It has been reported that over the course of the weekend of June 22, 2007 through June 25, 2007, professional wrestler Chris Benoit murdered his wife Nancy Benoit and their 7 year old son Daniel, before finally hanging himself.
At first report, it was thought that Benoit had suffered from what is known among athletes as "Roid Rage", making him snap and kill them, then himself. "Roid Rage" has never been proven to be an actual condition, nor has it ever been linked with the type of case that we're looking at with Chris Benoit. After assessing the time of death for Nancy, Daniel and Chris, it was determined that it was not a case of a rage. According to many reports, Nancy died Friday, Daniel died Saturday and Chris died on Sunday, none of whom were found until late Monday afternoon.
It was also reported that coworkers received text messages from Chris and Nancy's cell phones that were out of character for Chris. According to one report, Chris had messaged his co-workers with his address and instructions on how to get inside the house, as well as the location of the family dogs. Chris had been scheduled to appear at several events that weekend and when contacted about them, he gave excuses of missing flights, family emergency and then just not answering calls, prompting World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) to send Fayetteville, Georgia police to check on the welfare of Benoit.
The bodies were discovered just hours before a live event for the WWE in Texas, prompting them to cancel their live three hour event and pay tribute to Benoit and his family, long before the gruesome details came to light. WWE chairman, Vince McMahon, nixed a story-line that had started a week prior, involving the apparent explosion of a limousine that he was in. In the story-line, McMahon was to have been dead, leaving the wrestlers and his family to figure out who had killed him. Out of respect for the deaths of Benoit and his family, McMahon came forward and let the audience know that he was, indeed, alive and well, but extended his sympathies on behalf of WWE to Benoit's family.
With all of this controversy over Benoit's possible "Roid Rage" there has been a lot of speculation, despite WWE's statement that Benoit's last drug test in April had come back clean. It has led to the investigation and subsequent arrest of Benoit's physician as well for several charges relating to drugs and drug abuse.
Where does this leave professional wrestling? It has left them under a large, hot spotlight of questions and speculation. It doesn't seem to have deterred the fans at all. The professional wrestling industry has survived many controversies over the years and has still grown to the degree that it is today. Despite drug overdoses, in ring accidents, life threatening injuries to many of the sports top competitors, professional wrestling continues to grow in popularity.
Does professional wrestling need to clean up it's act and find a way to continue on without putting so many people at risk of injury and death? Yes it does, but in the case of Chris Benoit, there really wasn't a whole lot that could be done. He had problems that went beyond the scope of wrestling, much so that we may never know what really pushed him over the edge that weekend.
CHRIS BENOIT WWE LOVES YOU AND WILL NEVER FORGET YOU!!