothing else positive can come out of this whole sick situation it’s that I can at least still get enjoyment from his matches and hope that one small bit of happiness can overcome the crushing horror that the past two days have brought. I’ll take what I can get, I guess.

District Attorney Scott Ballard said the autopsy indicated that there were no bruise marks on the child's neck, so authorities are now assuming he could have been killed using a choke hold.

Creepy.

Again, if this was a list of comprarable MLB or NFL players who died this young under these circumstances, it would be a national scandal.

wait, can someone define "these circumstances" here? because there IS a rash of nfl players who have died young, and there is an increasing amount of evidence that the demands of the sport are the reason for the suicides and illnesses, and it is a brewing low-level scandal. but suicide without murder isn't really a "glamorous" story so it's not getting a lot of attention. so, this seems disingenous to say? the reason why this is getting a lot of attention right now is because the dude took people with him--i wouldn't say the early deaths in wrestling HAVE been a huge scandal until now?

Make me love Chris Benoit

Because you lot all do and I think he's a charismaless roided up midget with no psychology or ability to tell a story. Point out what I'm missing here.
-- Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, November 29, 2004 2:56 PM (2 years ago)

wait, can someone define "these circumstances" here? because there IS a rash of nfl players who have died young, and there is an increasing amount of evidence that the demands of the sport are the reason for the suicides and illnesses, and it is a brewing low-level scandal. but suicide without murder isn't really a "glamorous" story so it's not getting a lot of attention. so, this seems disingenous to say? the reason why this is getting a lot of attention right now is because the dude took people with him--i wouldn't say the early deaths in wrestling HAVE been a huge scandal until now?

What I meant was the number of bizzare circumstances associated with pro wrestler's deaths, e.g., Benoit's situation, Chris Adams being shot to death by his best friend, Dino Bravo being murdered, Bruiser Brody being stabbed to death, Owen Hart's fall from the rafters, Brian Hauser being shot by police, and the Von Erich deaths (David from Acute Enteritis; Mike, Chris and Kerry from suicide), to name just a few (and limiting myself to high-profile performers (or at least those whose names I know, with the exception of Hauser)). And as I mentioned upthread, a 2004 USA Today article indicates that pro wrestlers are 20 times more likely to die before 45 than are pro football players. That's a huge disparity.
,

You keep trotting out that stat, but it's very misleading for two reasons:

1) there's nothing special about Age 45. It's simply a convenient cutoff age that somebody used for making their point stand out. The issue is this: football players and wrestlers are both likely to die long before (as in decades before) other presumably healthy and fit human beings would. The reasons for this are inextricably linked to drugs and to the wear-and-tear on their bodies from many years of playing the sport. You said upthread, "I'm sure that drugs are a problem in the NFL too", which is a huge understatement and leads me to believe that you don't appreciate the seriousness of football-steroid connection.

2) "death rates" aren't nearly as important as "sample size" in this discussion ... football generates probably 100X the revenue compared to wrestling and involves probably 1000X as many people (pros, college players, high school -- what kid doesn't want to try out for the high school football team) so overall participation in football is MUCH higher which means more overall drug intake, more cumulative deaths, more cumulative long-term injuries (bad backs, knees, post-concussion traumas, etc.).

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20070626/i/r1277901619.jpg
http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20070626/i/r2440170537.jpg

Listen, I'm not defending wrestling here and saying everything is OK, it's a scummy business with scummy promoters and scummy guys taking all sorts of drugs. But arguing that wrestling is in a more dire state, health-wise, when it comes to the long-term health of its athletes, that's a tough sell for me.

Hell, everything I just wrote could apply to the music business -- we could compile a really impressive list of music stars who died before age 45, or even age 30 -- but people don't even bother going on about the "dangers" of the music business anymore.

More Meltz:

"It's such a complex issue, but there are two different Chris Benoits. I think that's the key, because the one thing is is that the Chris Benoit that we all knew was not this guy, but this guy did change in the last year and I believe -- there's many issues -- but it was the preponderance of dealing with many deaths led to increased drug use and I think it drove him crazy.

But at the same time, there were seeds of this early because you look at the 2003 thing where Nancy got the protection order against him so it does go back before the death of Eddie Guerrero, the death of Johnny Grunge, the death of Victor Mar all in a seven week period, and I really look at that as the turning point of Chris's life where he lost his best friend, he lost his best friend in Japan, and he lost the guy that would make him laugh when he was in the worst mood possible.

It affects everyone, but the deaths affect Chris really bad, and I'm not just talking about those three guys, but if you look at from Davey Boy and Owen and Brian Pillman and Larry Cameron even though Larry Cameron was years ago, but if you look at guys that Chris was close with, even Stu even though Stu was old. The list is really long and I just think that that depression from all of that, you know a 40 year old guy. They were closer to him than to most people. Brian Hildebrand is another one. So many of his closest friends, most of his closest friends had passed away at a young age. And I am not making any excuses for what happened, but I am saying that these were the things to a guy who had a very dark side.

Chris loved professional wrestling, but at the same time he was not stupid, and I think that that was an inner conflict as well. I think that all of these deaths had to tell him that there was something horrible, even though he would always say you cannot blame wrestling, the fact is that he had to at some point go, what's happening here yet at the same time he loved wrestling so deeply and a lot of other things led to more and more paranoia. Chris had gotten incredibly paranoid about everything and his drug usage had upped most likely over the last couple of months, and everyone pins the point from Eddie and those other two deaths."

He didn't look after his lawn either by the looks of things.
xp

Is there no end to this man's monstrosities?

I'd say there was. It was on Monday.

is that kid holding ghost rider in the other hand?

Or late Saturday/early Sunday, technically.

Yes I must know who the other action figure is.

WHO IS GHOST RIDER

Hell, everything I just wrote could apply to the music business -- we could compile a really impressive list of music stars who died before age 45, or even age 30 -- but people don't even bother going on about the "dangers" of the music business anymore.

