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The Chris Benoit tragedy, 10 years on: proving wrestling isn't "fake" in the most harrowing way imaginable

I’ve watched professional wrestling since the age of five, and in the near three decades since Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior did battle at Wrestlemania 6 and hooked me for life, one particular question has reared its ugly head more times than I can bother to count:

“Wrestling? You do know it’s fake, right?”

On the occasions where I’ve had the energy to answer that question, I often explain the difference between “fake” and “pre-determined”. Pro wrestling plans its outcomes in advance, which in theory should maximise the storytelling and entertainment values, and yet the physical hardships of performing such a taxing form of soap opera are very, very real.

For the last 10 years in particular, pointing out why “fake” is absolutely the wrong word to associate with professional wrestling has been much simpler. All I have to do is mention the name “Chris Benoit”.

On this very weekend a decade ago, Benoit murdered his wife Nancy and his seven-year-old son Daniel before taking his own life. With each passing day a new detail of the double-murder-suicide came to light and the story grew progressively more disturbing. Even 10 years on, its effect on so many people and so many aspects of an industry scorned for a multitude of reasons is sizeable. It’ll remain that way for well over 100 years.

Prior to his reprehensible actions and demise, Benoit was in fact one of the most popular wrestlers on the planet, making the whole thing even more difficult to comprehend for those first few months.

The polar opposite of 1980s icons such as Hogan and the Warrior, Benoit was a relatively-diminutive grafter who earned the respect of wrestling fans with his incredible intensity and dedication to his craft. When he was in the ring, even those who walk around smugly proclaiming that it’s all “fake” would question their own statement as Benoit performed with above-average physicality and constantly sought to steal the show, usually succeeding.

That intensity was part of his downfall. Benoit would willingly take far too many wrestling maneuvers that require unnecessary stress on the head and neck. He was willing to receive very real shots to the head with wrestling’s famed weapon, the steel folding chair – perhaps the only prop that was never gimmicked in any way to protect the wrestlers. He was diagnosed with far too many concussions in his career. Alarmingly, autopsies showed he suffered even more that went either undetected or were simply ignored by Benoit.

Unfortunately the wrestling business isn’t really a ‘hard work eventually pays off’ kind of place. Benoit was considered far too small to become a star, regardless of how well he performed or how much the diehard audience loved his work. So, like many before him, Benoit resorted to steroids to cultivate a look that would encourage North American companies to market him. And as we found out since, he abused them every bit as much as he abused his body between the ropes in his quest for acceptance.

Between the hard knocks and the unsavoury levels of illegal drugs, Benoit’s reputation grew and grew through the 1990s. He finally made it in the US after gaining such a reputation as a performer in Japan in an age where global fans would have to trade VHS tapes to access wrestling from outside their local area. A stint in ECW led to his first ‘big time’ gig with WCW, who by this time had Hogan himself at top billing.

Determined to break through to the top, Benoit kept up the hard work and kept up the sacrifices. By the time most fans grew sick of the likes of Hogan and the Warrior in the late 90s, Benoit was one of several state-of-the-art performers they wanted to see replace them. It took years of being overlooked and being taken for granted, but by the time Benoit became WCW World champion in January 2000 – the same month he welcomed his tragic son into the world – his crowning moment created such a buzz. The popular underdog was finally getting his recognition.

Benoit actually left the company the very next day, fearing they would continue to make the mistakes they had been repeating since falling from the top of the world in 1998 to the WWF and their “Attitude Era” led by Steve Austin (they did, and were out of business just over a year later). He showed up in the company that would soon become WWE during his tenure and repeated his hard-working underdog rise to the top of their ranks in front of an even bigger global audience.

When his absolute career highlight took place at Wrestlemania 20 in Madison Square Garden, the winner of a classic main event against Triple H and Shawn Michaels was joined in the ring by his close friend Eddie Guerrero. One of the most emotional moments in wrestling history was covered in celebratory confetti as two of the hardest working and most respected men in the history of the game reached the top of the mountain, and did so together.

To many longtime viewers who just couldn’t shake the habit that is professional wrestling, this wasn’t just Eddie and Chris’s victory, it wasn’t just their moment. It was our moment. But just like the confetti in and around the ring, that moment would only float pleasantly before our very eyes for a short period of time before it hit the ground hard.

Just 20 months later, Guerrero was dead. Despite cleaning up his own drug-related demons, they’d had enough of an affect on his body to bring it to an early halt at the age of just 38. Months later, another wrestler and close friend of Benoit’s, Johnny Grunge, died as a result of sleep apnea complications. And many of those who knew Chris and are still with us today cite the loss of his two pals as what lit the fuse on a time bomb made of steroids and severe head trauma.

Even then, nobody could have predicted just how devastating that time bomb’s detonation would ultimately be. Not even Chavo Guerrero Jr, nephew of Eddie and one of Benoit’s closest friends and work colleagues at the time of the horrific murders.

