RIP Chris Benoit

[manicpanicmuni]

Hey all,

some of u guys may know of chris benoit who was a wwe professional wrestler. He recently died, along with his wife Nancy and his son Daniel in their home last weekend. Right now the case is being treated as a double suicide murder where they think he killed his wife and kid and then himself afterwards. No blood wounds anywhere so they suspect poison or most likely smothering/suffocation.

but yea, i know a lot of you fellow north americans and others around the world may follow wrestling. i just wanted to say rest in peace for chris, daniel and nancy benoit.

it is very tragic, as he was also proclaimed as the best technical wrestler in all of pro wrestling even though it is all scripted.

[habbywall]

They're also considering 'roid rage as a "motive" I guess you would call it.

[Brian O.]

Apparently he and his family's death was posted on wikipedia 13 hours before cops even found out, what the heck? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,287194,00.html

[Buddy]

Apparently he and his family's death was posted on wikipedia 13 hours before cops even found out, what the heck? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,287194,00.html

Creepy...

[BillyTheMountain]

They're also considering 'roid rage as a "motive" I guess you would call it.

I heard steroids are harder to kick than heroin.

[MuniAddict]

This loser murdered his innocent child and wife! The low life is nothing but a Fu##ing coward! Rot in hell you piece of SH#T!:)

[TheObieOne3226]

This loser murdered his innocent child and wife! The low life is nothing but a Fu##ing coward! Rot in hell you piece of SH#T!:)


The sad part is WWE canceled their Monday program to do a 3 hour tribute to the man. I liked him when I used to like wrestling, but I have lost all respect for him, assuming the allegations are correct (seems so).

[monkeyman]

The sad part is WWE canceled their Monday program to do a 3 hour tribute to the man. I liked him when I used to like wrestling, but I have lost all respect for him, assuming the allegations are correct (seems so).

Well of course they did. What do you expect them to do, hold the man responsible for his actions?

The sad thing is, I'm probably partly true. All this will do is spark more drug debate, and it will end with the only PC opinion being to blame it on the rage-inducing steroids. No one will really think about how he murdered his family by strangling them...it will just be looked on as a tragedy caused by the evils of drugs.

Idiot politicians.

[kington99]

Well of course they did. What do you expect them to do, hold the man responsible for his actions?

The sad thing is, I'm probably partly true. All this will do is spark more drug debate, and it will end with the only PC opinion being to blame it on the rage-inducing steroids. No one will really think about how he murdered his family by strangling them...it will just be looked on as a tragedy caused by the evils of drugs.

Idiot politicians.

I tend to agree with you, there seems to be some code of conduct in these events where the correct thing to do is to blame anything you can except the perpetrator. Kid shoots up his school? Blame the music, the drugs, the websites, but never the parents.

However, if they use all this to promote an anti-drugs message then something positive might come out of this tragedy. Stopping people from using drugs is maybe possible. Stopping people from going on completely unpredictable homicidal rampages isn't, by their very nature such crimes can be committed by anyone at anytime. Assuming the allegations are true this guy is evidently a prick, but maybe his actions can save more lives than they cost.

[GILD]

He's in real good compa (http://www.talkwrestlingonline.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=38204)ny.

Wrestling may be the one sport with more drug issues than cycling.

[mattsmith]

I'm not wishing him a safe journey to Valhalla just yet, but you've got to take the man separate from the drugs.
Anyone on drugs can do crazy stuff that is completely out of character. The world is a different place when you're under the influence, be it from heroin, mescaline, alcohol, nicotine, LSD or whatever. They all have an effect on behaviour. The crime was taking the steroids. It's commonly known as Diminished Responsibility.
I know I've done some weird and terrible things that I could not imagine doing when sober. Sure it was me doing them, but they're still not things that I would do. I know that sounds hypocritical and nonsensical, but cast your mind back to a time that you got obscenely drunk and think about it for a while. Ever had to apologise to someone the morning after?

I don't condemn the man, I pity him.

[mawesome]

Thought I might as well chime in here. I used to be a big fan of wrestling.