-- NoTimeBeforeTime, Thursday, June 28, 2007 7:20 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Yes, you could. But I very much doubt that the death rate for musicians is any higher than the death rate for 'normal members of the public' (i.e. nonpro musicians, non sportspeople, non-wrestlers)

The issue is this: football players and wrestlers are both likely to die long before (as in decades before) other presumably healthy and fit human beings would. The reasons for this are inextricably linked to drugs and to the wear-and-tear on their bodies from many years of playing the sport. You said upthread, "I'm sure that drugs are a problem in the NFL too", which is a huge understatement and leads me to believe that you don't appreciate the seriousness of football-steroid connection.

That's fair. I do appreciate the seriousness of steroid-abuse in football. And there's nothing wrong with the way you frame the issue: Pro wrestlers and pro football players die young far too often.

However, the "deaths before age 45" statistic is meaningful. Sure, sure, there's nothing magical about age 45. But every death-benchmark is significant, and when a given population is statistically more likely to die at an earlier age, it's noteworthy and it provides a critical data point for evaluating the severity of the situation and possible remedies. If NFL players were 20 times more likely to die before, say, age 30 than pro wrestlers or NBA or MLB players, that would be a significant statistic, too.

And, yeah, I think pro wrestling is a (sometimes morbidly compelling) circus, and the performers are abused and exploited in ways that other athletes aren't. So these types of statistics are meaningful, especially in terms of policy analysis. They might help justify unions for pro wrestlers, who could then collectively-bargain for protections.(n.1) They might justify closer public scrutiny of an industry that, in many ways, typically operates under the radar.

__________________________________
(n.1) I’m an attorney, but I don’t defend or represent unions in these types of matters, so this discussion isn’t connected to my area of practice.

dude the footnotes

Yeah, I know. Sorry.

Jillian Hall could perhaps do with some footnotes on her Myspace:

Well, by now the whole world knows of the horrible news that took place this week. With all of the comments and messages from people saying how sorry they are for our loss, I figured I would speak in general. I am 100% in agreeance with WWE and Mr. McMahon on completely erasing all tributes to Chris Benoit. While he had always been nice and polite to me and most of the WWE talent, what he did is completely disgusting and unforgivable! This man who could have been a legend has demolished his reputation. My heart goes out to Nancy and the adorable Daniel and the family and friends they left behind!

people don't even bother going on about the "dangers" of the music business anymore.

If the premature death rates are statistically similar, people should look into it. But I think Mark G's point upthread is probably right (although, in the case of one genre –- rap -– there may be a legitimate parallel to pro wrestling in terms of the premature death rate).

But stay with the music industry as a point of contrast. Try to draw a parallel –- in terms of their fame and influence, both culturally and within their industry -- between the pro wrestlers who died early and recently and contemporary musicians. Benoit, Gurerro, Eddie Gilbert, Davey Boy Smith, Road Warrior Hawk, Rick Rude, Owen Hart, Yokozuna, Miss Elizabeth, Crash Holly, and Ray Trailor -- all working performers at the time of their death -- are comparable (again, only in terms of their fame and influence within their industry) to, what, members of some vital current bands and a few upper-tier stars?

So assume, for example, that Wilco, The New Pornographers, My Chemical Romance, My Morning Jacket, The National, The Arcade Fire, a few solid, lesser-known bands, Joanna Newsome, Morrissey, and Kelly Clarkson all were promoted and managed by the same small company. Further assume that each band had a regular member die from, say, stab wounds, being shot by their best friend, suicide, or drug overdose, and that Morrissey and Clarkson both died in bizarre circumstances (like, say, Bravo and Benoit). And assume that all these horrible events took place within a 10-year period. You don’t think it would prompt a major investigation into the promotion/management company, especially if there was evidence that the company tacitly encouraged its stars to use illegal drugs? It certainly should.

Look, I’m not suggesting an exact analogy by any means, and many of you are far more knowledgeable about the music industry than me, so maybe I’m wildly off-base in terms of the parallels I’ve tried to draw. For instance, maybe you think the dead wrestlers I’ve named are more comparable in terms of fame and influence in the industry to a bunch of technically proficient, no-name session musicians. But I think it’s a useful exercise to evaluate the seriousness of the problem.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2003560001-2007290539,00.html

Note subtle shot of Bobby Lashley's disgusting, rippling torso occupying centre of article about steroids.

I spoke to Powerslam editor Fin Martin about all this the other day. I truly am the Suzy of child murder.

He's giving you 6000 words on this, right?

I am not at liberty to divulge this information.

Just make sure the phrase "roided up midget" makes it in there somewhere, plz.

What's PowerSlam going to do on the story? I hope the new issue doesn't have him on the front cover smiling - I checked the newsagents this morning but it wasn't on the shelves yet.

I got the new one that comes out... today, i think, through the post the same day that this news broke. Amazingly, there's no pictuers of him in the issue, and just one mention of him "being harmed by losing to MVP in two straight falls". Compared to the issue that was on asle when Eddie died, which was "WHAT WILL LATINO HEAT DO NEXT?".

And obviously I can't say what's gonna be in the issue for next month, but rest assured it won't be "RIP CHRIS HOPE UR GERMAN SUPLEXING JIMI HENDRIX AND ISAAC NEWTON IN HEAVEN"

New Benoitballs champion,

Now I must go forward and address the issue at hand with Chris Benoit. I will not state the facts, because I am still seeing two different stories based on what my friends are showing me and the notes from the police conference. I do know that other writers here have gotten hate mail for just saying good words about Benoit and trying to recap the tribute on Raw last night. What I am about to say will generate hate mail, I promise that. And I don't care. I simply don't. This is my opinion and if you don't like it, you can send me whatever you wish. I will take none of it personally, I might even laugh at some of it, but I not be surprised by any of it.

