The Benoit family tragedy examined from all angles

[Loss]

This is good stuff, thanks for posting.

 

It was there that most wrestling fans discovered Chris Benoit.”

 

Well that’s where I found Chris Benoit, that’s where most in this thread probably found Chris Benoit. Actually, I think I found Benoit when WCW aired a Lyger v Wild Pegasus match on the Pro or some syndie (but point is found through Japanese work).

 

But setting up this with his Wrestlemania win is a separate story.

 

The mass of MSG that was chanting for Benoit and booing everything that HHH and HBK did weren’t tape watchers. That was MSG, not the Murphy Rec Center. My guess is that the MSG fans discovered Benoit in the WWF (some may have discovered in WCW and there may be pockets of folks who had discovered him in ECW but doubt even ten percent of MSG was made up of fans of NJ juniors).

It was a different fanbase, yes. Most fans at MSG probably discovered Benoit in WWE, or maybe WCW, but likely WWE. Again, agreed. I was more referring to the type of fan that would prefer Benoit to Hogan types, where that type of fan found Benoit.

 

Benoit got a louder ovation than Austin, Rock or Foley on that show -- all bigger and more traditional WWE stars that were stronger in that market, had stronger Wrestlemania history and were bigger stars in general. So I think there was a different type of fan there than normally attends MSG shows that night.

 

I remember one of my college friends always thinking Benoit was so bland in WCW and never understanding why I liked him. When he saw him beat up Scotty 2 Hotty after Scotty tried using The Worm on him, he became a Benoit fan, because he felt Benoit finally countered the move and was the first WWF guy to do a logical counter to a dumb move that made sense to a person watching from home. From then on, he was a Benoit fan. He was familiar with wrestling in Japan, but preferred guys like Choshu and the AJ 4.

 

I also often make the mistake of mistaking me for a fair representative of basic wrestling tape trader nerdom. But my assumption is that the tape trading community didn’t see vindication in Benoit winning the WWF belt. JDW et al were all about shitting on Raven, DDP, Benoit as a watering down of Benoit’s skills. And HBK,HHH, Benoit was nothing if not a really watered down DDP,Raven, Benoit match. I don’t think I ever read the toa consensus on Mania. Not sure what Lorefice, or Kunze said but I can’t imagine anything positive.

tOA wasn't too high on the match at the time, if I recall. I do remember a thread criticizing Scott Keith's writing the day after Mania and that when he called the match ***** and said "best 3-way ever", he didn't really offer much else to back up his claim. I believe it was a jdw/Tim Cooke/Chris Coey thread arguing with Dave O'Neill, but I may be wrong.

 

I wasn't aware Kunze was even still writing about wrestling in 2004, but if he was, I'm interested in checking out his archives.

 

The tape trading community now is also not really the same form as the community was in the 80s and 90s. Now you have collectors and completists, where then, it was more about just catching recent wrestling that didn't air in their market so they were up to date on what was in the WON. The modern trader doesn't really talk much about the wrestling they collect as a rule, where the trader of the past was all about putting his opinions out there.

 

From what I've been able to gather, those types loved Benoit.

 

I agree that those types are probably not the same ones that were in MSG that night. It was a modern mutation of that type and traditional WWE fans, yet they still chose to cheer Benoit over bigger stars that were on the show.

 

I think somewhere in the part where you explain the development of Hell in the Cell there should be some mention of the development of the really meta “showstopper” gimmick. Not tough guy overcoming the odds but rather guy sacrificing himself to put on spectacle for the fans. Not the traditional midcard workrate match but the “showstopper” that “deserves” to be in the main event. Because somewhere in this section is the reason that the MSG fans who had never seen a Wild Pegassus match were booing the match but cheering Benoit.

 

Somewhere here is explanation of how Benoit went from guy who was presented in U.S. as a modernized Arn Anderson gimmick (blue collar non-flashy "hard working" guy for whom wrestling is his job) to the equation where being “hard working”= ratcheting up ”self destructiveness” for audience pleasure.

