Sunday, June 25, 2017

The Benoit Deaths : Ten Years On

It's ten years to the weekend since Chris Benoit killed his wife and son - Nancy and Daniel - before hanging himself.

The story still brings chills even to this very day.

Whenever I think back to the Monday when it was first announced that the three bodies had been found, I recall being told by a guy who used to be on a chat program I use. He was a moderator of a wrestling chat room that used to be around and I'd go in there to watch live pay-per-views. He had messaged me when Eddie Guerrero died and did the same here.

When it first broke by the media, there was no mention of it being a double murder and suicide.

That night's episode of WWE Monday Night Raw became a tribute show. I watched it live. I remember the two wrestling news websites I get my information from were having server issues. It was that big.

Anyway, I don't know when, but I started to realise it must have been Benoit who killed Nancy and Daniel as Raw was in progress. I didn't manage to find out anything more until after the programme.

My suspicions were confirmed.

From there, I remember laying awake in the early hours of the morning thinking about it all. I can't really describe it, but - in the weird way I was playing things out in my head - I could reason that Nancy's death may have been an accident caused by temper (as weird as that seems!) but to do it to a seven-year old. Well, that was something I couldn't even attempt to explain away. The bottom line - the guy I had cheered and followed as a wrestler for thirteen years at that point was a double murderer.

It's side-by-side with Owen Hart's death as one of the two worst experiences in the many years that I've followed pro wrestling. Ironically, when I woke up the following morning, I wrote a blog post about Chris Benoit. I titled it Hero and Villain. I wrote about how I followed his career after seeing him on WCW WorldWide in 93 right up to his time in WWE. Ironically, I think it's one of the best posts I've published but it came after dreadful acts.

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