Now, for my opinions of the whole situation, I look at the facts of what the reaction is, and I am utterly upset and disgusted at the view of people and the WWE. The WWE has come out and said that have to apologize for showing a tribute to Chris Benoit last night. So let me get this straight… you have to apologize for honoring one man's amazing 22 year career that you did BEFORE you knew exactly what happened. YOU HAVE TO FUCKING APOLIGIZE FOR THAT????? You have to pull his merchandise, fine. But you have to remove his name from the listing on Wrestlemania XX where he won the World Heavyweight Title??? Tell you what, how about removing Eddie Guerrero's name from that title as well? How about not acknowledging that Rob Van Damn ever held the WWE and ECW Titles?

Let me be point blank here. If you are the WWE or any fan who says they now have no respect for what Chris Benoit did for the last 22 years, but have respect for Eddie Guerrero, RVD, among others… you might say that I am calling you out as a hypocrite. You are going to tell me you have no respect for a man who gave everything to the business for 22 years with no issues EVER except for now, but yet you respect those who should have never been employed in such a public view. You tell me you have no respect for Benoit, but you respect Rob Van Damn and Sabu, who were arrested for having drugs on them and were allowed to keep their jobs. Some role models those two are. You have no respect for Benoit, but you love what MVP has done lately, forgetting that the man was in jail for a ten year sentence for kidnapping and burglary. Oh, let me not to forget to mention that bodysuit is to cover a certain Malcolm X tattoo he has. You can have no respect for Benoit, but you can respect Eddie Guerrero, Brian Pillman, and every other wrestler who died because they were drug addicts and alcoholics, whether they died directly to it or from the lingering effects that led to heart attacks. Chris Benoit until this past weekend was a gentleman outside the ring, he wasn't an asshole like Randy Orton or Kurt Angle, two men who could NEVER hold a job anywhere because of how many sexual harassments suits would be thrown in their faces. So to tell me you can't respect what he did anymore because of this one incident outside the ring, but you can respect all the men listed above with no questions asked, you are nothing but a hypocrite in my eyes.

For all of these people I listed above, including Chris Benoit, I respect what they do in the ring and I thank them for putting on a show for us and risking their lives. As for everything else, I personally don't care what they do outside of the show they provide us with. I don't care how big or small the infraction outside the ring, I only care about what happens on my television and in the squared circle. Chris Benoit, I still respect you and I will never stop respecting you because of what happened.

My favourite bit:

Oh, let me not to forget to mention that bodysuit is to cover a certain Malcolm X tattoo he has

Malcolm X tattoos = as bad as strangling your seven-year-old retarded son to death

THAT'S what I meant to post on the Benoitballs thread, but when I went to post it I couldn't remember where I'd read it.

I prefer the parts about van Dam ... pot smoking is as bad as murder! Either way, you're a poor role model.

Chris Benoit until this past weekend was a gentleman outside the ring

He'd only been reported for domestic abuse twice! Randy Orton, on the other hand, SQUIRTED HAND LOTION INTO A WOMAN'S HANDBAG. It is claer who the real villain is here.

That is without doubt the current leader, yeah.

you are going to tell me you have no respect for a man who gave everything to the business for 22 years with no issues EVER except for now

"In 2003, Chris Benoit did not murder his wife and son in his Atlanta home. In 2004, Chris Benoit did not murder his wife and son in his Atlanta home. In 2005, Chris Benoit did not murder his wife and son in his Atlanta home.
In 2006, Chris Benoit did not murder his wife and son in his Atlanta home.
In 2007, Chris Benoit...murdered his wife and son, in his Atlanta home.
In 2008, Chr-"

if benoit hadn't killed himself i wonder if this guy would be... calling for the death penalty? or not?

He'd possibly be at the trial shouting SHUT UP AND WRESTLE

THIS IS AWESOME *CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP* THIS IS AWESOME *CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP*

But you have to remove his name from the listing on Wrestlemania XX where he won the World Heavyweight Title??? Tell you what, how about removing Eddie Guerrero's name from that title as well?

when did Eddie win the World Heavyweight Title?!??!?!?

There goes that guy's credibility

look at the facts of what the reaction is, and I am utterly upset and disgusted at the view of people and the WWE.

Who wrote this column? These wrestling bloggers/internet commentators are awful! I haven't read them before the Benoit incident, but what I've seen the past fews days is . . . ugh.

the undertaker's deadjournal is great though.

Who wrote this column? These wrestling bloggers/internet commentators are awful! I haven't read them before the Benoit incident, but what I've seen the past fews days is . . . ugh.

From what I know of it, you basically have at the top, guys like Scott Keith and Eric Szulczewski. They can string a sentence together but are complete douches. Then under them you having a teeming mass of complete douches who are completely unable to write or think.

Scott Keith as a "top guy" still is a bit like saying Staind are the biggest band in the world.

Nah, it'd be like saying they were the best band in the world if all the other bands in the world were The Others.

Wrestling journalism can best be described as Scottish football if Celtic and Rangers merged, and that guy is Meltzer.

you two are the phats and small of wrestling blogs then?

If Celtic and Rangers merged the resultant entity would be torn apart by its own inner sectarian self-hatred

Acrobat, you're fucking disgusting with your heartless sarcasm, you worthless piece of hate-filled, misanthropic selg-loathing cunt.

regards,
SOMEONE WHO CARES ABOUT PEOPLE

an RIP thread is not the place to cut and paste flame war. take it to graham poll.

this is a "burn in hell, roided up midget" thread in all but name

show some respect.

Paul isn't on roids xp

he was a good wrestler, i have been told.

He'd possibly be at the trial shouting SHUT UP AND WRESTLE

harf harf

So has the next WWE game been finalized yet, or are they having the gamedevs go thru and strip out everything about the guy, Ric Flair-style?

Just replace him with Dynamite Kid on a legends deal, if they can insert a wheelchair into his entrance.

Yeah, somebody's already writing up a "how to create Woman and Daniel Benoit characters in Create-A-Wrestler" guide.