I agree with this. After toxicology reports are in, if things appear to be dying down by that time, that will probably be when I do a final re-write and address this. I agree that it should be included. These are the types of fans that got Benoit and Jericho over in the company. Eddy and Rey eventually had more crossover appeal with the Hispanic audience and got over on a wider scale, but they're also the types of fans that started cheering for them initially. These are also the same types of fans that liked Michaels and 2000 HHH.

 

I realize that HHH, Michaels and Jericho are different types of wrestlers than Benoit, Eddy and Rey, but I think most WWE fans would group most of those guys in the same category.

 

I absolutely don’t want to come across as Keller but the one thing that felt missing from Loss’ “all angles” was some mention of the Vince goes boom angle from the week before.

 

Its important detail for a couple reasons. If you go to the WWE timeline they write:

 

Fayette County Sheriff's office made contact with WWE at approximately 4 p.m. advising that they had entered the house of Chris Benoit and found three deceased bodies – an adult male, adult female and a male child. WWE was told that Benoit’s home was now considered a major crime scene.

 

The decision to cancel the live event scheduled in Corpus Christi that night was made between 4 and 5 p.m. In keeping with company policy, and with limited knowledge regarding facts of the case, WWE chose to air a memorial dedicated to the career of Chris Benoit. As facts emerged surrounding the case, all tributes to Chris Benoit were removed both on-air and on WWE.com

 

The Benoit tribute wasn’t in keeping with company policy. It was very different. They canceled a live show, and aired old footage. Company policy is "the show must go on". The reason they broke from that is because a week earlier they had used a wrestler memorial format for dark humor as part of an angle. They essentially killed the gimmick and like any gimmick you can’t do it two weeks in a row.

 

As Cook wrote at time “This show exhibited some real quick thinking in working up a new gimmick to portray solemn emotions. “

 

Cook and I and a bunch of folks have written before about the crassness of the tribute shows. The burying of guys show must go on stuff, and how fake it all is. In the June 25th Observer Meltzer does a nice job of pointing out the flaws in the Vince is killed angle. That while in terms of management it’s clear that those tributes weren’t real, that the emotions of some of the wrestlers and audience were real. And treating those real emotions as a joke is a way of going “Ha Ha we tricked you”.

 

Benoit was a guy who according to Meltzer had a difficult time “coming to grips with justifying working in the WWE during the exploitation of the death of Guerrero”. An emotionally guarded person who took deaths very hard and let his guard down for the Eddie tribute (

).

 

The Vince goes boom tributes were a real outward manifestation to everyone who watched and participated that this was “all for nothing”.

I purposely avoided talk of the tribute show and the Vince angle when writing this for two reasons:

 

(1) It seemed much smaller than the whole of this story, and at the time, I even thought it was insignificant

(2) When I wrote this, most of the discussion was centered around speculation of what WWE knew and their motives, but no actual facts

 

We now know that at least some people in WWE knew before the show went on the air about what had likely happened. That coupled with rolling out a brand new format because they made a mockery of the previous one is important to this story and should probably be added to Understanding Pro Wrestling and Wrestling Fans.

 

I don’t think there has been a change in emphasis so much as change in card positioning. What’s necessitated where. Which is why I brought up the “Showstopper” earlier.

I want to make sure I understand this correctly. Where would your modern WWE main event, in terms of style, fall on the card of a 1985 show promoted by Crockett or Watts?

[Guest teke184]

I don’t think there has been a change in emphasis so much as change in card positioning. What’s necessitated where. Which is why I brought up the “Showstopper” earlier.

I want to make sure I understand this correctly. Where would your modern WWE main event, in terms of style, fall on the card of a 1985 show promoted by Crockett or Watts?

 

I'm thinking that part of the difference was in presentation and angle-building, while the other difference was in-ring style.

 

 

 

WWE MEs from the past 12 years, in general, would probably fall into the semi-main on the Watts or Crockett card, as they were showy but didn't have a lot of heat.

