I fear that, seeing as how Chris rushed home yesterday due to a family crisis, this will be shown to be a real horror story. This is genuinely tragic. When I saw the headline on the Observer, I was stunned. How very, very sad.
Before jumping to conclusions (and I admit, I certainly did, since I'd previously only heard that Benoit had returned home to deal with "a family situation), it should be noted that 1wrestling.com has reported that the deaths were not by shooting and "[a]ccording to one source, Benoit said both his wife and son were throwing up blood and he needed to stay to take care of them." So who knows what happened.
While Vince and the WWE are certainly not to blame for this, despite their recent sickening death angle, let's hope they learn that in this industry death is not something to joke about and never do anything like this again. I'm not currently watching Raw (DVRing for later), so I don't know if they're doing the personal tributes or not, but it almost makes it hard for them to do those after doing fake tributes for a storyline the last few weeks. I almost wonder if they sent the crowd home in part because they realized there was no way they could do a ten-bell salute after doing the week before last. And surely nobody thought to intone "the show must go on"...
One more thing: I called my dad, a longtime wrestling fan (who only watches occasionally now), to tell him about this. I told him they were supposed to do the Vince tribute/memorial, but instead Vince was standing in the ring and announced that Chris Benoit, his wife, and his son had passed away. My dad's reaction was to LAUGH at how stupid this angle is getting. (Obviously he had a very different reaction when he realized this was not an angle.)
I've been a wrestling fan for over 20 years, and this is by far the biggest shock.....Just unreal and incredibly sad.
Based on the little we know, this story is going to get a whole lot worse in the days to come.
Another thing that is shocking to me is the lack on any news coverage in the mainstream. I hope WWE has learned a big lesson with this. Don't ever fake death's EVER again....
That was a hard show to watch, but I'm glad that I did. I've watched wrestling, off and on, for almost 30 years now, and for the longest time, I've always said that the two best I've ever seen are Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit. I always had a deep respect for Chris, in particular, due to the fact that I never once saw him do anything to demean his character or what wrestling meant to him and to the genuine fans, plus the fact that it was always reassuring to know that, no matter who he was pitted against, I knew that I would be engrossed and entertained, and I can think of no other tribute to him that I hope would mean more to him. I've been very fortunate in my life so far in that I have yet to lose anyone close to me, so seeing the pain that, in particular, Edge, Chavo and Dean Malenko were in was very affecting. Good God, how brutal is that? My sympathy goes out to anyone who has ever lost a loved one. I know that I'll face that one day; now I just count myself as lucky. For what it's worth, I thought that WWE put together a fitting tribute in what were, I'm certain, bewildering circumstances. Sadly, I suppose, it's because they have gotten a lot of practice at it lately. For anyone who belittled a fan who was upset over this bogus McMahon angle--well, this is why.
Mean Dean, unfortunately the notion that Benoit did it himself was the very first thing to came to my mind when I heard about this. I believe that CF Kane had the same idea. When the last thing you heard is that someone rushed home to deal with "a family situation" and now they're all dead, well, that doesn't sound too good. I actually felt better to hear that supposedly Benoit told someone his wife and son were very ill and vomiting up blood, so that is why he rushed home to attend to them. I thought maybe there was some freak medical condition and took out the whole family. Or, more horribly, Benoit didn't arrive in time and couldn't bear to go on living. But when I heard it was being investigated as homicides, well, what are the odds the family was extremely sick, Benoit went home to take care of them, and they all happened to then get murdered by an outside party? Pretty slim. In my experience murder-suicides are almost inevitably initially described as murders before they tell us the horrible truth, so that put me back to square one with my suspicions. I hope I am wrong.
I just linked to the article that Dean posted...god, I was afraid of just this sort of thing. The rumour that he rushed home because both his wife and son were 'coughing up blood' seemed odd--how would that happen, exactly? If the police report is true, that makes everything I saw and heard tonight even worse, if that's possible. What a terrible situation this is.
