When Our Heroes Become Demons

In a quiet, suburban Atlanta home this week a pro wrestler by the name of Chris Benoit took his own life. This may not be the current media storm that it is if he had not also taken the lives of his wife and his seven-year-old son. I admit I have not followed wrestling much in the last five years. Most of what I see these days comes from what isn’t yanked off YouTube but I used to be quite a fan. I recall sitting with my kid brother watching Superstars on Saturday mornings, cheering on our favorites (for me, as a kid, that was Macho Man with his flashy costumes and voice that sounded as though he had Esophageal cancer) and later emulating the moves in our living room much to the chagrin of our mother. Mothers seldom understand that a broken coffee table and a hole in the wall are acceptable loses in attempting the perfect body slam. We had a fine collection of wrestling paraphernalia in our basement toy boxes. We had plush wrestling buddies, video games, thumb puppets, trading cards and those old hard LJN wrestling figures that could put you in a coma, especially the King Kong Bundy figure, should your brother happen to smash you upside the head with one. I even made an Ultimate Warrior scarecrow one Halloween completing my creation with a small, hidden tape recorder playing interviews of the Warrior in all his loony glory. Playing the video games, creating our own fantasy tournaments and arguing over who got to win to better our “story lines” are some of my fondest memories of my brother and I growing up. My father used to take us to dingy bars, us kids always being the youngest in the place, order a beer for himself and a plate of fries for us and together we’d watch the WWF Pay-per-views. When they announced one year that they would be playing Wrestlemania 5 on a large screen in our small town sporting arena we begged our dad for tickets and, sparing no expense, he got us second row. Superstars on Saturday afternoons turned to RAW on Monday nights. Such evenings were spent with large bowls of popcorn and cups of whatever carbonated tooth-rotting beverage was sitting in the fridge. Like many fans I jumped ship to WCW when the nWo was born and like many more I jumped back to WWF when the nWo was born again, and then again and then again. I was around when Hulkamania was running wild, when Bret was the best there was and when Austin was “stunning” audiences from New York to Iraq. The pinnacle of my fandom came when I sat in the middle section of SkyDome for Wrestlemania X-8 as Hogan and the Rock put on a match for the ages.

After this my interest wavered and eventually flickered out for what I consider to be a number of possible reasons. The first, and least likely, was that I simply grew up and out of it all. Possible, but I don’t think so. I believe it was more a downward turn in the storytelling, the constant elevation of the same wrestlers over what I considered to be the more talented younger guys and, simply, over exposure. Monday nights were now also Sunday nights and Saturday nights and Thursday nights and monthly Pay-per-views. With the splitting of the roster that occurred in 2002, and so much wrestling to follow each week, I could not keep up and as the daily grind of my adult life began to expand wrestling faded off into the shadows of my youth. Of course, it wasn’t completely lost and I would revisit from time to time either catching a Pay-Per-View or pausing during a channel flicking brigade whenever I saw a wrestler of interest flash by the screen. Such men were few. After growing out of my adoration of Macho Man (really, Randy, Slim Jim commercials are one thing but a hip-hop album?) I became a fan of Bret Hart. To this day he remains my favorite wrestler both in and out of the ring as time and time again Hart proves he is a man of principals that cannot be compromised and astute professionalism. As for wrestlers that were still active (Hart retired in 2000 after a career ending injury followed by a stroke) there were only two men that could always get me to stop channel surfing if I happened upon them in the squared circle. Those men were Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit.

These two shared many similar traits to the legendary Hart. Both were trained by Hart’s father in the fabled dungeon in Calgary. Both had gained prominence in WCW before hoping aboard the great ship McMahon where they would eventually reach higher rungs of the ladder. Finally, and most importantly, both, like Hart before them, were mat technicians, actual wrestlers in an era of sensationalistic story lines, a barrage of gimmick matches and shows which relied heavily on talking and less on actual wrestling. If Jericho or Benoit were in the ring you were, as Mr. McMahon was so fond of saying, guaran’damn’teed an amazing match. Benoit, in the eyes of many of his peers and fans, Jerchio included, is considered the best wrestler of the modern era. With a vast arsenal of moves ranging from ground attacks to high-flying headbutts, Benoit didn’t need to be good on the mic, he didn’t need over the top stories or gimmicks. Benoit did his talking in the ring, there is where his stories unfolded and, win or lose, you could be sure that the match would be an exciting one. Benoit was a bit of an anomaly in today’s wrestling world. For starters, he was a small man in a sport of larger then life behemoths. To give you an idea just how undersized he was one need only look at some of the names of the champions that reigned in the early part of this new millennium:

Triple H: 6'4" | 246 lbs
The Rock: 6'4" | 250 lbs
“Stone Cold” Steve Austin: 6' 2" | 250 lbs
Hulk Hogan: 6'7" | 287 lbs
The Undertaker: 6'9" | 305 lbs
Bill Goldberg: 6'4" | 285 lbs
Batista: 6'6" | 290 lbs
Scott Steiner: 6'1" | 280 lbs
Kevin Nash: 7' | 322 lbs
Booker T: 6'3" | 250 lbs
Sid Vicious: 6'9" |317 lbs
Diamond Dallas Page: 6'5" | 230 lbs

Chris Benoit? Chris clocked in at 5'12" and weighed 234 lbs. Were he lacked in size he made up for in ability. Benoit was intense in the ring showcasing how much of the business was ingrained into him. This was his life and one he had been living for over 25 years. He had had no other jobs. He lived and breathed wrestling from Canada to the US to Japan doing battles with legends and passerby’s honing his craft with meticulous precision until he became what many have called him over the last few days: the absolute best. Many wrestlers would claim they started down the path of the wrestling business because of Benoit, many looked up to him, idolized him and considered him a hero of the industry. When you look at what he accomplished with what he had this is not a shocking revelation. Benoit wasn’t a Rock or an Austin on the mic. He didn’t sell as many T-shirts as The Undertaker or Triple H. He wasn’t in procession of the mountainous girth of a Sid Vicious or a Kevin Nash. He had no popular catch phrases, blinding pyro or flashy ring attire. He had a weapon better then all of the above combined. Chris Benoit had respect. Not only the respect of the legions of wrestling fans but also that of the boys in the back. Don’t take my word for it but listen to some of Benoit’s peers who have commented in the wake of the tragic events of this week:

“Chris was an incredible person, wrestler and friend. To the wrestling business he is the epitome of excellence, an example of dedication and passion, someone who lived their dreams.” –Trish Status

“I remember as a teenager watching Stampede wrestling. I was Toronto and I’d watch Stampede from Calgary and I saw this 18-year-old guy called Chris Benoit start his career and I thought…that guy’s awesome. He’s going to be something. And he became one of the greatest to ever put on a pair of boots.” –Edge

“It’s so hard to go through this…with someone I respected as a person, as a friend, as a wrestler. To be in the ring with Chris Benoit it was like…there was no other person like him in the ring. When you got in the ring with him it was such a pleasure, a privilege and an honor to be in the ring with him.” –Chavo Guerrero

“He was a good man. God, he truly lived for the business. He did everything for it. He respected everything about this business. His set of ideals towards this business were something that I looked up to. I appreciate everything that he’s done.” –John Cena

“I can’t speak for everybody, I can’t speak for the fans, I can’t speak for all the guys, everybody in this business, everybody in this studio but I’m pretty sure that everybody Chris ever met…they respected him. I can speak for myself and Chris there was no one in this world that I respected more then you. And I’m saying that not because you’re not here. I’m saying that because you earned it.” –Triple H

“I feel honored and privileged to spend some 15 year with him in and out of the ring. As an opponent? There’s nothing better then being in the ring with somebody who pushes you, somebody that tries to take you to the next level and I think Chris did that for me and so many other opponents. Chris is so unselfish when it came to with working with young talent and really helping them hone in on their skills. So many of the young guys in the business can feel very fortunate that they got the opportunity to watch Chris Benoit, to get in the ring, that they learn from probably one of the greatest wrestlers I’ve ever had the opportunity to get in the ring with and share my life with.” –Dean Malenko

“I want to tell the world that I think Chris Benoit is one of the most talented individuals I’ve ever known in my life. The guy is probably one of the most honest people I’ve ever known in my life, one of the hardest working people I’ve ever known in my life and I’m going to miss the guy.” – Steve Austin

“Chris was just an incredible man, he was an incredible performer and I will always know him as my friend.” –Stephanie McMahon

