Chris, Nancy, & Daniel Benoit found dead

[Bix]

From WWE's policy:

 

11. DEFINITION OF A POSITIVE TEST

 

(a) A positive test is one which confirms the presence of a prohibited drug or a metabolite of a prohibited drug.

 

( The initial test of Talent under this Policy shall be considered baseline testing and shall not, if positive, subject Talent to disciplinary action. Any subsequent positive test for non-medical use after the initial baseline test shall be treated as a positive test for disciplinary reasons if, in the opinion of the PA based on the evidence of testing and its interpretation of that evidence, the Talent has continued to use any such drugs.

 

© For testosterone, the following standards shall apply:

 

1. A Testosterone/Epitestosterone (T/E) ratio above ten (10) shall be conclusively regarded as a positive test result.

 

2. A Testosterone/Epitestosterone (T/E) ratio greater than four (4) but less than ten (10) shall require follow-up testing and/or medical evaluation to determine if the test shall be interpreted as positive for the active use of Testosterone or evidence of other steroids influencing the T/E ratio.

 

3. A Testosterone/Epitestosterone (T/E) ratio of four (4) or less shall be regarded as a negative test result.

 

If you have a "valid prescription" from your "primary care doctor," (which seems to just mean "no internet prescriptions"), then the failure is thrown out.

 

IOC/WADA failure is either 4 or 6.

[Loss]

Dave Meltzer on Fox News:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU26TRmqZBw

[Guest KCook]

Vince apologizing for anything is very surprising, but it's the right move.

He's not really apologizing, though. If you parse the press release closely, they're claiming that they didn't have any idea of the details while the show was being "assembled." Personally I find that laughable on its face, given that most of the people giving testimonials quite obviously knew/suspected the truth and were cutting obvious pro wrestling promos. Even if you grant the point, though, this doesn't address the fact that by the time they aired it, they obviously knew the details.

 

Just to put it another way, WWE appears to have deliberately asked several of its employees to eulogize someone they thought or knew was a child murderer, and then deliberately aired it. I don't really think there's a way to spin out of that, especially as this story looks to be "the big one" everybody has been expecting for years in terms of press attention.

[Al]

I don't really blame WWE as they were in a tough spot and had to scramble to fill time.

[Al]

Vince apologizing for anything is very surprising, but it's the right move. I'm sure the press release Bix posted earlier in this thread is the talking points that will be used when Vince addresses the steroids talk tonight. For WWE's sake, hopefully someone close to Vince is advising him to keep his mouth shut as much as possible, but I doubt it. If not, he's going to say something ridiculous or lose his temper while being interviewed and just make himself and his company look even worse than they already do.

I've noticed that outside of Benoit itself, there is extremely little coming out about the rest of the roster. WWE really seems to have locked down information from inside for the most part. Either that or just no one is much concerned.

[Guest KCook]

I don't really blame WWE as they were in a tough spot and had to scramble to fill time.

Having people cut pro wrestling promos about the goodness of someone they (almost certainly) knew cops thought was a child murderer doesn't really fall on the "excusable on account of being in a tough spot" side of the ledger for me. They've been in this spot many times before, and they knew what they were doing. This naturally is irrelevant next to the monstrousness of Benoit's crimes, but this is just about as disturbing as anything WWE has ever done, and they deserve to get called on it.

[jdw]

Cook's points above are all correct. As were Loss' that the press release contains "talking points" for the company.

 

It is frightening to ponder how the WWE will address this tonight. The company gets incredibly defensive and paranoid when attacked. They don't do "apology" well at all. The also are swift to throw anyone under the bus to save themselves.

 

On the other hand... I'm not sure that anyone in the MSM will be able to read through the bullshit.

 

 

John

[Guest teke184]

Vince apologizing for anything is very surprising, but it's the right move. I'm sure the press release Bix posted earlier in this thread is the talking points that will be used when Vince addresses the steroids talk tonight. For WWE's sake, hopefully someone close to Vince is advising him to keep his mouth shut as much as possible, but I doubt it. If not, he's going to say something ridiculous or lose his temper while being interviewed and just make himself and his company look even worse than they already do.

I've noticed that outside of Benoit itself, there is extremely little coming out about the rest of the roster. WWE really seems to have locked down information from inside for the most part. Either that or just no one is much concerned.

 

From all indications I've seen, the WWE was specifically told to lock down on the information they had while the Georgia cops were investigating.

 

 

Chavo definitely knows more than has been let on, which you could tell by the way he looked on the show last night. He looked like he was about to crack.

 

Dean may or may not know some details about what had been going on in Benoit's personal life.

 

Regal seemed to know a bit of what had happened, which was probably why he could barely say anything on the show last night.

 

 

That's not to say that any of the three had material evidence, but all three go back to the mid-90s with Benoit and were obviously some of the few people that Chris may have opened himself up to, as he was certainly reserved about his personal life.

[Loss]

Do you think every wrestler knew, and that the announcers knew? I can see an argument for most of them, but I don't know how much was shared with Punk, Edge or the announcers in comparison to what Malenko, Chavo, Regal, Vince, Steph and HHH probably knew.

