Telling of the Tape:
July 11th, 2007 was World Wrestling Entertainment's three-hour special,
Monday Night Raw broadcast featuring the ever so popular
WWE Draft.
Earlier in the night we had seen
SmackDown!'s roster fall apart much to the dismay of one,
John Bradshaw Layfield on commentary. One by one,
SmackDown would lose
King Booker T and The Boogeyman in the beginning of the night only to be replaced by the likes of The Great Khali, Chris Masters and
Torrie Wilson.
As what has come to be an yearly scenario, WWE's third brand, ECW had picked up one sole draft pick, who would lead ECW and make something of a struggling show at the time. That man was none other than, "The Rabid Wolverine," Chris Benoit from SmackDown!.
This would be the reunion of Extreme Championship Wrestling and Chris Benoit, but little did we know that his first appearence on ECW would also be his final match in a professional wrestling ring. On June 19th, 2007, Chris Benoit had defeated Elijah Burke for the right to challenge CM Punk for the now vacant, ECW World Heavyweight Championship. Since Benoit was the victor, he was slated in a bout with Punk at WWE Vengeance (now known as Night of Champions).
As the weekend was fastly approaching, mysterious events began to start regarding the newly crowned number one contendor. Benoit was slated for two house shows and his big match at Vengeance, but he had alerted WWE that his wife and son had sucumb to food poisoning, so he was forced to have to miss the events. Benoit was not seen or heard from until a few days later. Currnet WWE Superstar, Chavo Guerrero had explained that he gave him several messages and Benoit did not respond until leaving messages during the night, presumably right before he murdered his wife, Nancy and son, Daniel. Chavo said that, "I was concerned about Benoit's tone and demeanor,"and he later recieved a message from Benoit stating that he missed his fight due to his claim that he, "had a real stressful day due to Nancy and Daniel being sick with food poisoning."
Later during the week on July 25th, the bodies of Daniel, Nancy, and Chris had been found throughout the home. Daniel and Nancy were found with Bibles placed to their corpses and Benoit was found in his personal gym after he hung himself after the murders. WWE had sent the following message in regards to this occurrence on their official website...
"World Wrestling Entertainment is deeply saddened to report that today Chris Benoit and his family were found dead in their home. There are no further details at this time, other than the Benoit family residence is currently being investigated by local authorities. Tonight’s Raw on USA Network will serve as a tribute to Chris Benoit and his family. WWE extends its sincerest thoughts and prayers to the Benoit family’s relatives and loved ones in this time of tragedy."
The following night on Extreme Championship Wrestling after details of the double murder-suicide were recently discovered, Vince McMahon sent out a message to all of the fans before the broadcast officially aired...
''Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Last night on Monday Night Raw, the WWE presented a special tribute show, recognizing the career of Chris Benoit. However, now some 26 hours later, the facts of this horrific tragedy are now apparent. Therefore, other than my comments, there will be no mention of Mr. Benoit's name tonight. On the contrary, tonight's show will be dedicated to everyone who has been affected by this terrible incident. This evening marks the first step of the healing process. Tonight, the WWE performers will do what they do better than anyone else in the world: entertain you.''
After WWE found of the know nation wide controversy, many had speculations when it came to the Benoit tragedy. When did Nancy and Daniel die? What did Benoit do in between the murders? Why would Benoit do such a thing? We never truly recieved straight forward answers as people from Chris Jericho to Kurt Angle to Benoit's close friends and family provided us with different explanations. Some blamed "Roid Rage," others had said that Benoit grew frusterated with his "crumbling marriage." There were no answers to our questions, but as Vince McMahon said himself throughout the years, "The show must go on."...And it did.
Though still there was much controversy put on WWE and blaming it for providing Benoit with drugs that caused his sudden rage, there were really no straight forward answers to this either.Some like Kurt Angle claimed, "This is not WWE’s fault and this is not Vince McMahon’s fault. Chris Benoit was responsible for his own actions." Others such as the goverment had blamed WWE as well as their Wellness Policy consisting of "loopholes."
Nontheless, autopsy reports came out, doctors were sued, controversies were created to no true reason Benoit did this. No matter what exactly did happen, we do know that a legend passed and the world of sports entertainment would change forever.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my new series entitled, "What If?". As the title implies, I will be asking a very common question towards several of the most controversial moments in professional wrestling history. Now, when I look at moments in pro wrestling history, it will not always be necessarily a moment that transpired inside the squared circle. For example, my topic today, where I look at the Chris Benoit tragedy, is something that had occurred outside of any storyline, but took a huge toll on the current status of pro wrestling today.