Unfortunately, it is probably time to face the horrible truth. While in theory Chris Benoit could be exonerated, in practice when the police state they believe they came upon a murder-suicide, they usually have extremely good reasons to say that, and I can't recall a single instance where they said that and later ended up retracting it.
I still hope that this is the extremely rare exception, but if it is not then I have to say that I cannot call Chris Benoit a hero, someone with integrity, a great family man, a person of character, or any of the other descriptions that have been used tonight. None of those descriptions apply to someone who would murder their own son and wife.
Again, let's hope that this is the extremely rare case where the police are wrong.
Like most of the other folks here, I'm totally at a loss. I cannot imagine how a man can take the life on his own child, only seven years old. Even before it was ruled a murder-suicide, the loss of a such a young person trumped the loss of a performer, no matter how great. I could go on about how horrible all those individuals who put over Benoit on Raw must feel right now. Not only them but any of us, inside or outside of wrestling, who felt a sense of loss or compassion for the man must feel . . I can't even find the words. I could begin to ponder how this will hurt an industry that Benoit supposedly loved and respected so much. But in the end, I keep going back to the unimaginable tragedy that 7-year old Daniel Benoit is no longer with us. Really, that is all that matters.
Well, Meltzer is referring to the case as "the Benoit murder/suicide" and saying that police believe Benoit murdered Nancy a few days ago, then also murdered his son and then finally killed himself. Again, this typically isn't something the police say lightly. They only say this kind of thing if they're 100% sure, as to do so otherwise would leave them open to lawsuits. So, at this point, I am personally assuming they are correct.
So now we have WWE Raw with a fake murder, followed a week later by a Raw that glossed over a real death in order to not interfere with the fake one, followed a week later by a Raw that spent three hours lionizing someone as a great family man and a loving person of integrity when they turn out to have murdered their own wife and (heaven forbid) their own innocent young son.
This is just absolutely sickening.
Although I hoped otherwise, I pretty much figured this is how it would turn out as soon as I heard the family was dead. The story about Chris Benoit running home to attend to his family because they were coughing up blood makes no sense, because people like that need to go to the hospital, not have a family member look after them at home. And, as I mentioned earlier, when the police said they were investigating it as a murder, it was almost impossible to believe that a family that was very ill then just happened to all get murdered by an outsider.
Oh well. Chavo Guerrero made a big point of saying that Chris Benoit was family to him, so I look forward to the entertaining storylines involving Chavo wearing a black armband and pointing to the sky for the next year. Maybe he can win an inspirational match or two on a big show for Chris.
I just read a much more detailed article...like Bob & Phil just wrote, this is beyond awful in every way imaginable. There seems to be little doubt now, and I am at a loss for words as well. I, of course, did not know the man beyond the person I saw on the screen, which is something that we all need to remind ourselves of, but knowing how highly so many who spoke tonight seemed to think of him, I can't imagine what men like Chavo and Malenko must be going through, either, and that is a nightmare I am grateful which I'll never have to share. It is fucking tragic. A goddam shame. I've said all I can about it now.
So now we have WWE Raw with a fake murder, followed a week later by a Raw that glossed over a real death in order to not interfere with the fake one, followed a week later by a Raw that spent three hours lionizing someone as a great family man and a loving person of integrity when they turn out to have murdered their own wife and (heaven forbid) their own innocent young son.
It really is an incredibly surreal string of events, no?
I can't imagine what men like Chavo and Malenko must be going through
That's what I was thinking in the first place, especially so recently after Eddie. All the newer stuff that's coming to light just compounds everything...
I really wonder what WWE would have done if the murder/sucicide stuff had come out with enough time before the show was set to air.
WWE.com currently has this caption and summary underneath the picture of a sneering Chris Benoit:
--
DOUBLE MURDER-SUICIDE
It has been ruled that the deaths of Chris Benoit, his wife Nancy and their son Daniel earlier today were the result of a double murder-suicide from within the home. WWE.com will have more as soon as it becomes available.