Now I'm not sure how true this is, but according to a WWE spokesperson the steroids taken by Benoit were prescribed to him by a doctor, but that could just be the WWE trying to make it look like they're not a bunch of roided up meat heads, and I'm not sure how much a man that build would need steroids.

Although I'm not sure that you can completely blame steroids for what happened.

It could be linked more to concussion and brain damage, if you've ever seen this guy wrestling you'll agree that he was very aggressive, putting his body on the line time and time again, and he paid for it (cue "wrestling is fake" arguments). He had multiple head injuries which in all probability would've lead to brain damage of some sort, repeat concussions would've taken their toll. Many ex-football(American football) players have gone through similar things, depression then murder or suicide(in some cases both) due to continuous knocks to the head during games.

In my opinion the concussion induce depression seems more logical than the roid rage outburst explanation as roids often result in a spontaneous eruption of violence, and after reading the article that was in the first post saying that his wife was bound at the hands and feet it seems more premeditated than a roid rage outburst. And the murders(or at least the deaths) were said to be on 2 separate days, Nancy on the Friday, then his son on the Saturday, so that should rule out one sudden outburst.

Of course there's no doubt that steroids would've played a part in this, I don't think that's the be all and end all the incident.

Just my $0.02(although they're Australian, so they're not worth as much)

-Keven

[monkeyman]

Just my $0.02(although they're Australian, so they're not worth as much)
:D

You make a good point, and that may be what happened, but I still stand firm on my view that it was his fault. To Matt, blaming it on the drugs is still skipping a step. Unless he was tied down and forced to take drugs, it's still his fault for taking them. You can't hide behind the defense that drugs/alcohol made you do something. Yes, you may have done something extremely out of character, but you had to have known the side effects in the first place.

[Hazmat]

Well here's 1 news headlines about this thread.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/wrestling-deaths-posted-on-web-before-police-told/2007/06/29/1182624165684.html

[cathwood]

I tend to agree with you, there seems to be some code of conduct in these events where the correct thing to do is to blame anything you can except the perpetrator. Kid shoots up his school? Blame the music, the drugs, the websites, but never the parents.

You said "Blame everything except the perpetrator" then suggest that we should blame parents when the kid shoots up the school. The parents weren't the perpetrator, why not blame the kid?

[monkeyman]

You said "Blame everything except the perpetrator" then suggest that we should blame parents when the kid shoots up the school. The parents weren't the perpetrator, why not blame the kid?

I think (sorry for speaking for you, kington) that he might have switched trains of though in mid-sentence. I do that a lot. I think he meant that blame for bad behavior and values is shoved off onto video games and music instead of being placed at the feet of the people that raised the kid.

[kington99]

You said "Blame everything except the perpetrator" then suggest that we should blame parents when the kid shoots up the school. The parents weren't the perpetrator, why not blame the kid?


Sorry yes I meant blame the kid, and possibly the parents aswell, depending on the kids age and the exact circumstances. Monkeyman summed it up better than i did.

[ThisGuyIKnow]

Wrestling may be the one sport with more drug issues than cycling.

Um, WWE is not a sport it's a performance art.

[MuniAddict]

Um, WWE is not a sport it's a performance art.Haha yeah, and even that's a stecth!:p

[habbywall]

I'd call it a play on steroids.
Although, you could argue it being a sport by the amount of time and effort these guys have to put in to get there bodies to look like this. It doesn't happen overnight with steriods, they do actually have to lift weights.

[ThisGuyIKnow]

I'd call it a play on steroids.
Although, you could argue it being a sport by the amount of time and effort these guys have to put in to get there bodies to look like this. It doesn't happen overnight with steriods, they do actually have to lift weights.

To be a sport there is sort of a requirement that the outcomes not be pre-determined. If Pro wrestling is a sport so is Ballet.

Just because requires a huge amount of athleticism and learning special skills and techniques does not make it a sport.

[dudewithasock]

I'd call it a sport for the same reason I'd call figure-skating a sport (which I do); it takes talent and it's carefully choreographed. The fact that the acting sucks doesn't make it a not-sport.