In other news, the best bit of black humor i've seen was somebody on SA posting that "chris benoit will live on forever in our owen harts"

god mcmahon was a fucking fake "somber" shithead on the today show today.

god mcmahon was a fucking fake "somber" shithead on the today show today.

On a related note, I've seen many people say that the WWE's Monday tribute to Benoit was understandable, even commendable, at the time. I don't see it. Admittedly, the WWE didn't know, at that point, that Benoit murdered his family. But they had many reasons to suspect that something was very wrong with Benoit, something that related to the death of his family, e.g., the bizzare phone calls to co-workers, in which Benoit -- very out of character -- stammered "I Love You," the last-minute failure to show up at shows, the unnerving text messages, sent from two different phones owned by the Benoits, at nearly 4 a.m.

We'll never know what WWE executives were thinking at the time. But would it surprise anyone if, upon hearing the news on Monday, WWE executives' thought was, "How do we capitalize on this media coverage for tonight's show"?

Nah, I don't fault them for the tribute show. S.O.P. since Owen died, plus the details didn't really begin to leak out until the show was already underway.

Ok Bret

I'm serious. They didn't do a full tribute show when Pillman bought it, did they?

No, this is true.

I'm serious. They didn't do a full tribute show when Pillman bought it, did they?

They would have if he was a main eventer, but he wasn't.

I remember when that happened; it was on the day of a pay-per-view (can't rememeber which one) and Jim Ross announced it right at the start of the show. That was mostly it. But I'm pretty certain they would have done a lot more had he been a bigger star, or around longer (I'm discounting his WCW days from this, as he'd only been in the WWF about a year or so before he died).

Pillman had headlined a PPV in the year before his death, Owen hadn;t.

But Owen had been in the WWF for close to eight years before his death, and had been in a number of main event programmes (or at the very least, programmes with main eventers) up to recently before. Pillman, in contrast, was really just a part of the 'new' Hart Foundation, aside from his feud with Austin, and at the time was far better known from his long WCW tenure. It's a matter of long-term WWF guy against WCW interloper.

I'm serious. They didn't do a full tribute show when Pillman bought it, did they?

-- kingfish, Thursday, 28 June 2007 19:03 (Thursday, 28 June 2007 19:03) Bookmark Link

I know, I was just playing on the "raise Owen's death at every opportunity" thing Bret is accused of.

Kingfish, here's my question. Assume it was your decision, and you knew that the Benoit family had been killed (not just Chris) and you knew about Benoit's erratic behavior just prior to the killings. Your choices are:

(a) Do the tribute show WWE did or
(b) Do a very short minute expressing regret for the circumstances, promising to report more news when it became available, and announcing that -- in light of the circumstances -- you were suspending that evening's program.

Which option would you choose? Would you opt for something else entirely? If so, what? And if, instead of a pro wrestler, it was some TV star -- say, a David Caruso (I'm not familiar with too many TV stars these days) and his family under the same circumstances -- what do you think ABC would have done?

Hell, I dunno. But remember, this is Vince we're talking about. Ain't no way in hell they were going to do a rerun.

I hear you. That's my point. "Vince" will think differently than executives at, say, a TV network. Network executives, I think -- even setting aside other considerations -- would do something restrained and tasteful in order to maintain the proper level of dignity. I'm guessing the Vince thinks, how do we (a) spin this effectively and (b) get high ratings from it, while it's still breaking news?

something restrained and tasteful in order to maintain the proper level of dignity

haha, c'mon man, we know what industry we're talking about here.

"In 2003, Chris Benoit did not murder his wife and son in his Atlanta home. In 2004, Chris Benoit did not murder his wife and son in his Atlanta home. In 2005, Chris Benoit did not murder his wife and son in his Atlanta home.
In 2006, Chris Benoit did not murder his wife and son in his Atlanta home.
In 2007, Chris Benoit...murdered his wife and son, in his Atlanta home.
In 2008, Chr-"

-- Michael Philip Philip Philip philip Annoyman, Thursday, 28 June 2007 12:32 (7 hours ago) Bookmark Link

in 2009 there was the incident with the possum

Imagining the above with Steve Coogan's voice from The Day Today gives it a whole new dimension.

darraghmac?

xpost: no, that was the intended dimension. jesus, i'm explaining a joke. lord help me.

Ban Louis Jagger and/or Darramous

darraghmac?

Nope, that's not me, sorry.

xpost: no, that was the intended dimension. jesus, i'm explaining a joke. lord help me.

I was half-thinking it might have been, so I'm the one to blame for stating the obvious. D'oh is me.

dom in vaginal sand shockah

i mean, it's sad that yr man has gone all frankie teardrop on us, but keep it together, we'll pull through this, me and you

oh haha now i see that the day today jokes have been done already (twice) on this thread's mod req parallel! if that's what got yr goat, dom, then don't blame me, blame mr. annoyman. the 'ben-oyt' one = kudos.

http://members.aol.com/kennycasanova/kbenoit.jpg

the best bit of black humor i've seen was somebody on SA posting that "chris benoit will live on forever in our owen harts"

I liked "Benoit: Biggest heel turn in wrestling history."

Dom Passantino is hoping beyond hope that Chris Benoit did the "ironic slow heel golf clap" just before he finished off his son. 5:06pm

If after he'd killed Nancy he'd pulled her up slightly by the hair and pointed at her head whilst shouting at the cameraman "YOU'RE NEXT DANIEL", that would be a great way of making light of double homicide.

I felt that my TDT reference justified itself by being a pertinent response to that demented wrestling blogger, whereas Steve's just seemed to be an admittedly funny non-sequitur based on a (deliberate?) misunderstanding of why the proposed revision to the thread title would result in there being a lot of dates. There's no accounting for taste I guess.

xpost, he'd possibly have to do that thing where he mouths it really deliberately and repeats it about eight times in case the commentators talk over it.

"Chris Benoit appears to be sending a message to his son there King"

http://www.mediagab.com/story.asp?id=2350

This is just....