--
Meanwhile, the AP is reporting essentially what Meltzer said, that police believe Benoit murdered his wife and son over the weekend and then killed himself today. How creepy is it that he was possibly in phone discussions of whether or not he'd be able to make the Vengeance PPV when he'd already murdered his family?
Yeah, we don't need any "tribute" to this murderous piece of filth on ECW or Smackdown. If WWE has any integrity and any sense of public relations after the fiasco of the last few weeks, they'll never mention this idiot who murdered his own young son again. This is one case where I'd agree with their "the show must go on" mantra, as there's no point in disrupting a show for someone this vile.
Speaking of surreal, I did not do the WWE.com site justice. It is currently really something to behold, with its news that it's a murder suicide under the sneering Benoit picture, while to the right of that are tribute videos and testimonials.
It'll be interesting to see how long it takes them to scrub all the "Benoit was such a wonderful person" stuff off their site.
Christ, I don't feel all that great about the praise I just laid out about an hour ago, and that's an anonymous post being read by a couple of guys I don't know. How does anybody handle something like this, let alone a company which just devoted 3 hours of prime time to him? What a bewildering evening.
Great wrestler..but a man with some demons...I remember during the menenedez case a few years back and one of the police said who knows what goes on inside a family..well so true so true...I HOPE VINCE FEELS TWO INCHES TALL RIGHT NOW..BUT YOU KNOW HE DOESN'T
I don't think there's anything wrong with this discussion. A lot information came out, and it's only natural to want to talk about it as the news breaks.
28 Comments:
I fear that, seeing as how Chris rushed home yesterday due to a family crisis, this will be shown to be a real horror story. This is genuinely tragic. When I saw the headline on the Observer, I was stunned. How very, very sad.
This is a sad day for all wrestling fans.
First, my heartfelt condolences go out to Benoit's family and the wrestling community worldwide.
I'm not looking forward to learning the details of this ordeal because, yes I agree, chances are they will be horrible.
As for tonight, it will be interesting to see them go with "the show must go on" mentality, but this time actually, honestly mean it.
May "Toothless Agression" live forever.
- Matt in Anchorage
Unbelievable. Except for car racing which still might not be close, I don't believe any other industry has had so many sad deaths.
Chris Benoit, although he didn't say much, seemed like a genuine nice guy.
Just a shame.
Before jumping to conclusions (and I admit, I certainly did, since I'd previously only heard that Benoit had returned home to deal with "a family situation), it should be noted that 1wrestling.com has reported that the deaths were not by shooting and "[a]ccording to one source, Benoit said both his wife and son were throwing up blood and he needed to stay to take care of them." So who knows what happened.
While Vince and the WWE are certainly not to blame for this, despite their recent sickening death angle, let's hope they learn that in this industry death is not something to joke about and never do anything like this again. I'm not currently watching Raw (DVRing for later), so I don't know if they're doing the personal tributes or not, but it almost makes it hard for them to do those after doing fake tributes for a storyline the last few weeks. I almost wonder if they sent the crowd home in part because they realized there was no way they could do a ten-bell salute after doing the week before last. And surely nobody thought to intone "the show must go on"...
One more thing: I called my dad, a longtime wrestling fan (who only watches occasionally now), to tell him about this. I told him they were supposed to do the Vince tribute/memorial, but instead Vince was standing in the ring and announced that Chris Benoit, his wife, and his son had passed away. My dad's reaction was to LAUGH at how stupid this angle is getting. (Obviously he had a very different reaction when he realized this was not an angle.)
The AP is reporting the deaths are being investigated as a homicide.
I could not be more sad at this moment.
I've been a wrestling fan for over 20 years, and this is by far the biggest shock.....Just unreal and incredibly sad.
Based on the little we know, this story is going to get a whole lot worse in the days to come.
Another thing that is shocking to me is the lack on any news coverage in the mainstream. I hope WWE has learned a big lesson with this. Don't ever fake death's EVER again....
Incredible, it's being invetigated that Benoit may have done it himself...I'm speechless about this entire thing...
