Self-contained Chris Benoit and GWE Talk

[The Thread Killer]

You have now been witness to "The Jingus Effect." Righteous indignation based on non-existent logic.

[Jingus]

And a response of people going "LOL, that's so st00pid!" without being able to explain exactly why any of my points are supposedly wrong, and then some random personal heckling, as displayed by Dave here.

 

 

I don't see what in-ring deaths like Plum Mariko have to do with Benoit. They're not the same thing.

Fine then, disregard all that and just stick to my several different examples of other wrestlers deliberately killing people.

[Dylan Waco]

I didn't vote for him for reasons that include all of the main ones already mentioned in this thread, on top of the fact that I've increasingly soured on his work anyhow.

 

I would also note that as a father there is something that I find especially disgusting about someone killing their own wife and child.

[The Thread Killer]

 

Even though nobody cares what people say about a guy on a messageboard on the internet, I don't think it's fair to lump a guy like Patterson in when talking about Benoit. It's not only in the same ballpark, it's not even the same game.

I'm not pretending it's ALL in the same ballpark. But I listed a dozen other wrestlers who have ended human lives, and I'm sure there are others whom I missed or who simply weren't caught. (Just from my personal circle of indy acquaintances: I know one convicted murderer, one bank robber, multiple statutory rapists, multiple domestic abusers, and countless drug dealers.) Yes, Benoit is probably the single worst example of a wrestler doing something hideous; but there's plenty of other examples of other guys doing incredibly evil, morally unforgivable things. Yet practically nobody seems to seriously suggest that we shouldn't vote for any of those other guys based on moral grounds.

 

...

 

My point, which you have continually refused to acknowledge, is that Benoit is not the only crazy person in the history of wrestling. There have been other murderers, other maniacs, other criminals. Benoit's arguably the worst for the sheer monstrousness of his acts at the time of his death, sure. But there are others. And how do you measure that stuff? Take the example of Hardbody Harrison, who kept at least eight (probably more) women as literal slaves and perpetual rape victims, locked up in houses he owned for years. That is astonishingly evil. Is enslaving eight people that much less-evil than killing two people? How do you quantify it at all?

 

I'm not making a single excuse for what Benoit did. I'm not on the "well, he was insane/concussed enough that we can't blame him" bandwagon. Right until his death, this guy kept performing a wide variety of complex tasks which indicate that his ability to comprehend the real world was largely intact. I'm simply saying that the wrestling business is so unbelievably full of sleazy shit that Benoit isn't as much of an unique outlier as many people like to portray him. As I said earlier, I personally know a wrestler who is now in prison for murder and a whole collection of other guys who've committed "lesser" crimes. The business is SO much scummier than most fans have any idea about.

 

 

I refuse to acknowledge your "point" because you have no point that I can see...at least no decipherable one.

 

I will not vote for Chris Benoit because he killed his wife and child, and I do not believe in giving credit, attention or respect to a person who killed his wife and child.

 

You have brought up a plethora of names and cases, and reminded us repeatedly that we have no idea how scummy wrestling really is. You know a bunch of wrestlers who are criminals and bad people. Of course Hardbody Harrison is a scumbag. Of course Larry Sweeney's suicide was tragic. But that has literally nothing to do with my refusal to vote for Benoit as the Greatest Wrestler Ever.

 

You're constructing a strawman argument and then getting upset when nobody buys into it, or if they tell you it makes no sense. If it makes you feel better, I will concede your point. Wrestling is a dirty business and it is full of dirty people, and you know a lot of them and none of us really have any idea how bad it really is.

 

As part of conceding to your point, I am going to contact Grimmas and ask him to take Hardbody Harrison off my ballot as my #1 pick. Because you see, I had no idea that Chris Benoit wasn't the only bad person in wrestling. Oh dammit, I had Jimmy Snuka as #2, and Jose Gonzalez as #3. And look there at #4...Larry Sweeney. I'm not sure what his commiting suicide has to do with this argument, but you brought him up, so he'd better come off my ballot too.

 

You say Chris Benoit was not as unique as people like to portray him. I say he is the only person who at one point in time might have had a serious chance of winning this vote, to then murder his wife and child, therefore eliminating him from contention in my eyes.