“Chris Benoit was my hero and I was privileged enough to be able to work with him and to know him as a person and to call him my friend. Even though I will never get to wrestle him he taught me a lot. I just hope I can do his memory good by being the best that I can be.” –CM Punk

“Chris Benoit was undoubtedly the hardest working man in professional wrestling, the most dedicated and totally absorbed in the business of profession wrestling…over anybody I’ve ever met. He was the absolute best.” –William Regal

“…one of the greatest WWE Superstars of all time.” –Vince McMahon

“Not only was he one of the greatest wrestlers I ever saw but he was also one of the best friends I’ve ever had in this business.” –Jim Ross

“All I can say about Chris is that he was a very solid guy and this is very uncharacteristic of him. He was a lot like my brother Owen…just a very solid, sound guy. I love Chris just like a brother and my whole family is just devastated by this.” –Bret Hart

“He was my mentor, he was one of my best friends and he was a brother to me in so many ways.” – Chris Jericho

Benoit was a dying a breed. A wrestler in an industry of Sports Entertainment. A David in the valley of Goliath’s. Though I had dwindled in my support of wrestling I sat watching Wrestlemania 20 on March 14, 2004 only to see Benoit in the main event in the biggest match of his career. After over 20 years in the business Benoit had finally made it to the top and I found myself, like the others, looking up to him. Here was a guy who started out in Canada when he was 18. He modeled himself after the Dynamite Kid so much so that he went by the ring name of “Dynamite” Chris Benoit. His early career would take him to Japan where he would wear a mask and call himself The Pegasus Kid. Here Benoit truly cut his teeth, found his style and began putting on the amazing matches fans would become so used to when he started achieving success in the United States. Benoit would join the fledgling ECW promotion where he earned the nickname The Canadian Crippler and then found himself in WCW in 1995 where he soon would be part of the elite wrestling stable of The Four Horsemen. There he would have some brutal matches with Kevin Sullivan (Sullivan, a WCW booker at the time, would put Benoit into a story line involving his wife Nancy which become a real life affair that eventually broke up Sullivan’s marriage), a brilliant series of matches with Booker T, some mat classics with Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerrero and in probably one of the most touching wrestling matches ever staged Benoit would wrestle Bret Hart in a tribute to Bret’s brother Owen who had lost his life in a ring accident a few months before. Wearying of lingering in the mid-card and booking issues with Sullivan, Benoit moved on to rival promotion WWE. Throughout his career Benoit never wavered despite the odds, kept on pushing, earning the respect and the accolades until finally he could no longer be ignored. In the WWE he continued to put on stellar matches outshining even the top tier talent. However, Benoit was never elevated to a main event status until 2004 when he shocked wrestling audiences by winning the Royal Rumble, lasting over an hour in the ring, to finally get his shot at the big one and a match in the main event at Wrestlemania 20. This was the classic underdog story so many screenwriters chomp at the bit to pen. Benoit was Balboa in 2004 and when he entered the ring I, like many others, didn’t think he had a chance but I knew whatever the outcome Benoit was going to work some magic. Again the odds were stacked against him. You had fan favorite Shawn Micheals in the ring with him as well as Triple H, a man who had held the strap longer and more frequently then anybody else in the last five years. In the final seconds, when Benoit clamped in his finishing move on the champion I was a kid again, to my feet, popcorn bowl crashing to the floor, screaming at a television set and when the hand of the champion hit the mat, tapped out, and Benoit’s arm was raised as a champion I was applauding. The underdog had won, the man whom so many respected was finally given what he deserved. With Benoit in tears, the belt slung over his shoulder, friend Eddie Guerrero entered the ring and as the confetti began to fall and the audience roared the two shared an embrace. These were not actors in a story line at this moment. These were friends who had climbed the ladder together, drove that long road, bled, cried and sweated to finally be at the top. With so much history, with so much real life back-story, this was the most amazing moment I have ever witnessed in all of my years watching wrestling. Only three years later both men would be dead, one legacy destroyed and a moment of such tenderness now tainted by such horrible, unfathomable tragedy.