 

 

 

Big WWE matches that *did* engender heat and would be considered a ME for Watts or Crockett would include:

 

 

Bret Hart vs. Kevin Nash (Survivor Series 1995)

 

Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin (Survivor Series 1996, Final Four, Wrestlemania 13, Return Of The Taker)

 

HBK vs. Kevin Nash (Good Friends Better Enemies)

 

Bret Hart vs. the British Bulldog (In Your House 5)

 

HBK vs. Mick Foley (Mind Games - Good hard brawl with more psychology than the average HBK match, IMHO)

 

Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels (Survivor Series 1997 - Even without the screwjob ending, the real heat and the brawling between the two would have given Watts a 6-foot erection with a cheeseburger on the end of it)

 

The Rock vs. Mick Foley (Royal Rumble 1999 and St. Valentine's Day Massacre)

 

Steve Austin vs. The Rock (Backlash 1999, Wrestlemania X-7)

 

Mick Foley vs. Triple H (Royal Rumble 2000, No Way Out 2000)

 

The Rock vs. Triple H (Backlash 2000, Judgment Day 2000)

 

Steve Austin vs. Kurt Angle (Summerslam 2002 - Semi-main on that show?)

 

The Rock vs. Brock Lesnar (Summerslam 2003)

 

 

 

 

Etc.

 

 

 

Pretty much, these are angles that either had legit heat between the competitors or made it look real.

 

 

 

Austin and Hart seemed to hate each other and it just radiated from the screen. Same with Foley and Triple H in early 2000.

 

 

Bret Hart vs. the British Bulldog has its roots in the face-face matches that Watts did on occasion, like JYD vs. Ted Dibiase. Vince just didn't turn Bulldog heel on Bret in mid-match like Watts had Dibiase do.

 

 

The Rock vs. Brock Lesnar had the feel of two legit athletes preparing for a tough showdown, much like a UFC promo package for a match like Vitor Belfort vs. Randy Couture.

 

 

 

 

While I may be going down some of the traditional "top Smark choices" for matches here, I'm specifically avoiding a lot of Jericho and HBK stuff in particular because a lot of their work involves a suspension of disbelief that wouldn't have gone over in the old Watts and Crockett days.

[tomk]

It was a different fanbase, yes. Most fans at MSG probably discovered Benoit in WWE, or maybe WCW, but likely WWE. Again, agreed. I was more referring to the type of fan that would prefer Benoit to Hogan types, where that type of fan found Benoit.

 

Yeah I agree with your explanations of why fans supported Benoit visavis Hogan. Agree completely.

 

But most Benoit fans, fans searching for something "nore physical and realistic" didn't discover Benoit in New Japan.

 

 

QUOTE

I also often make the mistake of mistaking me for a fair representative of basic wrestling tape trader nerdom. But my assumption is that the tape trading community didn’t see vindication in Benoit winning the WWF belt. JDW et al were all about shitting on Raven, DDP, Benoit as a watering down of Benoit’s skills. And HBK,HHH, Benoit was nothing if not a really watered down DDP,Raven, Benoit match. I don’t think I ever read the toa consensus on Mania. Not sure what Lorefice, or Kunze said but I can’t imagine anything positive.

 

 

tOA wasn't too high on the match at the time, if I recall. I do remember a thread criticizing Scott Keith's writing the day after Mania and that when he called the match ***** and said "best 3-way ever", he didn't really offer much else to back up his claim. I believe it was a jdw/Tim Cooke/Chris Coey thread arguing with Dave O'Neill, but I may be wrong.

 

I wasn't aware Kunze was even still writing about wrestling in 2004, but if he was, I'm interested in checking out his archives.

 

The tape trading community now is also not really the same form as the community was in the 80s and 90s. Now you have collectors and completists, where then, it was more about just catching recent wrestling that didn't air in their market so they were up to date on what was in the WON. The modern trader doesn't really talk much about the wrestling they collect as a rule, where the trader of the past was all about putting his opinions out there.

 

From what I've been able to gather, those types loved Benoit.

I don't know if Kunze, or Lorefice wrote anything about the three way. I think Coey thought it was well done. I was trying to come up with a hypothetical trad tape trading fan.

 

The modern trader... well the modern traders are mostly guys who got into wrestling during the attitude era or the couple years pre-Attitude. Again not guys who discovered Benoit in New Japan.

 

QUOTE

I don’t think there has been a change in emphasis so much as change in card positioning. What’s necessitated where. Which is why I brought up the “Showstopper” earlier.