[Jingus]

So basically your argument is "none of the other people whose crimes were bad enough to bother me also happened to be good enough wrestlers to possibly be ranked, ergo Benoit is the only one who even counts for this"? Your point is that he's the only guy who's both a good enough wrestler and a shitty enough person to qualify for such special treatment?

 

I just don't understand the idea of disqualifying anyone for anything they did in their personal life. Steve Austin used to beat the shit out of at least one of his wives, but he's still in my top 10. I didn't rank Invader #1 or Jimmy Snuka, but other people did. After that, it becomes a matter of: where do you draw the line? I don't see a point in drawing any line at all. Just grade the work and leave the extracurricular horrors out of it.

 

Extrapolating it to another form of entertainment: despite OJ Simpson having stabbed two people to death, I still laugh my ass off at Nordberg getting beaten up by the whole universe in the Naked Gun movies. Roman Polanski is an unforgivable piece-of-shit child rapist, but that doesn't change my estimation that Repulsion, Chinatown, and The Pianist were all brilliant artistic masterpieces. John Landis managed to manslaughter a bunch of people including children on a movie set, but I still adore The Blues Brothers. The fact that the guy who played Half-Sack on Sons of Anarchy ended his life by murdering an old lady and then killing himself isn't something which keeps me from rewatching that show. I don't have a problem seeing old stuff with Robert Blake in it. I'm still impressed with the work Michael Jace did on The Shield, despite the fact that in real life he shot his wife dead. I'm still a huge fan of Charles S. Dutton in pretty much everything he ever does, despite the fact that he once stabbed a man to death in a bar fight. And that's not even getting into the list of "a celebrity hit someone with their car and killed them" list, which is surprisingly long. All those people did terrible things, but it doesn't change how I see the work they did from a professional standpoint.

[Jimmy Redman]

I remember there being a HUGE discussion early in the project about Invader I, with some people rejecting vociferously the idea of ranking him or giving his work credit, because of Brody.

[The Thread Killer]

So basically your argument is "none of the other people whose crimes were bad enough to bother me also happened to be good enough wrestlers to possibly be ranked, ergo Benoit is the only one who even counts for this"? Your point is that he's the only guy who's both a good enough wrestler and a shitty enough person to qualify for such special treatment?

 

I just don't understand the idea of disqualifying anyone for anything they did in their personal life. Steve Austin used to beat the shit out of at least one of his wives, but he's still in my top 10. I didn't rank Invader #1 or Jimmy Snuka, but other people did. After that, it becomes a matter of: where do you draw the line? I don't see a point in drawing any line at all. Just grade the work and leave the extracurricular horrors out of it.

 

Extrapolating it to another form of entertainment: despite OJ Simpson having stabbed two people to death, I still laugh my ass off at Nordberg getting beaten up by the whole universe in the Naked Gun movies. Roman Polanski is an unforgivable piece-of-shit child rapist, but that doesn't change my estimation that Repulsion, Chinatown, and The Pianist were all brilliant artistic masterpieces. John Landis managed to manslaughter a bunch of people including children on a movie set, but I still adore The Blues Brothers. The fact that the guy who played Half-Sack on Sons of Anarchy ended his life by murdering an old lady and then killing himself isn't something which keeps me from rewatching that show. I don't have a problem seeing old stuff with Robert Blake in it. I'm still impressed with the work Michael Jace did on The Shield, despite the fact that in real life he shot his wife dead. I'm still a huge fan of Charles S. Dutton in pretty much everything he ever does, despite the fact that he once stabbed a man to death in a bar fight. And that's not even getting into the list of "a celebrity hit someone with their car and killed them" list, which is surprisingly long. All those people did terrible things, but it doesn't change how I see the work they did from a professional standpoint.

 

You can't really be this obtuse, Jingus.

 

Yes, Chris Benoit was the only person I considered when I decided not to rank Chris Benoit. I was going to consider Neil Armstrong, but it seemed somehow pointless.

 

I keep saying why I won't rank Benoit, and you keep building strawmen. You seem obsessed with naming as many wrestlers (and now you've moved on to non-wrestling celebrities) who have done immoral or illegal things. You must think there is a certain number you'll get to, and I'll suddenly decide that Chris Benoit murdering his wife and child doesn't bother me so much, after all.