That was a hard show to watch, but I'm glad that I did. I've watched wrestling, off and on, for almost 30 years now, and for the longest time, I've always said that the two best I've ever seen are Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit. I always had a deep respect for Chris, in particular, due to the fact that I never once saw him do anything to demean his character or what wrestling meant to him and to the genuine fans, plus the fact that it was always reassuring to know that, no matter who he was pitted against, I knew that I would be engrossed and entertained, and I can think of no other tribute to him that I hope would mean more to him.
I've been very fortunate in my life so far in that I have yet to lose anyone close to me, so seeing the pain that, in particular, Edge, Chavo and Dean Malenko were in was very affecting. Good God, how brutal is that? My sympathy goes out to anyone who has ever lost a loved one. I know that I'll face that one day; now I just count myself as lucky.
For what it's worth, I thought that WWE put together a fitting tribute in what were, I'm certain, bewildering circumstances. Sadly, I suppose, it's because they have gotten a lot of practice at it lately. For anyone who belittled a fan who was upset over this bogus McMahon angle--well, this is why.
Mean Dean, unfortunately the notion that Benoit did it himself was the very first thing to came to my mind when I heard about this. I believe that CF Kane had the same idea. When the last thing you heard is that someone rushed home to deal with "a family situation" and now they're all dead, well, that doesn't sound too good. I actually felt better to hear that supposedly Benoit told someone his wife and son were very ill and vomiting up blood, so that is why he rushed home to attend to them. I thought maybe there was some freak medical condition and took out the whole family. Or, more horribly, Benoit didn't arrive in time and couldn't bear to go on living. But when I heard it was being investigated as homicides, well, what are the odds the family was extremely sick, Benoit went home to take care of them, and they all happened to then get murdered by an outside party? Pretty slim. In my experience murder-suicides are almost inevitably initially described as murders before they tell us the horrible truth, so that put me back to square one with my suspicions. I hope I am wrong.
I just linked to the article that Dean posted...god, I was afraid of just this sort of thing. The rumour that he rushed home because both his wife and son were 'coughing up blood' seemed odd--how would that happen, exactly? If the police report is true, that makes everything I saw and heard tonight even worse, if that's possible. What a terrible situation this is.
Unfortunately, it is probably time to face the horrible truth. While in theory Chris Benoit could be exonerated, in practice when the police state they believe they came upon a murder-suicide, they usually have extremely good reasons to say that, and I can't recall a single instance where they said that and later ended up retracting it.
I still hope that this is the extremely rare exception, but if it is not then I have to say that I cannot call Chris Benoit a hero, someone with integrity, a great family man, a person of character, or any of the other descriptions that have been used tonight. None of those descriptions apply to someone who would murder their own son and wife.
Again, let's hope that this is the extremely rare case where the police are wrong.
Like most of the other folks here, I'm totally at a loss. I cannot imagine how a man can take the life on his own child, only seven years old. Even before it was ruled a murder-suicide, the loss of a such a young person trumped the loss of a performer, no matter how great.
I could go on about how horrible all those individuals who put over Benoit on Raw must feel right now. Not only them but any of us, inside or outside of wrestling, who felt a sense of loss or compassion for the man must feel . . I can't even find the words. I could begin to ponder how this will hurt an industry that Benoit supposedly loved and respected so much. But in the end, I keep going back to the unimaginable tragedy that 7-year old Daniel Benoit is no longer with us. Really, that is all that matters.
Well, Meltzer is referring to the case as "the Benoit murder/suicide" and saying that police believe Benoit murdered Nancy a few days ago, then also murdered his son and then finally killed himself. Again, this typically isn't something the police say lightly. They only say this kind of thing if they're 100% sure, as to do so otherwise would leave them open to lawsuits. So, at this point, I am personally assuming they are correct.
So now we have WWE Raw with a fake murder, followed a week later by a Raw that glossed over a real death in order to not interfere with the fake one, followed a week later by a Raw that spent three hours lionizing someone as a great family man and a loving person of integrity when they turn out to have murdered their own wife and (heaven forbid) their own innocent young son.