"Does Chris Benoit look cool? Does he? What about now? Does he still look cool?"

http://www.wsbtv.com/2007/0628/13589245.jpg

Photo of Benoit taken a few hours before the murders. Thus he killed his wife wearing a Bruiser Brody t-shirt.

New development: Police Raid Office of Benoit's Personal Doctor

Yeah they said he was signing autographs and taking pictures and shit on the way home from the doctor's office to go kill his wife.

HMMM. . . .

yeah gff just posted that, kinda hard to do a cover up about how much they knew about this before the cops got there when some genius at the company leaks it to wikipedia.

"Chris Benoit appears to be sending a message to his son there King"

-- Dom Passantino, Thursday, June 28, 2007 9:15 PM

i feel soooooooo bad for thinking this is kind of funny.

you can totally hear Jim Ross saying it is all

I'm not normally this enthusiastic about recent-dead lulz, but under the circumstances he's left us precious few coping mechanisms, it's kind of a weird feeling.

http://sportsmedia.ign.com/sports/image/article/696/696778/randy-orton-interview-20060317112642794.jpg

“Everyone who’s in this organization, to my knowledge, is well-adjusted, family people.”

“Everyone who’s in this organization, to my knowledge, is well-adjusted, family people.”
"Look, I'm in the garbage business. If you think I'm going to be hurt by the revelation that one of my wrestlers is really a violent individual, you're mistaken."
“Everyone who’s in this organization, to my knowledge, is well-adjusted, family people.”
"Look, I'm in the garbage business. If you think I'm going to be hurt by the revelation that one of my wrestlers is really a violent individual, you're mistaken."
“Everyone who’s in this organization, to my knowledge, is well-adjusted, family people.”
"Look, I'm in the garbage business. If you think I'm going to be hurt by the revelation that one of my wrestlers is really a violent individual, you're mistaken."
“Everyone who’s in this organization, to my knowledge, is well-adjusted, family people.”
"Look, I'm in the garbage business. If you think I'm going to be hurt by the revelation that one of my wrestlers is really a violent individual, you're mistaken."
“Everyone who’s in this organization, to my knowledge, is well-adjusted, family people.”
"Look, I'm in the garbage business. If you think I'm going to be hurt by the revelation that one of my wrestlers is really a violent individual, you're mistaken."

This story just gets more and more curious (and tragic).

So, Chris Benoit's Wiki page is updated to indicate that Nancy is dead 13 hours before police discover her body. The police discovered her on Monday, June 25, at roughly 4 p.m. Thirteen hours prior to that is Monday morning, at roughly 4 a.m. When is that in relation to when Benoit sent those cryptic text messages to his co-workers?

Marmotwolof''s post would make a good Zappa or Negativeland sound collage,

xpost

hahaha yeah or My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
I do wonder what would've went down if the Today show would've thrown that quote in Vince's face.

In other news, I'm sad to find out that Droz is still quadropilegic. At least WWE still has him on the payroll, using him as a writer.

my god I can't wait till the Law & Order: SVU episode

x-post
what you thought he was gonna magically heal and form a tag team with Dynamite Kid?

No, I thought they'd give him his own rickshaw, with Dusty Rhodes to pull it around.

you can totally hear Jim Ross saying it is all

-- marmotwolof, Thursday, 28 June 2007 22:48

ya rly

Curtis more OTM than anyone has ever been before. (but it'll be reg'lar law and order and they'll nail the Vince McMahon character for something)

nice save, kingfish

When is that in relation to when Benoit sent those cryptic text messages to his co-workers?

A day after.

ABC News' latest story says "Text messages released by officials show that messages from Chris Benoit's cell phone were being sent to co-workers a few hours after the Wikipedia posting." (emphasis mine).

Also, I think the Wiki posting says that Benoit missed a match two days earlier -- I guess that would mean Friday, June 22 -- because of Nancy's death.

Nah, Vengeance on the Sunday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/69.120.111.23

Note also "replaced page with 'piss'" further down. Looks like a hoax, but it'd be a weird coincidence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chavo_Guerrero%2C_Jr.&diff=prev&oldid=138444926

:/

There's a chilling possibility here. If -- and, I know, it's a big if -- but if the Wiki entry came from inside WWE headquarters, then someone at the WWE knew at some point between Friday, June 22 and Monday morning, June 25, that Nancy Benoit had been killed. Daniel apparently died sometime after his mother. So did someone know about Nancy's death early enough to have possibly prevented Daniel's death?

Actually, it's a chilling possibility whether or not the Wiki entry came from inside the WWE.

The Wiki staff must've been shitting themselves to call an urgent meeting so they could be all "WE HAVE A PERSISTENT VANDAL WE NEED AN IP BAN STAT"

I think this is PWInsider:

Fox News is reporting that an anonymous user out of Stamford, CT edited Chris Benoit's entry on Wikipedia to feature the comments, "However, Chris Benoit was replaced by Johnny Nitro for the ECW Championship match at Vengeance, as Benoit was not there due to personal issues, stemming from the death of his wife Nancy." The comments led to Wikipedia volunteers contacting Fayetteville, Georgia authorities.

However, the I.P. address in question also made a series of other edits to different entries, including former WWE Diva Stacy Keibler, WWE star Chavo Guerrero, NBA player Ron Artest and the HBO series The Sopranos. Many of the edits were misspelled or explicit in nature, leading one to believe that the postings were made by a hoaxer. You can read this person's past edits here.

Even though the IP address is being traced back to Stamford, CT, it's also entirely conceivable that the user was concealing his true IP address. One person who knows a lot about internet technology said, "They have software out there that you install on your computer that will change your IP address and location or origin that people will see on the Internet. IP spoofing is a little more technical so with this user, based on the grammar, looks to be someone young using a software program of that nature."