 

You say you "just don't understand" the idea of disqualifying anyone for anything they did in their personal life. You say you don't see a point in drawing any line at all.

 

I do understand the reason for disqualifying Chris Benoit from being considered the Greatest Wrestler Ever. I do see a point in drawing a line. And clearly, I am not the only person who feels that way. It's unfortunate that this bothers you. It bothers me (somewhat) that there are people who are going to rank him, but I understand that some people want to separate the wrestler from his actions outside the ring, so they can still enjoy his work, or as some sort of coping mechanism. To each their own, I suppose.

 

If you honestly can't understand why somebody would not want to celebrate the accomplishments of a man who murdered his wife and child, then I don't know what to tell you. It just proves that you and I are very different people, but that is hardly news, I think.

[El-P]

What strikes me is that a lot of people take the fact X or Y want or don't want to rate Benoit like personnal judgments on the person itself. It was very clear when I didn my dry/dark joke about Invader 1 which jump started the discussion Jimmy is refering to, people took it like I was passing judgments, which was not the case at all.

 

I made my case very clear about Benoit (and others) before, so no need to get back to it.

 

And BTW, I totally understand, and mostly agree, with Jingus points. (I do understand people not wanting to rate Benoit too though)

[fxnj]

Quick comparison between two of the main accused murderers talked about in this topic

 

Carlos Colon

-Had sound mental abilities and a clear motivation for wanting Brody dead with him buying WWC shares

-Used his influence to cover up the situation after it happened and is rumored to have played a role in stopping Brody from getting proper treatment

-Later ran several angles playing off the tragedy, indicating lack of remorse

 

Chris Benoit

-Had the brain equivalent to an 80 year old Alzheimer's patient and was showing all the classic symptoms of CTE like memory loss, paranoia, and depression.

-No clear motive, making it unlikely to have been premeditated.

-Placed bibles next to the bodies and killed himself, which could be taken as him realizing how horrible what he did was.

 

Yet Colon is the one people don't have a problem ranking and who people are willing to make excuses for, whilst writing off Benoit as a cold blooded killer despite all indications of him having severe brain damage. The best explanation I see for such a huge disrepancy is that people feel more of an emotional connection to Benoit's situation than Colon's and I'm not sure why people seem to offended at the suggestion of that being the case.

 

I don't think Benoit possibly committing domestic violence a few years before says much about him as he likely already had CTE by that point, but even if we do presuppose that he was just the kind of guy who enjoyed beating his wife, so what? As Jingus put it, he'd hardly be the only guy in the business like that, so at worst he'd just be the unlucky one with just the right combination of brain damage and steroids to take things a bit further. Getting on a high horse and basically saying "I love Steve Austin even if he beat Debra. But I cant rank that dude with CTE for being such a horrible person" is dumb.

[El-P]

Great post.

[Grimmas]

Let's remind everybody that the coverage of Brody's death and all these rumours and talking points come from a friend of Brody.

 

That doesn't mean all that stuff is incorrect, but treating it like a fact is a little unfair.

[Childs]

Quick comparison between two of the main accused murderers talked about in this topic

 

Carlos Colon

-Had sound mental abilities and a clear motivation for wanting Brody dead with him buying WWC shares

-Used his influence to cover up the situation after it happened and is rumored to have played a role in stopping Brody from getting proper treatment

-Later ran several angles playing off the tragedy, indicating lack of remorse

 

Chris Benoit

-Had the brain equivalent to an 80 year old Alzheimer's patient and was showing all the classic symptoms of CTE like memory loss, paranoia, and depression.

-No clear motive, making it unlikely to have been premeditated.

-Placed bibles next to the bodies and killed himself, which could be taken as him realizing how horrible what he did was.

 

Yet Colon is the one people don't have a problem ranking and who people are willing to make excuses for, whilst writing off Benoit as a cold blooded killer despite all indications of him having severe brain damage. The best explanation I see for such a huge disrepancy is that people feel more of an emotional connection to Benoit's situation than Colon's and I'm not sure why people seem to offended at the suggestion of that being the case.