[Guest teke184]

Do you think every wrestler knew, and that the announcers knew? I can see an argument for most of them, but I don't know how much was shared with Punk, Edge or the announcers in comparison to what Malenko, Chavo, Regal, Vince, Steph and HHH probably knew.

Depends on the person.

 

JBL and Lawler may have known something, as both seemed exceptionally broken up and disturbed, which is REALLY out of character for JBL, who is a notorious asshole.

 

 

JR, Tazz, Cole, and Joey Styles may not have known everything that Vince, Chavo, and others knew.

 

 

-NOTE- I doubt that Vince had necessarily told JBL, since he wasn't in the "inner circle" so to speak, but there's a chance that Chavo may have mentioned something to him or that the rumors supposedly repeated in the talent meeting freaked him out.

[Loss]

From Keller:

 

PWTorch can now report the content of the text message sent by Chris Benoit to Chavo Guerrero on Sunday morning. The message, according to our sources, said that the sliding glass doors to his house were open and the dogs had been fed. No one was quite sure what to make of it, but he wasn't reachable afterward for clarification.

[Guest teke184]

I think "odd" and "cryptic" certainly cover that message.

[Loss]

Also, as Meltzer mentioned on Fox News, one of the text messages was bank account information.

[Guest KCook]

Do you think every wrestler knew, and that the announcers knew? I can see an argument for most of them, but I don't know how much was shared with Punk, Edge or the announcers in comparison to what Malenko, Chavo, Regal, Vince, Steph and HHH probably knew.

I'd guess that Vince, Steph and HHH knew essentially what the cops knew as they knew it; this is a pretty sleepy suburb and Vince has very high priced lawyers. (That would mean they probably knew the details several hours before Raw aired.) Chavo, Malenko, Edge, Cena, Austin, and Regal certainly seem to have known something (and Chavo at the least certainly had to know it was really bad), and I'd guess that Punk and the announcers were hearing rumors ranging from a triple homicide to Nancy doing it to who knows what.

 

Not to be on the high horse about it, but it really says something that in those circumstances you not only have management asking people to cut promos, but that they're willing and able to do so. I thought I'd seen everything with the way they handled Eddy Guerrero's death, but this goes so far beyond what I'd thought them capable of I really don't have any idea what to say about it.

[Bix]

Looking back at the show, I get the feeling that someone in the inner circle (Vince McMahon? Kevin Dunn?) sincerely believed Nancy did it and that's why she was barely mentioned until Lawler basically said "Y'know, Nancy and their kid died, too" at the end.

[Loss]

I would be interested in one of the news stations interviewing Debra Marshall.

 

She has been married to two wrestlers. She has been physically abused by at least one wrestler. She has been around both Chris and Nancy enough. She can compare the use of steroids and pain pills to that of other sports, because she knows what both wrestling and football locker rooms are like.

 

An interview with her would be interesting.

[Loss]

The Calgary and Edmonton shows next month have been cancelled. The RAW show in Calgary will now be in Corpus Christi to make up for last night.

[Mad Dog]

The thing that sickens me about this is the real tragedy of a 7 year old being murdered by his father seems to be totally lost out there among the IWC.

[Loss]

Bret Hart is about to be on MSNBC.

[World's Worst Man]

No kidding. Some guy at TSM wrote a big post basically saying that we shouldn't blame Benoit, but rather we should blame the WWE and Benoit's friends for doing nothing to help him. It's just mind-boggling.

[Bix]

Annnnnnnnnnnd WWE's "WE DIDN'T KNOW!" excuse is shot to hell as the local reporter on MSNBC just noted that the cops told her at 6-7ish last night that it was a murder/suicide.

[World's Worst Man]

What the hell were they thinking then? Just being hopeful? Or hopelessly in denial?

[Loss]

The loss of the child is the biggest tragedy of all from all of this, and I sure hope it isn't being forgotten. I think you may see more discussion of that in the future. Right now, so many people are still trying to make sense of this and come up with an explanation for why it happened that I think it has dominated most of the discussion. Obviously, we may never fully understand the motive.

 

The MSNBC segment was very informative, the best media coverage I've really seen of this. It was pointed out that even if steroids are not found in Benoit's system at the time of the death, that means nothing, as some of the most dangerous behavior from it can result when cycling off and craving it. Dr. Drew (from the old Loveline show on MTV) also pointed out that the last thing a physician would prescribe someone who was showing signs of depression would be anabolic steroids.

[Loss]

Annnnnnnnnnnd WWE's "WE DIDN'T KNOW!" excuse is shot to hell as the local reporter on MSNBC just noted that the cops told her at 6-7ish last night that it was a murder/suicide.

Wow. This is not ending anytime soon.

[Bix]

Also, WWE knowing it was a murder/suicide as soon as they went public sort of indicates that someone's (Kevin Dunn?) brain went to Phil Hartman and decided that the odds were Nancy did it, and thus she was largely ignored during the show.