More than likely, this person made a wild guess regarding the Benoit situation at the time, and this person turned out to be right.

that doesn't make sense then that "messages from Chris Benoit's cell phone were being sent to co-workers a few hours after the Wikipedia posting," the wiki updated 12:01 a.m. Monday and all five text messages were sent between 3:53 AM and 3:58 AM on Sunday, June 24.

There does seemed to be a marked difference in tone between a bunch of posts calling Ron Artest a nigger and a rapist/saying that Chavo Guerrero is a rapist with no penis, and inserting a factual claim about Chris Benoit's not that well-known wife.`I guess if was a shared WWE IP the earlier stuff was probably just all Bradshaw though.

Nancy Grace just said "theories fly that Benoit himself was actually murdered." Where?

I should really be asleep instead of rooting through this shit, but by this stage I'm expecting to wake up and find out Eddie Guerrero's grave is empty

Papa Shango be necromancing

Current Benoit Wiki:

On June 25, 2007, Benoit, his wife Nancy, and their 7-year-old son Daniel were found dead in their Fayetteville, Georgia home. Subsequent investigations are ongoing as to whether Chris Benoit had murdered his wife and son and then hanged himself, or whether circumstances appear to be different from the facts.

Good to know protecting the article kept out the poor-quality edits there kids

Jericho on Grace now

He really is the most well spoken man in wrestling, even though he was being interviewed by a complete retard.

Watching these Cable News shows the past few days has been a (depressing), eye-opening experience. Nancy Grace seems like she's just making up "rumors flying around," e.g., Chris Benoit was murdered and it was made to look like a suicide.

Yeah that's the first I've heard anyone say that, even on the net.

Nancy Grace is a fuckin moonbat.

the wiki thing = red herring

She just went off ranting BENOIT WAS A HERO!

This woman has to be an actress playing a character, I don't buy she is for real for one second. I'd only briefly seen her before.

Nancy Grace is a fuckin moonbat.

This is so right. I've never seen her show before. Where to start?

NANCY GRACE: I AGREE WITH YOU 200%!

TALKING HEAD: [What criminal liability does Benoit's Doctor potentially face?] ACCESSORY TO MURDER -- THAT'S ALL!

the wiki thing = red herring

You may be right. Why do you think so?

This is all so fucking insane. Grace is not helping.

And I *wish* she wasn't real.

Nancy Grace: "Susan Moss, weigh in!"

Susan Moss: "IT AIN'T OVER 'TILL IT'S OVER, AND THIS AIN'T OVER!"

Brilliant

That sounds like especially bad wrestling dialogue.

^^^^ OTM.

You have to see the guest(Moss) deliver that line. So falsely impassioned, so immediate! She's! Telling! You! Like! It! Is! WHEN NO-ONE ELSE WILL!

Although to be fair that is kinda the standard delivery for all Straight Shootin Pundits that are Lookin Out For You tm.

Yes. By the way, an ex-wrestler on MSNBC now is speaking more calmly, straightforwardly and in a more articulate way than anyone I've heard this evening. His real name is Mark Mero. Who is he in the wrestling world?

nobody.

He used to be Wildman Mark Mero, then Mark Mero, then "Sable's husband," then "Sable's ex-husband."

aka nobody

Marc Mero was an awesome worker that vince saddled with a JOhnny B. Badd/even-more-effiminate Little Richard gimmick.

http://img.search.com/thumb/6/6c/Johnny_B_Badd_1.jpg/180px-Johnny_B_Badd_1.jpg

He later married Sable, then divorced

xp

oh shit i forgot johnny b. badd ha

Mero just spoke again. He may be a nobody in terms of his wrestling profile, but he sounds much more level-headed and smart than others I've heard on cable news shows tonight.

Marc Mero sounds smarter than Jericho IRL? This I gotta see. What show was he on?

btw Susan Moss was hideous in tone and appearance, where do they find these people

Marc Mero sounds smarter than Jericho IRL?

Yes, I thought so.

So this was on Scarborough or something? There's a replay later tonight.

lol @ wrestling fans getting mindz blown over nancy grace.

Yes, on Scarborough's show. Mero pulled out a list of 25 wrestlers who he's competed with or against who are now dead. He spoke candidly and coherently. Maybe I'm giving him too much credit because of how foolish many of the others sounded, but I thought he acquited himself very well.

lol @ wrestling fans getting mindz blown over nancy grace.

I'm not a wrestling fan anymore, and I haven't watched it in years. But -- after watching just one episode -- I'm even less of a Nancy Grace fan.

Steve Austin's ex-wife was on Hannity & Colmes tonight. She said Austin took steriods, then beat her so badly that wrestling co-workers saw the obvious bruises on her. But the abuse was covered up by the WWE, because Austin was the company's top performer:

Marshall was asked if anything was ever said to her about the bruises. "No. They're not going to rat on the top moneymaker in wrestling and everyone else knew this was going on but no one was going to stop it because Steve would make millions of dollars for Vince (McMahon). I just knew when this happened to Nancy and her seven year old little boy. Maybe if I spoke up before, I could have saved Nancy and her boy."

It was said that there was a cover-up by WWE of "all this domestic abuse." Debra nodded and said, "Yes. To WWE, the wrestlers, we're nothing but tools. We're moneymakers. The people that make all the most money - you don't want bad publicity on them. They're the ones that sell the T-shirts. They're the ones that make the most money. They make the draw. For to have Stone Cold Steve Austin arrested? Oh my God. They so put that under the table. They hush hushed it and had me sign a gag order on me for a year that I couldn't talk about this because I could totally bring down their top star."

Yikes. The type of attack she described has an eerily familiar ring to it. Austin allegedly "jumped on me with his knee in my back pounding me in the back and in the face."

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CHRIS-BENOIT-RIP-Background-Digital-PORTRAIT-WWE-L-K_W0QQitemZ150136344786QQihZ005QQcategoryZ73416QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I think this is the first time under the new ILX that the most read thread of the week isn't a Balkan thread. So kudos to Nancy Sullivan and all her fans on a tremendous achievement.