 

I don't think Benoit possibly committing domestic violence a few years before says much about him as he likely already had CTE by that point, but even if we do presuppose that he was just the kind of guy who enjoyed beating his wife, so what? As Jingus put it, he'd hardly be the only guy in the business like that, so at worst he'd just be the unlucky one with just the right combination of brain damage and steroids to take things a bit further. Getting on a high horse and basically saying "I love Steve Austin even if he beat Debra. But I cant rank that dude with CTE for being such a horrible person" is dumb.

Colon hasn't been accused of killing anyone.

[peachchaos]

Chris Benoit

-Had the brain equivalent to an 80 year old Alzheimer's patient and was showing all the classic symptoms of CTE like memory loss, paranoia, and depression.

-No clear motive, making it unlikely to have been premeditated.

 

And again I'd like to stress that his brain damage was a direct result of his in-ring work, which in my mind disqualifies him from being the GWE. Add to that the fact that he murdered another performer and their son in the process and I just can't see the case for him.

 

I'd like to think PWO is beyond conspiracy theories so I won't even touch the Colon stuff.

[Danish Dynamite]

Let's remind everybody that the coverage of Brody's death and all these rumours and talking points come from a friend of Brody.

 

That doesn't mean all that stuff is incorrect, but treating it like a fact is a little unfair.

 

Totally agree!

 

Also agree with Childs that Colon hasn't been accused of killing anyone is a pretty damn big difference between the cases.

 

EDIT: On board with peachchaos as well here.

 

I'm still ok with people ranking Benoit. I just chose not to, for the reasons many have stated.

I'm relatively ok with watching his matches though. But I do think about the murders every time I see one of his matches, and I definetely find myself seeking them out much less than I would have otherwise.

[PeteF3]

Benoit made up a story about a family emergency to get out of a PPV appearance right before the murders, and we're still going to try to claim that this wasn't premeditated?

[Grimmas]

Benoit made up a story about a family emergency to get out of a PPV appearance right before the murders, and we're still going to try to claim that this wasn't premeditated?

Pre mediated by someone severely ill yes.

[Dylan Waco]

I for one am shocked that someone would make up and or subscribe to unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about a successful black Puerto Rican being responsible for the death of a legendary white wrestler, while trying to paint another white legendary wrestler's murder of a woman and child as an unfortunate byproduct of his hard work ethic.

 

Except I'm not.

[PhilTLL]

 

Benoit made up a story about a family emergency to get out of a PPV appearance right before the murders, and we're still going to try to claim that this wasn't premeditated?

Pre mediated by someone severely ill yes.

Premeditated by a guy who had a long history of abusing his wife to the point that she had gone from threatening divorce (2003) to predicting her own murder. The best you can say about Chris Benoit is that he chose the exact wrong industry for someone with latent violent tendencies and a predilection for poly drug use. That *maybe* all those chairshots and pills turned an average shithead abuser into a freakish family annihilator. Not a lot of cases in the rapidly expanding CTE literature about that.

 

CTE and mental illness are not absolution here and it's logically and ethically misguided to use them as such.

[goc]

I think the biggest difference between Benoit & Carlos Colon is that we know for a 100% fact that Benoit killed his wife and son. Unless you're subscribing to the "But it had to be Kevin Sullivan because he worshipped the Devil!" conspiracy theory.

 

The only "proof" we have of Colon being involved in the murder of Bruiser Brody is shoot interviews which are well known to be full of lies and exagerrations.

[Grimmas]

 

 

Benoit made up a story about a family emergency to get out of a PPV appearance right before the murders, and we're still going to try to claim that this wasn't premeditated?

Pre mediated by someone severely ill yes.

Premeditated by a guy who had a long history of abusing his wife to the point that she had gone from threatening divorce (2003) to predicting her own murder. The best you can say about Chris Benoit is that he chose the exact wrong industry for someone with latent violent tendencies and a predilection for poly drug use. That *maybe* all those chairshots and pills turned an average shithead abuser into a freakish family annihilator. Not a lot of cases in the rapidly expanding CTE literature about that.

 

CTE and mental illness are not absolution here and it's logically and ethically misguided to use them as such.

I'm not trying to dismiss it. I'm trying to say Benoit had been ill probably his whole life.