 

 

I want to make sure I understand this correctly. Where would your modern WWE main event, in terms of style, fall on the card of a 1985 show promoted by Crockett or Watts?

or Vince for that matter. As midcard (or hot opening) workrate match was a Vince staple too.

 

Same thing is true for most pre-GDI lucha.

 

You wrote:

 

, the transition from working to performing, which I alluded to at the beginning of what I wrote, was in many ways necessitated by the change in emphasis on what wrestlers felt was important in their style.

I was trying to argue that there always has been a place on the card for matches that emphasized "performing" over "working."

 

but that card placement and attitude toward what should be in different places on the card has changed.

 

My point wasn't about the booking building to the matches but the actual matches themselves.

 

Was Brock v Angle as a main worked differently from Angle v. Rey as hot opener?

 

Read Meltzer's criticism of Eddie's work: http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbc...ic;f=1;t=060109

 

Meltzer wanted Eddy v Rey to be worked like Halloween Havoc, at a point where Eddy v Rey was drawing Austin v Vince numbers.

 

Eddy's a guy who worked very differently as main eventer than he did as midcard or undercard worker.

 

If you read the Observer's at the time, that change in style supposedly wasn't respected among the other workers. "A lot of the guys who are in awesome shape in WWE have to slow down for Guerrero."

 

Where would the "modern main event fall"?

The modern main event?

The Cena v. Khali ones?

Those are in exactly the right place.

[tomk]

Figured todays New York Times article on NFL's response to media's "sensationalistic/uinscientific" coverage of multiple concussions should be posted here.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/sports/f...amp;oref=slogin

 

Several N.F.L. players in recent years have been knocked unconscious during games and returned to play the same day, a practice that was deemed medically sound by the league’s committee on brain injuries.

 

But in a move that runs counter to the league’s medical study findings, the N.F.L. announced last week, in a news release highlighting safety procedures toward player concussions, that teams should not return formerly unconscious players to the game or practice in which they were injured. The release reaffirmed that this guideline and others “have been identified in medical studies and are used by N.F.L. team medical staffs.”

 

The change — which an N.F.L. spokesman said was a strong recommendation by the league office but not an absolute rule — goes against statements made in studies published by the N.F.L.’s committee on brain injuries as well as by individual committee members.

 

One paper written by several members of the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury committee, published in the January 2005 issue of the journal Neurosurgery, said, “There was no evidence of any adverse effect” of returning a formerly unconscious N.F.L. player to the same game. It added, “These data suggest that these players were at no increased risk” of subsequent concussions or prolonged symptoms such as memory loss, headaches and disorientation.

 

Dr. David Viano, the committee’s co-chairman and a co-author of the paper, declined comment yesterday. In a telephone interview, Jeff Pash, the league’s general counsel, said the league was “erring on the side of player safety,” and that “it may be that a player will be held out of a game when it is not medically required or indicated by the data.”

 

“Certainly it’s a less-risky approach in terms of player safety,” Pash said. He later added, “It reflects an effort to avoid this debate going forward.”

[CodySave]

Just to prove that there's still people out there that think Chris Benoit was framed, my cable "technician" tried to convince me yesterday that he was.

 

His assistant agreed with me that there's no way he didn't commit the murders, but also thinks it would be a good idea if WWE released a Chris and Nancy Benoit wrestling figure 2-pack, complete with a smaller Daniel as the accessory.

 

Judging by the looks of the latter "tech"....meth is a hell of a drug. And he was the smart one.

[Loss]

The Jimmy Kimmel joke about Benoit was not edited from Flavor Flav's roast on Comedy Central, by the way, even though it was reported that it would be.

[sek69]

Rey Mysterio went on Fox News and repeatedly deny using steroids, saying his only connection to Dr. Astin was for pain meds after his knee surgeries. Considering it's already been made public that Astin was prescribing steroids for Rey, WWE really needs to stop trying to kayfabe the real world.

[Bix]

Astin wasn't prescribing steroids to Rey, his outed doc was Dr. David Wilbirt in Phoenix.

[Guest BilJim2]

Yeah, Meltzer had all of that info and more in his online recap today. Scary how insulated they are and wish everyone else was.

[sek69]

Astin wasn't prescribing steroids to Rey, his outed doc was Dr. David Wilbirt in Phoenix.