Don't underestimate our standard ILX trainwreck threads, which will hill 1K+ within 8 hours.

http://www.celebritypicturesarchive.com/pictures/n/nancy-sullivan/nancy-sullivan.jpg
WOMAN
woe-man
whoooa-man.

She was a thief
you gotta believe
she stole my heart and my cat
Betty, Judy, Josie and those hot Pussycats
they make me horny,
Saturday morny
girls of cartoo-ins
will leave me in ruins
I want to to be Betty's Barney
Hey Jane
get me off this crazy thing
called love.

has anybody talked to Kevin Sullivan yet?

"So I married a Suplex Murderer"

Yeah kingfish he was interviewed in one of the articles...I'll see if I can find it.

Nancy Benoit Remembered By Ex-Husband Kevin Sullivan
By Gia Cortina
Jun 27, 2007

Former professional wrestler Kevin Sullivan was shocked and sad when he heard about the death of his ex-wife Nancy Benoit. Nancy was discovered dead in her home Monday along with her 7-year-old son Daniel and husband, WWE Superstar Chris Benoit, in an apparent murder-suicide.

Sullivan married for the former Nancy Daus in 1985. The couple were still married in the 1990s when a scripted rivalry between Benoit and Sullivan in the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling (WCW) resulted in Beniot as the victor on the mat, reports Fox News.

Besides his mat victory that night, Benoit also was victorious with Nancy, as a real-life romance began in 1997.

Ultimately, Nancy divorced Sullivan and married Benoit in 2000. The couple did not have any children.

Sullivan resides in Tavernier, Florida, within the Florida Keys, where he and his now wife Linda own and run a gym called 'Froggy's Fitness'.

Sullivan told Fox News that he had not spoken to his ex-wife since their split...and that he learned of the grisly crime, which reportedly took place over several days, from television news on Monday evening.

"It's surreal," said Sullivan. "She was a nice person. We just went our separate ways. She was nice and very loving and I'm sure she was a good mother."

Sullivan also said that he did not know Benoit well outside the ring. "I never associated with him, so I really don't know his personality," he said. "(But) I'm sad for all three, especially the child."

Nancy had her big break in professional wrestling as a valet and manager 26 years ago.

In June 1984 she was featured on the cover of Wrestling All-Stars Magazine. Before this break, she worked as a model and sat ringside to watch pro-wrestling matches.

One month after her magazine shoot, Nancy and Sullivan met. Reportedly, they quickly fell in love and soon, Nancy was a part of Sullivan's entourage in Florida Championship Wrestling. As part of the 'Santanists," Nancy became known as 'Fallen Angel'.

They were married the following year and Nancy's career in professional wrestling grew.

In 1989, she joined the WCW and sat ringside to support brothers Rick and Scott Steiner. She took on the persona of Robin Green, who was supposed to be obsessed with Rick Steiner.

It was during that match though that Nancy revealed herself as a new character...Woman...her distraction cost the Steiner Brothers the match.

Now, with her new persona, Nancy left the WCW.

However after several years assisting Sullivan independently and doubling as a valet in the ECW, most notably for Sandman and 2 Cold Scorpio, both Nancy and Sullivan made a move back to the WCW in 1994.

By the end of the year, Nancy became the manager of the Four Horseman...Ric Flair, Brian Pillman, Arn Anderson and Chris Benoit.

It was then that Nancy began her on-screen storyline relationship with Benoit, which eventually turned into a real-life relationship and the dissolution of her marriage to Sullivan.

But there may be more to that divorce than meets the eye.

According to Fox News, Sullivan's supposed intent in the late '90s was to retire from wrestling and focus on a career in booking, according to various media reports. However, Kevin is said to have caused Nancy to quit wrestling when he created a pay-per-view skit where she would appear topless; Nancy refused.

Sadly, the storybook beginning of Nancy's life in professional wrestling ended in tragedy.

Marc Mero was an awesome worker that vince saddled with a JOhnny B. Badd/even-more-effiminate Little Richard gimmick.

To be fair, it wasn't Vince. Johnny B Badd was his WCW character, so blame Jim Herd for that.

That Mero interview is on again right now.

I only realised a few years ago that Marc Mero wasn't black.

These things take time.

Oh shit Meltzer is on Scarborough, too. I've never actually seen him on TV before.

Most of the mainstream outlets that refer to this scripted rivalry fail to mention that Sullivan wrote that shit himself and lost his wife as a result

WE HAVE A NEW WINNER

[link to www.johnnyleeclary.com]By Johnny Angel

(Former Pro Wrestling Champion)

Now known as Rev. Johnny Lee Clary

World-Wide Evangelist
IMAGE ( [link to www.johnnyleeclary.com]
Kevin Sullivan
(Is he the real killer of Benoit and his family?)

The late Chris Benoit and his wife Nancy

The tragic deaths of Chris Benoit and his wife Nancy and son Daniel have shocked the wrestling world. The police are calling it a double-murder-suicide, but is it really? Let’s look at some facts. It has been 10 years exactly since Nancy divorced Kevin Sullivan to marry Chris Benoit. In the 1980’s Sullivan, along with his then-wife Nancy, were running a gimmick in wrestling of how they were Satanists, and Nancy was known as “The Fallen Angel.” She later became known as “Woman.” The trouble with the Satanists gimmick was it was for real, and was not a work, or fake. In the 1990’s Kevin Sullivan was the booker for WCW, and he scripted his wife Nancy into having an affair with Chris Benoit who was a member of the Four Horsemen. This made for a good angle, except, the acting became reality as Chris and Nancy actually fell in love and Nancy divorced Sullivan to marry Benoit.