Let me reiterate, I haven’t watched wrestling consistently for a number of years now. I knew wrestling wasn’t real even when I was a kid and though aspects of the sport were fake I did understand how these performers put their bodies on the line to entertain us, how there is no off season in wrestling and how the industry can take it’s toll. In the last few years this has been such a sad fact. Despite not keeping up on the business in regards to watching the programming I do keep up on the sport by reading online forums, visiting websites that recap shows and watching choice matches when they can be found lingering about the Net. This week I was actually excited about a match for the first time in awhile. Here would be an up-in-coming sensation named CM Punk taking on the great Chris Benoit. In many people’s minds this was shaping up to be the match of the year. Imagine my surprise when I logged on to read the recaps that night to find Benoit did not appear due to a family emergency and that this match would not take place. Well, I shrugged, I was sure before the year was out these two would meet. How wrong I was. A few hours later I returned to the website to read that Benoit was dead and along with him his wife and child. The floodgates had just been open. I refreshed the page. Certainly this was a mistake. Not Benoit! Not another. I instantly thought back to my first experience with a death in the sport of wrestling. In tuning into a Pay-Per-View event in 1997 I was saddened to hear Vince McMahon announce the death of Brian Pillman. Two years later Owen Hart would fall to his death. Soon to follow would be Yokozuna, The British Bulldog, Hawk, Mr. Perfect, The Big Boss Man, Bam Bam Bigalo, Mike Awseome, Miss Elizabeth, Crash Holly, Ravishing Rick Rude, Earthquake and Junkyard Dog to name athletes I was familiar with. A statistic has been tossed out a lot by the media these last few days: more than 60 wrestlers since 1985 have died before reaching the age of 65. Suddenly wrestling didn’t seem so fake. In fact, it was very, very real.

As I stated at the beginning, if Benoit had just been another wrestling death in a long line of wrestling deaths he would not be making front pages, CNN headlines or be the primary focus of panel discussions. This week Chris Benoit became a murderer, a child killer and the gap-toothed grin of the Canadian Crippler, the Rabid Wolverine, has become the smile of a monster. This beast does not have fangs. It does not have thatches of matted fur or even claws. This monster lingers deep within the souls of man, a demon some of us are fortunate to never unearth. Benoit was not so lucky. With each passing day, with each new report or press conference the news became more and more surreal and the deeper we dove the more horrendous were the findings. Bounds. Needle marks. Bibles. Choke holds. Everything, all of it, were painful daggers to a fan like me. You didn’t want to believe it but you had to. The floodwaters were raging now and there was no going back against this torrent. Benoit, in taking the lives of his wife and son, has not only hurt the industry he was so much conjoined to, hurt his fans and peers, the young wrestlers who looked up to him, and tarnished what was such a phenomenal legacy but he has also became the darkest part of humanity. Chris Benoit has become his demon.

The press has lapped up this story like hungry wolves and the WWE has been left with bloody hands being labeled, in oh so many words, as an accomplish to this crime. When steroids were found in Benoit’s home it was the ammunition the press has been waiting for since the early 1990s. The gun was cocked, loaded and ready to fire. I don’t know all the facts of the matter but can say this: the WWE should not be washing the red off their hands here. They are not the monster and should not be held accountable for a crime they didn’t commit. Yes, wrestlers lead grueling existences with constant touring schedules, taxing tolls on their bodies and minds and for the better part of the year they lead lives far away from their families in a constant rotation of hotel rooms, rental cars, airplanes and arenas. The wrestlers know this life style when they enter into the sport and this is not just cause to implicate the WWE in these murders. And let’s cut right to the bone of this, the marrow of it all, even if the WWE knew Benoit had mental issues, which they claim they did not, Benoit was his own person outside of his contracted character. His place of work was not his master, parent or babysitter. There have been many similar cases of violence as in the Benoit tragedy in the past. Some recent examples:

February 2005: 36-year-old Arthur Lee Smith shot and killed his estranged wife, her boyfriend as well as the couple’s two children (both under the age of 6) in Indiana. He would later die by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

March 2005: A 32-year-old woman drowns her 6-year-old daughter and then hangs herself in Epping, NH. The woman, a COMAir employee, was suffering from depression.

December 2005: Micheal Richardson, an employee of Coral Graphics in Newport, KY, informed staff that he was “going home for lunch”. Richardson, returned to his house, killed his wife, 18-year-old daughter, her 17-year-old boyfriend and the family dog before surrendering to police after a 2 hour stand off.