My bad, got my mark doctors confused.

 

Still, don't get the guy who's already got caught with his hand in the cookie jar to go on TV and deny up a storm.

 

I can almost hear Vince's defense.... "The man in those documents had the initials "O.G." so clearly it wasn't REY MYSTERIO! Completely different person!"

[Cox]

Astin wasn't prescribing steroids to Rey, his outed doc was Dr. David Wilbirt in Phoenix.

My bad, got my mark doctors confused.

 

Still, don't get the guy who's already got caught with his hand in the cookie jar to go on TV and deny up a storm.

 

I can almost hear Vince's defense.... "The man in those documents had the initials "O.G." so clearly it wasn't REY MYSTERIO! Completely different person!"

 

"It wasn't Rey Mysterio! It was...uh...KING BOOKER!"

[Bix]

This probably fits best here.

 

Crossing the T’s on Fragile X

 

[cross-posted to the CHRIS AND NANCY Blog, http://benoitbook.blogspot.com]

 

(Have tips for author Irvin Muchnick on the Chris Benoit story or any other aspect of pro wrestling behind the scenes? Send them to [email protected].)

 

As work proceeds on my book next year about the Benoit murder-suicide, this blog will periodically share preliminary reporting on selected topics. Today’s topic: the mystery of Daniel Benoit’s Fragile X Syndrome.

 

In the days after Chris Benoit strangled his wife Nancy and their 7-year-old son Daniel, and hung himself, a report surfaced that Daniel had Fragile X. This is a family of genetic conditions, which include both the most common cause of inherited mental impairment and the most common known cause of autism. (Fragile X also has other, physical manifestations, which differ between males and females. For complete information, see the website of the National Fragile X Foundation, http://fragilex.org.)

 

The report originated at a Vancouver radio station, after which it was aggressively promoted by World Wrestling Entertainment as a global explanation of the Benoit tragedy. This seemed plausible in part because initial reports from the crime scene included the detail that Daniel had needle marks on his arm, perhaps from injections of human growth hormone. (And perhaps this was Chris’s response, rational or not, medically authorized or otherwise, to his son’s physical problems and smallish size.)

 

But the suggestion that Daniel had Fragile X was quickly denied by the Fayette County district attorney, by Daniel’s kindergarten teachers, and by his maternal grandparents. The British Columbia woman who was the root source of the report then clarified that her knowledge of Daniel’s condition came second-hand, from a conversation her late husband had told her he’d had with Chris Benoit.

 

And there things stand – like many other aspects of this story, tantalizing and without closure. There are three subsets of the Fragile X angle:

 

(1) Did Daniel Benoit, in fact, have the condition?

 

(2) What do we know about World Wrestling Entertainment’s role in spreading this story?

 

(3) How do conclusions about Fragile X impact the bottom line on the murder-suicide?

 

No. 1: Daniel Benoit Almost Certainly Had Fragile X

 

I spoke with Robert Miller, executive director of the National Fragile X Foundation, and Arlene Cohen of the foundation board.

 

The foundation had issued a statement in the midst of the June media frenzy; that no longer appears to be up at the website. Miller has written a takeout on the Benoit story for the foundation’s quarterly publication, the full text of which can be viewed at http://muchnick.net/FragileX.pdf. Here’s the money passage: “[W]e never imagined the kind of awareness that came with the recent tragedy involving wrestler Chris Benoit and his wife and son. Like it or not, though, awareness is what we got. Gobs of it. As in 30,000 visitors to our website in three days. (A number typical for an entire month!) People tripping all over each other to report on the role that fragile X syndrome played in this terrible murder-suicide. Unfortunately, in most instances, they got it wrong. Once the first wave of sensational media accounts had passed, no reporter could find any evidence that Chris Benoit killed his wife and son and then himself because his son had fragile X syndrome.”

 

Neither Miller nor Cohen had special insider information on the truth of the report. Cohen agreed with me that it would be wildly unlikely for the source, Pam Winthrope – like Cohen, a parent of a child with Fragile X and an activist for research and awareness (in Winthrope’s case, with the B.C. chapter of the Fragile X Research Foundation of Canada) – to have fabricated such a thing.