[Luchaundead]

I for one am shocked that someone would make up and or subscribe to unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about a successful black Puerto Rican being responsible for the death of a legendary white wrestler, while trying to paint another white legendary wrestler's murder of a woman and child as an unfortunate byproduct of his hard work ethic.

 

Except I'm not.

 

What about the fact that some people subscribe to the conspiracy theory that a successful white scorned lover was actually the person to commit to murder? So rather than racism maybe people just don't trust guys that wrestle in singlets?

 

And just to be clear my point is that people maybe more inclined to believe the theory about Colon without more facts because of his race (wouldn't personally not call him black but that just comes from my experiences with afro-latinos) but that people are more inclined to argue in favor of Benoit not because he's white but more because they cared him and people don't wan't to admit that people they care for could do something so evil

[PhilTLL]

I'm not trying to dismiss it. I'm trying to say Benoit had been ill probably his whole life.

 

 

Being an abusive shithead is first and foremost a defect of character, not a mental illness. Certainly not of the type that gets one absolved for violent behavior, like schizophrenia. Abusiveness can be part of things like borderline personality disorder and other mental illnesses, but those are explanations, not excuses for violence. I have a non-psychotic mental illness and I've never abused anyone. There's a tendency these days to say that doing anything highly criminal means you were crazy in some way, which is kind of true--healthy people in healthy circumstances don't typically resort to crime. But doing something that is obviously fucked up in the eyes of peaceful, non-criminal people like you and me is not necessarily the same thing as being psychotic and not culpable.

 

Needless to say the evidence is not on the side of non-culpable psychotic insanity for Chris Benoit. Having increasingly bad mental symptoms due to CTE does not preclude or excuse premeditated, multi-day murder, especially not for a longtime abuser.

[The Thread Killer]

Let's remind everybody that the coverage of Brody's death and all these rumours and talking points come from a friend of Brody.

 

That doesn't mean all that stuff is incorrect, but treating it like a fact is a little unfair.

 

Exactly. For the record, if you read Larry Matysik's biography of Brody which is co-authored by Brody's wife Barbara, neither of them are even remotely critical of Carlos Colon or implicate him in any way for the murder. Quite the opposite, Barbara mentions how supportive Carlos Colon and his family were of her at the time.

 

That book goes into more detail about those murders than anybody ever has before, including details from Barbara Goodish which had never been released before. If Brody's wife and Larry Matysik, (who was probably his closest friend in the industry) don't accuse Carlos Colon of being behind Brody's murder, seeing as they were closer to Brody and the situation than anybody? I'd wager the theories about Carlos Colon are a bunch of B.S.

[The Thread Killer]

I don't think Benoit possibly committing domestic violence a few years before says much about him as he likely already had CTE by that point, but even if we do presuppose that he was just the kind of guy who enjoyed beating his wife, so what? As Jingus put it, he'd hardly be the only guy in the business like that, so at worst he'd just be the unlucky one with just the right combination of brain damage and steroids to take things a bit further. Getting on a high horse and basically saying "I love Steve Austin even if he beat Debra. But I cant rank that dude with CTE for being such a horrible person" is dumb.

 

I must have missed the post in this thread where somebody said they loved Steve Austin. I also must have missed the post where Steve Austin's conduct was some how connected to Chris Benoit murdering his wife and child.

[Grimmas]

 

I'm not trying to dismiss it. I'm trying to say Benoit had been ill probably his whole life.

 

 

Being an abusive shithead is first and foremost a defect of character, not a mental illness. Certainly not of the type that gets one absolved for violent behavior, like schizophrenia. I have a non-psychotic mental illness and I've never abused anyone. There's a tendency these days to say that doing anything highly criminal means you were crazy in some way, which is kind of true--healthy people in healthy circumstances don't typically resort to crime. But doing something that is obviously fucked up in the eyes of peaceful, non-criminal people like you and me is not necessarily the same thing as being psychotic and not culpable.

 

We have NO idea what Benoit had. Between the steroids, obsessive behaviour, concussions, etc... Yes he may had been an abusive asshole, he may had been mentally ill his whole life and never received proper care.The point he commited the murder his brain was so messed up that going around yelling "MURDERER" is an attitude I don't like.It's way more complex than that.

 

If he didn't commit suicide, he should had been in the mental health part of the prison, not in with the main part.