April 2007: UPS employee Jay Vaetoe, 22, shoots his girlfriend and their 15-month-old daughter before killing himself in what is believed to be a conflict over ongoing relationship issues.

And just this month alone:

June 2007: 70-year-old William Wallace kills his wife and daughter in Altamonte Springs, FL. Police say the shooting was a result of a family conflict.

June 2007: A 32-year-old Sarasota man wrote a suicide note and turned on a gas generator in his kitchen, killing himself and his 4-year-old daughter.

June 2007: A Corpus Christi man strangled his wife and later hung himself in what is being compared to the Benoit murder/suicide.

June 2007: Leon Ovalle left his job at the Rose Restaurant in Dallas, TX and barricade himself in his apartment with his 4-year-old son. Ovalle had been drunk at the time. After a standoff with the police Ovalle shot his son twice in the chest and then shot himself to death.

June 2007: 48-year-old hospital worker Keith Northern shot and killed his wife and 16-year-old stepdaughter (he also wounded his 12-year-old stepson) before turning the gun on himself. Just hours before the family had been enjoying a picnic. A friend of the family said: “They don’t know what went wrong. It’s mind-boggling…”

June 2007: A 51-year-old Regional Parks worker said to be distraught over finances killed his wife and two daughters with a .357 magnum. “This was a very happy family," a neighbor said. "They were always laughing and playing. The father just lived for those little kids.”

And today:

June 2007: In Japan 43-year-old Hideto Sawada kills his wife and three sons (ages 13, 10 and 6). He flees the scene and is later found with his throat slashed, the police say suicide, in his car.

In these cases do we blame UPS, The Rose Restaurant, The Regional Parks, the hospital, Coral Graphics or ComAIR for not seeing possible warning signs and behavioral issues that may have presented the loss of life? Of course we don’t. The WWE is currently being raked across the coals in the name of sensationalistic journalism. In 2002 a report was released by the Violence Policy Center. The results were astounding although they received little if any coverage by the media. Martha Stewart was getting out of the slammer after all and there was another school shooting to report (which, come to think of it, should we cast disparaging commentary onto the school?). According to the report “663 people died in murder-suicides in the United States over a six-month period”. This is “an average of nearly two murder-suicides each day, every day. Seven states had more than 10 murder-suicides during the study period: Florida (35), California (29) and Texas (29), Pennsylvania (17), New York (14), Virginia (12), and Ohio (11).”

I state this research not to downplay the crimes of Chris Benoit but to say that this type of violence is hardly unique and, more so, to offer rational to deflect culpability from Benoit’s employees (who happen to be a multi-million dollar public company) by the media so quick in their condemnation. Everything from workload to steroids to possible plots by the WWE themselves to the violence of the sport breeding violent behavior and even an episode of RAW paying tribute to Benoit are all being used against the WWE in this week’s media thrashing. While some of these arguments, I admit, are valid and certainly debatable most are simply the media waging an all out assault on profession wrestling. Whether it is factual or not, the guns of the press are loaded, their fingers itching on the triggers and they are bringing their own bullseyes. One just needs to listen to O’Reily and Geraldo to see just how far the media will go. Incidentally, the WWE had no knowledge of the terrible facts of the case before they paid tribute to Benoit. All further broadcasts of the program have been pulled and Chairman Vince McMahon issued this statement: “Last night on Monday Night Raw, the WWE presented a special tribute show, recognizing the career of Chris Benoit. However, now some 26 hours later, the facts of this horrific tragedy are now apparent. Therefore, other than my comments, there will be no mention of Mr. Benoit tonight. On the contrary, tonight's show will be dedicated to everyone who has been affected by this terrible incident. This evening marks the first step of the healing process. Tonight, the WWE performers will do what they do better than anyone else in the world – entertain you.” The Friday evening Smackdown broadcast would continue to not mention Benoit’s name and the company website would remove all traces of Benoit to the point of removing his name from that storied Wrestlemania 20 main event. Over on WWE.com it is as though Chris Benoit never existed.

