Please note: This column was written for my wrestling web site. However, since I have been providing the news to all of you at Rajah.com I thought that I would share my thoughts and early reaction to the Benoit tragedy. I want to thank all of you for your support.
When I sat down Monday afternoon to pen my blog about WWE Vengeance never in my wildest dreams did I imagine in just a couple of hours I would be covering the most tragic story in my career as a professional wrestling journalist. I have been covering the business for nearly eight years and have never had a problem reporting a story. The death of Chris Benoit and his family completely changed that. From Monday until yesterday evening I sat glued in my office chair, breaking story after story. I can not begin to explain the number of emotions that I have felt since.
I got the call just before WWE.com made their announcement that Chris Benoit and his family were all found dead. In utter shock, I asked my source if they were sure this was not part of the ridiculous Mr. McMahon angle; they assured me that it was legitimate. Soon enough, WWE.com broke their story that Chris Benoit and his family had been found dead and that RAW had been changed to a tribute show. Absolutely devastated, Ryan and I had a meeting on how we were going to handle the story.
It did not take long for our server to overload with traffic with literarily thousands of people coming on the site at once to find out what had happened. We made the decision that it would be best to post the coverage in our PPV Live Center since it was equipped to handle large volumes of traffic. Throughout the night the story began to unfold and the shocking theory of double murder-suicide was revealed. When it was finally released that it was believed that Chris Benoit had killed his wife Nancy, his son Daniel, before taking his own life, my heart went to my toes and cold chills went down my back.
My reaction may have been similar to your own. How could this have happened? Benoit was a guy that I idolized. I’ve seen Chris wrestle in person on numerous occasions and have followed his career since he broke into mainstream pro wrestling. Watching a Benoit match was like watching a master of the ring gracefully perform. It didn’t matter who his opponent was, Chris made the match entertaining. His technical wrestling skills made him so much fun to watch and in my opinion were second to those of Bret Hart.
In fact, one of my favorite matches of all time is the Owen Hart tribute match that took place in WCW with Bret Hart taking on Chris Benoit on October 4, 1999. Incase you do not remember, the match was special because it took place in the building Bret’s brother Owen had died just in a few months earlier. I have watched the match over and over, admiring just how rare it is to see pure wrestling talent. Chris and Bret worked so hard that night; it was amazing to see the drive that both of them had. I’ll never forget the look in Benoit’s eyes when he and Bret embraced at the conclusion of the match. You could tell how just much he respected Bret and his family.
So how did Chris go from the quiet, hard working, well respected pro wrestler to the person that allegedly murdered his wife, their seven year old child, before taking his own? It’s a question that I am still struggling to answer. I’m really not even sure what to think. On one hand I’ve admired Benoit and see him as a wonderful person, on the other hand you see all that the police have said that he has done. I guess I share the same feelings that Booker T said that he had in an interview earlier today; I just want to pull out my hair!
I hadn’t let the story bother me until I got home late last night. I stood in my room and just began to cry. How could this happen? Why did this happen? How could anyone harm their wife? How could anyone harm their child? God, please give me the answer. The toughest thing as a journalist is trying to maintain your composer in times of turmoil. But this isn’t what I do. In pro wrestling we talk about a work, a shoot, a push, or a job; we don’t talk about murder, suicide, asphyxiation, and death. This isn’t my job. This isn’t why I run this site. However, Monday evening it became my responsibility to tell thousands of loyal visitors the terrible story. Talk about having the weight of the world on your shoulders.
Here I am, 22 years old, and fresh out of college. I’ve never had to do anything like this before nor have I never wanted to do anything like this before. The position that I was put in was one that I would not wish upon anyone. Sure, it’s wonderful owning a popular wrestling web site and having the connections as a pro wrestling reporter, but it’s never fun telling the world about a story as awful as this one. I can’t even say that I enjoyed breaking our traffic records; I’m glad that people come to our site and trust us with the news, but this is never a time that you think about increasing popularity. All I wanted it to do was end.
Now here I sit, wrapping up another day at the office. The site looks normal again but we’re still bombarded with sad and disturbing headlines. The national media is going to speculate, blow stories out of proportion, and try and put a black eye on the sport, but I, like most of you, am left searching. Searching for answers as to why this happened. What happened to the man I saw in that ring against Bret Hart that October night? What happened?
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