That weekend, Chavo received a voicemail message from Benoit’s phone stating that he had overslept and missed his flight, which would cause him to be late for that night’s house show in Beaumont, Texas. Guerrero called Benoit back and found that Benoit sounded tired and groggy as he confirmed everything that he had said in his voice message.

Guerrero, who was “concerned about Benoit’s tone and demeanor,” called him back 12 minutes later. Benoit did not answer the call, and Guerrero left a message asking Benoit to call back.

Benoit called Guerrero back, stating that he had not answered the call because he was on the phone with Delta Air Lines changing his flight. Benoit stated that he had a stressful day due to Nancy and Daniel “being sick from food poisoning.”

Guerrero then replied with “All right man, if you need to talk, I’m here for you.” Benoit ended the conversation by saying “I love you, Chavo.” During a 2014 appearance on Chris Jericho’s Talk is Jericho podcast, Guerrero said Benoit sounded “off” when he talked to him, especially when he said “I love you”.

For a brief window when Benoit and his family were found dead, WWE were on the verge of going live for two hours with their flagship weekly show, Monday Night Raw. The timing of the news combined with the unfortunate coincidence of their content at the time (the company’s owner, Vince McMahon, had his on-screen likeness ‘killed’ in a limousine explosion), forced a very hasty rewrite.

Instead, some of Benoit’s most famous WWE matches were replayed, in between interviews taped at the last minute with members of the roster at the time. Though the company were doing this under the misapprehension that the Benoit tragedy was an accident, it was clear in the tone of several of the interviews given that his worrying behaviour left them suspicious of something far more ghastly.

As it turns out, it wasn’t just his behaviour over the week, sending eerie texts to his friends stating his home address and an open means of entry. It wasn’t just his demeanour, even more withdrawn than usual, ever since losing Eddie and Johnny Grunge. In the weeks and months after the incidents, stories poured out left, right and centre.

Mandatory Credit: Photo by TOIVANEN/REX/Shutterstock (431933a)<br>WRESTLER CHRIS BENOIT HOLDS JOHN CENA IN A HEAD LOCK GRIP<br>WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT PASSPORT TO PAIN TOUR, TURKU, FINLAND – OCT 2003
Mandatory Credit: Photo by TOIVANEN/REX/Shutterstock (431933a)
WRESTLER CHRIS BENOIT HOLDS JOHN CENA IN A HEAD LOCK GRIP
WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT PASSPORT TO PAIN TOUR, TURKU, FINLAND – OCT 2003

Stories of his thuggish behaviour towards less experienced wrestlers and members of staff. Stories of domestic violence – a door that had been ajar ever since Nancy had filed and then rescinded divorce papers in 2003. Stories of Dr. Phil Astin, the physician who prescribed the grotesque volume of steroids to Benoit, who had links to other wrestlers and who was jailed in 2009, echoing the fate of George Zahorian who was the doctor at the forefront of the famous steroid scandals in wrestling during the early 1990s.

Whatever you make of the testimony of everyone who had spent as much as five minutes around Benoit, one thing was sure: the mask had fallen. The underdog hero to so many fans had never actually existed.

As WWE removed any trace of the Benoit tribute – as well as any mention of Benoit at all – from their website and everywhere else, many wrestling fans debated whether completely disassociating themselves from their former champion was the right thing to do. Quite frankly, they absolutely had to. Especially when, as expected, a tidal wave of backlash over the drug culture they swore had mostly been cleaned up followed in the coming weeks.

The company’s current Wellness Policy, a ban on using moves that endanger the head and neck and the strict outlawing of swinging steel chairs at heads in search of a ‘pop’ from the crowd all came as a direct result of the Benoit family tragedy. Books have been released, and a biopic of the whole ordeal – entitled Crossface after Benoit’s finishing move in wrestling – is finally moving forward after much stalling.

To this day, there remains a pocket of those who are still able to separate Benoit the performer who carried the hopes and dreams of the everyman on his shoulders from Benoit the murderer, who amidst a storm of rage or depression decided to take the lives of his own family and then his own. I wish I could say I was one of them, but it’s just not possible.

In an interview on his official WWE-published DVD, Hard Knocks, released months after he became the top man at Wrestlemania 20, Benoit said that wrestling was his “mistress”. He spoke of how much he had sacrificed to make it as a wrestler because it was all he had. His best friends were wrestlers. He even met his wife in wrestling.

Much like the links in the NFL between concussions and tragedy – not least of all the Aaron Hernandez saga – the physical demands of a high-risk, high-profile and often very lucrative profession gave the fairytale a dire, dire ending.

And when posthumous tests on his brain showed it resembled that of an eighty-something with Alzheimer’s, the toll his “mistress” had taken on him was disturbingly clear. Whether you believe Benoit was evil for just three days of his 40 years or anything more than that, the nauseating degree to which the industry had chewed Benoit up and spat his entire family out was undeniable.

The last word I’d just to describe it, however, is “fake”.