Outside of the steroids again, the main bullet the media has loaded is that statistic of over 60 wrestlers dying since 1985 before reaching the age of 65. This stat is certainly a sad and damning one but is it really unique to pro-wrestling? Let’s do another study here but this time use the music industry as our example. In keeping with the time frame given by the press I will only comment on 22 years. To be a little fair (as some can argue that music is far more vast then pro-wrestling) I will focus mainly on drug, alcohol and suicides and also attempt to stick to musicians of some notoriety. From 1970-1992 here is a list of 60 musicians that have died under the age of 65:

1. Sid Vicious (Age 21 – Drugs)
2. Darby Crash (Age 22 – Suicide)
3. Ian Curtis (Age 23 – Suicide)
4. Robbie McIntosh (Age 24 – Drugs)
5. Clifford lee Burton (Age 24 – Bus Accident)
6. Duane Allman (Age 24 – Motorcycle Crash)
7. James Honeyman-Scott (Age 25 – Drugs)
8. Randy Rhoads (Age 25 – Plane Crash)
9. Nick Drake (Age 26 – Suicide)
10. Hillel Slovak (Age 26 – Drugs)
11. Jimmy McCulloch (Age 26 – Drugs)
12. Gram Parsons (Age 26 – Drugs)
13. Jim Morrison (Age 27 – Drugs)
14. Jimi Hendrix (Age 27 – Suffocation due to inhalation of vomit)
15. Brian Jones (Age 27 – Death by misadventure)
16. Pete Ham (Age 27 – Suicide)
17. Alan Wilson (Age 27 – Suicide)
18. Janis Joplin (Age 27 – Drugs)
19. Ron “Pigpen” McKernan ( Age 27 – Gastrointestinal hemorrhage)
20. Tim Buckley (Age 28 – Drugs)
21. Danny Whitten (Age 29 – Drugs)
22. March Bolan (Age 30 – Car Crash)
23. Steve Clark (Age 30 – Drugs)
24. Andy Gibb ( Age 30 – Heart Virus)
25. Keith Moon (Age 31 – Drugs)
26. Ricky Wilson (Age 32 – AIDS)
27. John Bonham (Age 32 – Alcohol)
28. Keith Godchaux (Age 32 – Car Crash)
29. Keith Relf (Age 32 – Electrocution)
30. Donny Hathaway (Age 33 – Suicide)
31. Rushton Moreve (Age 33 – Car Crash)
32. Stan Rogers (Age 33 – Plane accident)
33. Bon Scott (Age 33 – Choked on his own vomit)
34. James Sheppard (Age 33 – Murdered)
35. Florence Ballard (Age 33 – Heart Attack)
36. Paul Williams (Age 34 – Suicide)
37. Phil Lynott (Age 34 – Drugs)
38. Phil Ochs (Age 35 – Suicide)
39. Graham Bond (Age 36 – Suicide)
40. Gene Vincent (Age 26 – Alcohol Abuse)
41. Harry Chapin (Age 37 – Car Crash)
42. Tim Hardin (Age 38 – Drugs)
43. Klaus Nomi (Age 39 – AIDS)
44. Clyde McPhatter (Age 39 – Alcohol Abuse)
45. John Lennon (Age 40 – Murdered)
46. Danny Rapp (Age 41 – Suicide)
47. Richard Manuel (Age 42 – Suicide)
48. Elvis (Age 42 – Heart attack)
49. Peter Tosh (Age 42 – Murdered)
50. Marvin Gaye (Age 44 – Murdered)
51. Freddie Mercury (Age 45 – AIDS)
52. Roy Buchanan (Age 48 – Suicide)
53. Tom Fogerty (Age 48 – AIDS)
54. Nico (Age 49 – Cerebral Hemorrhage)
55. Sonny Criss (Age 50 – Suicide)
56. Dave Prater (Age 50 – Car crash)
57. David Ruffin (Age 50 – Drugs)
58. Del Shannon (Age 55 – Suicide)
59. Chet Baker (Age 58 – Possible Suicide)
60. Red Sovine (Age 61 – Heart Attack)

It’s not just music, of course, but lists could be made of the film and television industry (read: Chris Farley, John Belushi, River Phoenix) and I am sure if one started digging into other forms of entertainment and sport one could comparatively come up with similar lists of artists and athletes who have died under the age of 65 in the span of 22 years.