This is just absolutely sickening.
Although I hoped otherwise, I pretty much figured this is how it would turn out as soon as I heard the family was dead. The story about Chris Benoit running home to attend to his family because they were coughing up blood makes no sense, because people like that need to go to the hospital, not have a family member look after them at home. And, as I mentioned earlier, when the police said they were investigating it as a murder, it was almost impossible to believe that a family that was very ill then just happened to all get murdered by an outsider.
Oh well. Chavo Guerrero made a big point of saying that Chris Benoit was family to him, so I look forward to the entertaining storylines involving Chavo wearing a black armband and pointing to the sky for the next year. Maybe he can win an inspirational match or two on a big show for Chris.
I just read a much more detailed article...like Bob & Phil just wrote, this is beyond awful in every way imaginable. There seems to be little doubt now, and I am at a loss for words as well. I, of course, did not know the man beyond the person I saw on the screen, which is something that we all need to remind ourselves of, but knowing how highly so many who spoke tonight seemed to think of him, I can't imagine what men like Chavo and Malenko must be going through, either, and that is a nightmare I am grateful which I'll never have to share. It is fucking tragic. A goddam shame. I've said all I can about it now.
So now we have WWE Raw with a fake murder, followed a week later by a Raw that glossed over a real death in order to not interfere with the fake one, followed a week later by a Raw that spent three hours lionizing someone as a great family man and a loving person of integrity when they turn out to have murdered their own wife and (heaven forbid) their own innocent young son.
It really is an incredibly surreal string of events, no?
I can't imagine what men like Chavo and Malenko must be going through
That's what I was thinking in the first place, especially so recently after Eddie. All the newer stuff that's coming to light just compounds everything...
I really wonder what WWE would have done if the murder/sucicide stuff had come out with enough time before the show was set to air.
"I really wonder what WWE would have done if the murder/sucicide stuff had come out with enough time before the show was set to air."
They have to be asking thesmelves that question as they have to produce an ECW show tomorrow.
WWE.com currently has this caption and summary underneath the picture of a sneering Chris Benoit:
--
DOUBLE MURDER-SUICIDE
It has been ruled that the deaths of Chris Benoit, his wife Nancy and their son Daniel earlier today were the result of a double murder-suicide from within the home. WWE.com will have more as soon as it becomes available.
--
Meanwhile, the AP is reporting essentially what Meltzer said, that police believe Benoit murdered his wife and son over the weekend and then killed himself today. How creepy is it that he was possibly in phone discussions of whether or not he'd be able to make the Vengeance PPV when he'd already murdered his family?
Yeah, we don't need any "tribute" to this murderous piece of filth on ECW or Smackdown. If WWE has any integrity and any sense of public relations after the fiasco of the last few weeks, they'll never mention this idiot who murdered his own young son again. This is one case where I'd agree with their "the show must go on" mantra, as there's no point in disrupting a show for someone this vile.
Speaking of surreal, I did not do the WWE.com site justice. It is currently really something to behold, with its news that it's a murder suicide under the sneering Benoit picture, while to the right of that are tribute videos and testimonials.
It'll be interesting to see how long it takes them to scrub all the "Benoit was such a wonderful person" stuff off their site.
Christ, I don't feel all that great about the praise I just laid out about an hour ago, and that's an anonymous post being read by a couple of guys I don't know. How does anybody handle something like this, let alone a company which just devoted 3 hours of prime time to him? What a bewildering evening.
Great wrestler..but a man with some demons...I remember during the menenedez case a few years back and one of the police said who knows what goes on inside a family..well so true so true...I HOPE VINCE FEELS TWO INCHES TALL RIGHT NOW..BUT YOU KNOW HE DOESN'T
Watching this tribute show, I can't help but wonder what do all those wrestlers think now that they were "honoring" a murderer.
VERY SAD!
This is a disgrace. Seriously.
All these posts.
I don't think there's anything wrong with this discussion. A lot information came out, and it's only natural to want to talk about it as the news breaks.
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