 

Beyond that – and beyond understandably impressionistic anecdotal observations of people like Chris Jericho and Superstar Billy Graham after the fact – there are other elements pointing toward a “yes.” These include some medical history on Nancy Benoit’s side of the family suggesting a related genetic syndrome; the general hyper-privacy of many Fragile X families; and the specific, extremely close-mouthed, nature of Chris Benoit himself.

 

In my opinion, we eventually will see confirmation of Daniel’s Fragile X. Even if the condition was not reported to his school by the family or noticed by his teachers (which itself seems questionable), there is multi-front litigation pending, with means of discovery not yet tapped.

 

No. 2: The Fragile X Story Itself Was Spontaneous, Not Planted, Though WWE Did Opportunistically Exploit It

 

I exchanged email with Jacquie Donaldson, program/news director of News1130 in Vancouver, and with Pam Winthrope.

 

Though I draw no conclusions from this, Donaldson was not helpful. In response to my request for a transcript or audio copy of the station’s report, Donaldson said she could not provide one. She said she was forwarding my questions to the reporter on the story (whom she would not name), but the reporter has not returned the messages. But perhaps the News1130 people are just embarrassed by their role in this affair. Without hearing the report, let me add that I don’t think they need be, as it contributed, however confusingly, to the overall Benoit conversation.

 

In Winthrope’s email to me, she essentially recapitulated what she had told News1130, and added her frustration – which of course many of us can relate to – about how it got distorted through the prism of the media frenzy. Winthrope said her knowledge of Daniel’s Fragile X came from her late husband’s very brief contact with Chris about five years ago. Winthrope’s husband had heard about Daniel in the Fragile X community (Pam Winthrope did not know from whom specifically), and she and he thought that if Chris were willing to become a spokesperson he could raise consciousness for the cause, especially in Canada. According to Pam Winthrope, her husband tracked down Chris, talked to him for five minutes, and learned that Chris was not interested in a public role.

 

Pam disclosed a little more to me, but not much, and she has not as yet responded to my request to quote her verbatim. Nor has she responded to my request to clarify how the News1130 report came to be – whether it was she who approached the station or whether the reporter, based on independent information, approached her. That said, nothing in her words or tone supports speculation that WWE put her up to telling the world about Daniel’s condition in the aftermath of the murder-suicide. She said that to this day she is unsure if WWE knew of it or was simply using it, based on the same sketchy information everyone else had, as something to hide behind.

 

Thus, my conclusion that the Fragile X angle got out there on its own but that WWE exploited it shamelessly – and characteristically. Only recently did I catch up with CEO Linda McMahon’s June 28 interview on “Good Morning America” (video of which can still be accessed at the ABC News website), and I was struck by her lack of equivocation about Fragile X in her sound bites and her obviously calculated touting of it as a tidy single-bullet explanation for Chris Benoit’s rampage. That was really irresponsible.

 

I also confess to having been overly invested myself in the Fragile X explanation. In my June 27 appearance on Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor,” I found myself accused – as I haven’t been before or since – of being a WWE apologist when I raised the Fragile X possibility. Granted, I was up against Bill O’Reilly, an insufferable hot-air balloon berating my refusal to cooperate with his preconceived and uninformed “agenda.” But in light of Linda McMahon’s GMA shot the next day, and other evidence of WWE’s ham-handed crisis-management propaganda, I have to admit O’Reilly and other cable news observers had a point in asserting that Fragile X was classic McMahonesque diversion from the real story. (The O’Reilly clip can be viewed at http://wrestlingbabylon.com.)

 

No. 3: Parental Stress Over Fragile X Was, at Most, a Contributing Factor in the Crimes

 

All of which is to say that an argument between Chris and Nancy Benoit over their son’s care was probably part of the mix. Steroid abuse, other drug abuse, brain damage from concussion syndrome, professional stress, personal stress, Chris’s unique and tightly wound personality – all undoubtedly contributed, in measures we’ll never adequately quantify, to this sad and perfect storm.

 

IRVIN MUCHNICK

 

September 28, 2007

 

BENOIT: Wrestling with the Horror That Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport (ECW Press), by Steven Johnson, Heath McCoy, Irvin Muchnick, and Greg Oliver, will be in bookstores shortly.