The Healing Process

I'm still getting over the shock of what happened. It seems the more I have looked at what has happened this weekend the more I am appalled at the tragedy.

In no particular order here are some of the things that have been uncovered since the news broke:

- Vince McMahon made a statement before last night's episode of ECW explaining the decision they had made to run a tribute episode of Raw. He claimed that the name 'Chris Benoit' would no longer be mentioned after the revelations made at the press conference held on Tuesday afternoon. McMahon said they were dedicating the show to those affected by the murders and suicide and the 'healing process' would begin.

-The press conference revealed that Nancy Benoit had been tied up and crushed, Daniel Benoit was found to have been suffocated in his bed and Chris Benoit took his own life by hanging himself in his gym.

-News items revealed that needle marks were found on the seven-year old. He had been injected by one or both of his parents with HGH (Human Growth Hormone). A few hours after this story was made public someone came forward in defence of the Benoit family claiming that the son had a condition called Fragile X Syndrome. The Benoits had kept this a secret. Certain people are now wondering whether Benoit killed Daniel in fear that his son would not be cared for properly without his mother and father. I can see the thought process on this one but I still cannot accept that a child was killed.

-All mentions of Benoit - including merchandise - were lifted from the WWE website once the press conference details were announced.

-The topic of steroids and 'roid rage' being the blame was brought up my numerous media outlets. The WWE released a statement of their own announcing that Benoit's last test in April of this year turned out to be a negative and claimed that they were concerned by the media's sensationalistic approach to the coverage. They argued that the tying up of Nancy Benoit is a sign of a premeditated murder rather than that of 'rage'.

-A time-line of Benoit's weekend were also put up on WWE.com. The series of text messages sent to his colleagues were transcribed in this account.

There are so many other things going on right now that will try to answer the big question of 'Why?' I think this has been one of the most surreal times I have ever experienced as a wrestling fan.

Yesterday's piece was written in a way where I wanted to show the rise and fall of Chris Benoit by jumping from my own recollections of him to the actions of this past weekend. I think it was one of most difficult pieces I have ever written. We will never be able to look back fondly at the career now. I wanted to use my writing to emphasise this feeling.