Two years ago Chris Benoit went insane. He took the life of his wife, his child and then himself. After all this time, this tragedy is still something difficult to come to grips with. Wrestling fans have become accustomed to Benoit, the internet’s golden man for his amazing in ring ability, being erased from history. Wrestlers are often made into villains for using his moves, like Davey Richards once was at a ROH show. Benoit has become the face of everything wrong with wrestling, from huge bumps to the over-prevalence of drugs and steroids.
Chris Benoit and his legacy have taken a hit for his actions, but these are actions it’s difficult to call him truly responsible for. Chris Nowinski, the foremost expert in concussions in wrestling, was allowed to examine Chris Benoit’s brain after his death and discovered trauma similar to that of an aged Alzheimer’s patient. Is it Benoit’s fault he had received such brain trauma? Yes, but only to an extent.
Chris Benoit, noted universally as a good kind man by his peers, was also notable for another trait- his one overriding passion was to succeed at the highest level as a professional wrestler. To this effect he trained himself to be perhaps the best in-ring performer ever, as well as being willing to take an absurd amount of punishment and take a ton of drugs to enhance his appearance to the point where he would be viable at the highest level.
Wrestling is not MMA where sheer skill will allow success and fame in a certain weight class. In wrestling, in the
Ultimately, Chris Benoit’s final actions were appalling, but they were the result of mental illness. This was such a mental illness that Benoit had little warning of their possibility. Colleagues regularly state how they could never have expected this and well they shouldn’t. A person’s actions are determined by their brain and the brain of Chris Benoit at the time of his death bore little resemblance to it during his life. For this, I urge the upset wrestling fan to do their best to respect the life of Chris Benoit as a sane individual. There is no correct way to deal with pain and grief and none can say you definitively should respect a man who committed such a heinous act, but the fact of his damaged brain remains and, as such, I leave this for your consideration.
For More Information: Try Mark Satrang’s column The Chris Benoit tragedy, two years later. For more on wrestler death’s try my recent column on Mitsuharu Misawa.
Comments
If Benoit's actions were simply because of damage from dangerous bumps. Atsushi Onita, Mr. Pogo, Ryuji Ito, and Jun Kasai would have all had killing sprees.
Maybe the concussion deal is part of it, but to say it's the whole issue and drop it is absolutely ridiculous. Benoit was and is a murderer, and deserves to have his name erased from any honor professional wrestling would have given him.
I'm sick of the tedious debating over how we all "should" remember him. I choose to remember for everything he was infamous for, and can separate the human being behind the art from the art that he created.
If others wanna remember him differently, I really don't care. I still say it was wrong to do what he did, but I don't like to judge events that I wasn't a part of. I'm not going to condemn him. I will say though that based on the evidence that I read about, he didn't kill himself to escape imprisonment.
The biggest tragedy of all of this is that a boy will never get the chance to makes his choices.
Ok, Well my personal idea is , it is like mixing bleach and ammonia. Two chemicals that by themselves are cleaners. Together are death to people.
The brain controls the release of chemicals in the body/produced or lack there of. So the brain damage could of altered the production of said chemicals.. Causing a sort of mental illnesses in Benoit. Depression can make you do odd things. Mood swings? Keep that one in mind.
Now add steroids into this. When you start taking them, the body stops producing some male hormones. That in itself will cause Mood swings as well in a body. So you have to keep taking steroids to supply your body with what it needs. If you miss your dose that you are suppose to take them you go haywire.
Was it just Steroids that made Benoit do this?... no. Just Brain Damage? no.. But if you add both of those then the "Map to Madness" people are trying to look for becomes clearer.
Down from his Emotional Break, seeing his family dead. Kills himself.
i m always with chris benoit. i dont know if did right or wrong but what is concerned with us is the in ring chris benoit. we are supposed to consider the man chris benoit professionally. if we or wwe want to blame im for his act then i have a simple question wwe have examination of wrestler how come they never understood about his brain damage and if wwe is considering benoit's personal life then why did it did'nt helped him with his personal life problems. i feel sorry about nancy and daniel but this does'nt allow me or it dose'nt help me to hate my longtime favourite wrestler. he was the best he is the best and he will remain the best. there was no one there is no one and there will be no one technical wrestler as chris benoit. you cant challenge his physical toughness. i'll always love chris. i know its a huge loss but wwe is reasonable for it. he suffered several concussion which are mostly caused due to shots on heads why dont wwe ban such move.
first and foremost, wrestling, even if it's your passion it's still a job, no matter what, there is nothing that makes it acceptable to be behind someone that killed their family. I'm all about my children having the best and i would like to follow my passions too, but if anything that i did during the course of pursuing my dreams could have an adverse effect on my family, i would find another course, there's no way that somebody, at some ponit wouldn't have said "hey man, this is doin' damage to you", and i wouldn't have listened, i was a huge fan of benoit, but since what has happened, it's hard to feel for the guy, because no matter what achievements, no matter the success, if somethings wrong n u feel it endangers family, u leave it. maybe that's just how i feel.
I miss benoit DEEPLY
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