What of the seven other cases of murder/suicide having occurred this month listed above? Why are these stories not receiving such coverage even as comparisons to the crime? What of the former police officer this month who has been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend and unborn child? Surely being a cop is just as stressful and physically and mentally taxing an occupation, if not more so, then being a professional wrestler. Why? Because the moment the word steroids was uttered by D.A. Ballard the press had all the evidence they needed to paint a nice big target on the WWE and now they are acting as judge, jury and executioner. It truly is sad to see this downplaying (in some instances, not all) of who is really at fault here for the death of two innocent people. Chris’s demon was his own. His hands are stained and his hands alone. A man has something called free will. If drugs were involved Benoit, at one point, had the right to abstain. If it was a mental disorder Benoit had the money to pay for treatment and counseling. In the end, Benoit and only Benoit is accountable for his actions. The media is buzzing about “Roid-rage” when the simple fact of the matter is that athletes in many sports, not just pro-wrestling, have been abusing steroids for years and there has been no other account of a wrestler (and I’d state other athletes but I have not done the research there to be confident in that claim) killing their family. I don’t know if steroids were involved, I don’t know Benoit’s mental condition prior to the attacks and I don’t know all the whys of this tragedy but unlike the media I am not speculating upon everything from the possible to the outlandish and I am certainly not casting blame on the industry of pro-wrestling. I am simply sitting back awaiting the facts as a man still trying to swallow all of this and come to terms with something he has trouble understanding.

How do our heroes become our demons? What causes a man of such stature, a man so adored by thousands, to do such heinous things? Repeatedly now, in many interviews by many different people, it has been said that this was out of character for Benoit, that the man they knew was a mild-mannered person who loved his family dearly. Chris Jericho stated in a recent interview that there has to be more here, much more and I have to agree with him. As we await toxicology reports and more facts to come to the surface, all that is certain now is two people have been murdered by a man nobody seemed to believe could commit such an act of violence. Fans, myself included, in the wake of this tragedy are finding it very hard to now distinguish the accomplishments of the man in the ring to the crimes of the monster outside of it. We are stunned by the loss of an amazing performer, maybe the best in the sport, while simultaneously trying to digest our feelings of anger towards a person who could kill his own child. Together we are coming to terms with the loss of a hero and are coming to grips with the face of a demon. Benoit’s legacy is quickly being destroyed one piece at a time. His action figures are being pulled from toy shelves, his name obliterated by the business he had stitched to his soul, his DVDs no longer are being sold by online retailers, fans are selling off merchandise, removing avatars and simply cursing the monster that they once cheered. Others, still is dazes of disbelief, are waiting, hoping for a kernel of evidence that will somehow vindicate Benoit of all wrongdoing in these crimes. People are offering up theories and excuses and explanations, things people have always done in times of great tragedy. We are also in mourning., maybe not the monster but the legacy, the career and the memories that now are a little darker. Looking back on Wrestlemania 20 now, seeing Benoit and Guerrero arms raised, seeing the Benoit family in the ring at a moment of great happiness is no longer a joyous feeling for me. Instead it is a frozen moment in time eclipsed by the shadows of the present. It will be very hard, if not impossible, to watch a match with Benoit in it and not think of the possible horrors he levied upon his wife and child. Others may be able to set aside the wrestler with the monster. I don’t know, at least at this moment, if I am able to do that. Benoit has exchanged exceptional wrestling matches for shame, debasement and abhorrence. Whatever side of the line they stand on, I think it is fair to say that everyone, from former fans like myself to current fans, have all been extremely shocked by hearing the words “Benoit” and “Murderer” in the same sentence. In this life Chris Benoit and his tarnished legacy are already atoning for these crimes and if the press has their way others will atone as well. In next life one has to believe that Chris is working on a crispy tan. This cloud is far from settled, the storm far from over, but when the smoke eventually clears, and it will, there will be other legacies and other heroes. There always has been and there always will be. Should Benoit be forgotten for his in-ring accomplishments? Should he only be remembered as the pro-wrestler who snapped one June weekend and murdered his family? I guess, ultimately, that is for the individual fan to decide. Seven days ago Chris Benoit was a man respected by his peers, a man of extreme talent and ability some say had no rival. He was a hero. Today he is a murdering media sensation. We may never know what caused this man to commit these atrocities but you can be sure of one thing: the demons, my friends, can gnaw and gnash at us all if we are not careful. No one is exempt. Even heroes.