Benoit left the WCW to go to work for the WWE which was then known as the WWF. It is a fact that Sullivan threatened Benoit and told him he would kill him. Yes, that was 10 years ago, but Kevin Sullivan is no dummy. He is known for being a calculating, cold-hearted individual. Today, according to a source close to me, Kevin Sullivan is a high ranking member of the Satanic Church. The police need to consider the possibility that Sullivan carried out these gruesome murders in order to have his revenge, which is what Satanists live for. He could have entered the home, with an accomplice or accomplices and held the Benoit’s at gunpoint, Sullivan could have then bound up Nancy, and made Benoit and his son watch as he strangled the life out of her. Then the next day after making Benoit and his son spend the day in agony, murdered Benoit’s little boy because of his hatred for the offspring of Benoit and Nancy. Then he could have made Benoit wait an entire day before killing him to by hanging him in the basement.

By doing this, not only would Kevin Sullivan have lived out his Satanic Church creed with his lust for revenge, but he would have destroyed Chris Benoit’s reputation which is what has happened now as the wrestling world is attacking the memory of Chris Benoit remembering him as an insane baby killer and wife killer instead of the great World Champion wrestler and friend that he was.

Satanists hate the Bible and the police have stated that a Bible was found next to the bodies of Benoit’s wife and son. This would serve as a bizarre calling card as if to either say “What good did your Bible do you?” or to throw off investigators to keep them from suspecting Sullivan and his Satanists would have been involved.

Another thing to note is the fact that Kevin Sullivan was also associated with Sherri Martel, who died just a few days before the bodies of Chris Benoit, and his family was found, and the full details of Martell’s death have not been made known as of the time of this writing.

I wonder why the police have not even considered investigating the possibility the Kevin Sullivan killed Benoit, Nancy, and their child. It is certainly a possibility worth looking in to.

Also, Benoit was going to be crowned ECW World Champion on Sunday night. Why would he murder his family and kill himself when he was going to be on top again and make lots more money?

Why would he tie his wife up before killing her? He would have no reason to, but Kevin Sullivan sure would!

Sure he had some problems with Nancy, but that was 4 years ago and what married couple doesn’t have problems? Remember also that they reconciled and as far as everyone knows there has been no other incidents reported.

One also needs to consider the fact that Benoit loved his kids and was so proud of his son that was killed. His kids wore suits and ties to his wrestling events and was proud of their dad. He was loved and respected by all those who knew him.

In my opinion, there is no way he would have murdered his family. This whole murder case has Satanists written all over it and Sullivan is a Satanist and has the motive to murder them.

I am encouraging anyone who reads this to send this to police authorities and circulate it on the internet, so these facts can be investigated, before the case is closed and Benoit is written off in history a murderer. If Sullivan is the real killer, justice should be served! As a former Pro Wrestler myself, now a born again Christian and world wide evangelist, I am hoping and praying for justice no matter who is responsible.

lol

Dude I was on the Blame Sullivan shit days ago

Who is to Blame?

Your child could understandably be feeling betrayed, angry and confused by events, not knowing who to blame or who they can trust. You may find it helpful to explain who Kevin Sullivan is, and basically just claim it’s all his fault.

I'm kinda hoping Hogan turns up at some point soon. Then the lulz will kick into overdrive.

It might be that Rob Van Dam was right too though, and Benoit really was the victim of demonic possession - this would explain why it took K-Sul so long to kill him.

xxx-post
YAY, was wondering how long that was gonna take. I have an old book called Wrestling's Great Grudge Matches with a pretty awesome picture of Sullivan and "Fallen Angel" and some other girl looking like Mercyful Fate groupies or something.

this isn't the one I meant but it's similar:
http://www.wrestlingmuseum.com/images/photos/sullivn1.gif

An update on Blatt's post from this afternoon: according to Wade Keller at PWTorch.com, the Wikipedia edit "has now apparently been traced to someone who has made previous prank posts, and who also may have been able to falsely make it appear as if Stamford was the originating IP location even if it wasn't." Adds Keller, "the IP address used has been linked to previous vile sexual, anti-gay, and racist prank posts on Wikipedia in the past related to Stacy Keibler, The Sopranos, and Ron Artest. That IP address has also been linked to a highly offensive post on Chavo Guerrero's Wikipedia page."

They make it sound like it was some high-tech 24 shit instead of clicking "history" at the top of the page

hoo boy read Johnny Angel's wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Lee_Clary

I'm not sure where this edit fits in the timeline:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chris_Benoit&diff=next&oldid=140551735

That's the kind of thing that can send a man over the edge.

8 of those 3000 Chris Benoit memorial pics on eBay were sold, a shameless $7.92 cash in.

x-post
hahaha the things a kid will edit in when he just blew $40 on a bullshit PPV where the best match scheduled didn't happen.

Wiki vandalism case solved:

http://spring.newsvine.com/_news/2007/06/29/808872-the-college-student-who-knew-about-the-benoit-murder-suicide-before-police

"At one point he also replaces the entire page on the African Wild Ass with, simply, 'piss.' "

Worth it for that.

hoo boy read Johnny Angel's wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Lee_Clary

-- marmotwolof, Friday, June 29, 2007 9:10 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Or even better his website...xkkk.org
I believe Ann Coulter is the greatest Christian Motivational Political speaker alive today.

http://www.torontosun.com/FrontPage/2007/06/29/torcover.jpg

Beautiful.

http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/users/nws/spring/809002.jpg

lol

Maybe get Ron Artest to pull his pants down and make him walk the streets of Connecticut while he follows him in a small car

OH SHIT HERE WE GO:

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior will be on Fox News on Hannity & Colmes tonight, at 9 PM Eastern discussing the Benoit situation.

Oh, thank God. I was worried I wasn't going to hear his opinion.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

MOMMA SET THE TIVO

Why? What do you expect him to say? Is he just a loose cannon?

Google "queering don't make the world work", Danny.

Or "destrucity".

damn someone best youtube that shit immediately!

Oh, my.

Man, there's no justice is there? Benoit dead and the Ultimate fucking Warrior on Fox News gloating about Vince McMahon because of it. I guess if Warrior had tried to kill someone he'd just have collapsed sucking wind two minutes into his pre-murder promo though.