[MuniAddict]

I'd call it a sport for the same reason I'd call figure-skating a sport (which I do); it takes talent and it's carefully choreographed. The fact that the acting sucks doesn't make it a not-sport.Figure skating may be "choreographed", but the outcome of the competition is not pre-determined.

[mawesome]

Wrestling is a choreographed, over-muscular, violent pantomime theater. There's a lot more to it than just fixing the matches. There's making the bad guy the bad guy, then making the guy who used to be the bad guy turn on his bad guy friends and become the good guy, then the good guy do likewise and become the cowardly bad guy after attacking his tag-team partner so he got a chance at some title belt match.

There's really a lot of work that goes into the stuff that isn't people beating each other up.

Not to mention the pyrotechnics they have set up when each wrestler goes to the ring. It really is a performance.

-Keven

[ThisGuyIKnow]

It really is a performance.


As I already said. A performance "art", not a sport.

[habbywall]

It now appears that the person that posted the thing on wikipedia only did it as a rumor, and knew nothing about his wife's death.

[GILD]

Um, WWE is not a sport it's a performance art.
I like to think of it as a soap opera with bruises.
It was officially only designated as 'sport entertainment' because this resulted in lower venue-insurance rates.
Untill Vince took over (and did everything his father told him not to do to wrestling), it was happily accepted as a sport.

If cheerleading can be called a sport and ketchup a vegetable, then surely wrestling can't be that far behind?
And don't even get me started on synchronised swimming.

[ThisGuyIKnow]

If cheerleading can be called a sport and ketchup a vegetable, then surely wrestling can't be that far behind?
And don't even get me started on synchronised swimming.

Cheerleading and synchronised swimming are only sports when they are judged.

How about we make performance wrestling into a sport by adding judges. The "competitors" would actually be teammates and their performance would win points from the judges based on technique, creativity, and costume flashiness.

EDIT: Something I thought of after but dont' want to double post.

The amazing thing is that Vince used to pay USA network to put his show on the air as sort of a paid program in order to sell more tickets to the live events. Now they pay him gobs of cash.

I'm so glad that the panda logo people won their lawsuit and got to keep their name.

[MuniAddict]

Cheerleading and synchronised swimming are only sports when they are judged.

Hmmm, isn't baseball, basketball, football, and yes, unicycling, a sport just by participating in it, without "judges"? In the first three examples, there are no "judges", but whoever wins by highest score.

[ThisGuyIKnow]

Hmmm, isn't baseball, basketball, football, and yes, unicycling, a sport just by participating in it, without "judges"? In the first three examples, there are no "judges", but whoever wins by highest score.

Hey, don't try to derail my my Pro Wrestling is not a sport theory.

Unicycling although often isn't competitive, it can be timed or judged under competitive circumstances, even if you never intend to actually compete.

btw, basketball, baseball, football are judged by referees and umpires.

[MuniAddict]

Hey, don't try to derail my my Pro Wrestling is not a sport theory.

Unicycling although often isn't competitive, it can be timed or judged under competitive circumstances, even if you never intend to actually compete.

btw, basketball, baseball, football are judged by referees and umpires.HAha I agreed with you that "pro" wrestling is not a real sport, but there are those who classify it as such: http://www.fazeteen.com/fall2001/wrestling.htm
The point for me is moot, because I don't waste my time watching it in the first place.

[john_childs]

The Chris Benoit murder suicide is bringing out some interesting stories about what goes on with the wrestlers (performers) in professional wrestling.

Here's an interesting story about Lex Luger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_Luger): Wrestling can leave lives on the ropes (http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/fayette/stories/2007/07/01/0701metwrestler.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab)

Professional Wrestling is becoming a tale of tragedies. You'd like to think they will clean up their act but we know that will never happen. Not being an organized sport they have no governing body to make sure the competition is clean and the athletes taken care of. No players union. No pension. No organization helping to make sure there is a future after a career ending injury or retirement. Just chew them up and spit them out. Then move on to the next young rising star.