Wrestling With Tragedy
June 26th, 2007The late 1990s are considered to be a golden age in professional wrestling’s history, due in equal part to the fact that viewers returned to the industry after they’d left in droves following Vince McMahon’s steroid scandal. Reinvigorating the world of professional wrestling were the Monday Night Ratings Wars between World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation; the third-party shenanigans of Paul Heyman’s Extreme Championship Wrestling; the introduction of adult storylines; the infusion of hardcore wrestling; the arrival of Japanese and Mexican talent; and the rise of an anti-hero in Stone Cold Steve Austin and popular pretty boy The Rock, who were the first true superstars in wrestling since Hulk Hogan took over every child’s living room in the 1980s. The 1990s, popular with the mainstream, were not so with the critics, who claimed that the brands were becoming too violent, too edgy for children, but they were often rebutted not by the wrestlers or promotors but by the fans, and the merchandise sales, and the ratings, which combined served as a powerful silencer.
Unfortunately, the critics found an equally powerful silencer in a young girl’s abrupt silence and a villain they turned into an anti-hero in more dramatic, disturbing fashion than almost anything ever broadcast by the World Wrestling Federation. I am, of course, talking about Lionel Tate, who murdered Tiffany Eunick in Florida.
Tate, if you don’t remember, was a twelve year old, one hundred and sixty six pound boy whose mother was babysitting the six year old, sixty six pound Eunick when he killed her in a manner so brutal that the prosecutors at his trial cited doctors claims that the injuries were the equivelant of falling out of a third story building. Her skull was fractured, her brain swollen, her liver split in half. Her ribs were destroyed, as were countless other bones, and it was said that she screamed and suffered for hours, to which her babysitter’s response had been, “Be quiet or I’ll spank your butt!” (Tate’s mother didn’t even go look to see what was happening with Tiffany Eunick that she was in such pain. Tate’s mother belonged in prison as much as Tate did.)
At his trial, Tate claimed that he’d merely been wrestling with her as a friend and it had all been an unfortunate accident, which was a ploy by the Defense to turn the media on the World Wrestling Federation and transform Lionel Tate into an innocent boy possessed by Vince McMahon. The media, all too happy for a story, took the opportunity and soon much of the country was wondering why a television program so violent would be allowed to continue, or have been started in the first place. Conservative activitist L. Brent Bozell’s Parents Television Council declared war on professional wrestling and the media took the over-the-top atmosphere of a wrestling show into the press box and attempted to lead it into the courtroom. The Courts, however, found Lionel Tate guilty of all charges and sentenced him to life without parole, which he appealed, and he found himself out on the streets in due time, where he wound up stealing a car, undoubtedly taught him by wrestling.
Professional wrestler and New York Times best-selling author Mick Foley wrote in greater detail about Bozell’s antics, the media’s unfair treatment of professional wrestling and the Tate incident, but this all leads to the terrible news out of Atlanta this weekend that Chris Benoit (famed as a technical wrestler without much flash) killed his wife, seven-year-old son and self. I, for one, was shocked by the story when it broke that there’d been a murder in the Benoit household as Benoit’s always been known as a class act and nice guy, so it stunned me, and it saddened me because Benoit was a favorite of mine, then it shocked me and depressed me when I learned that it had been a double murder-suicide.
My thoughts at first turned to prayer, as I wished for the best for the Benoits and all those who knew them. I then wondered, Why did this happen? How could he do this? and so I turned on CNN at two o clock today, June 26th 2007, to hear what the policemen had to say about it. The lead-in to the Benoit Press Conference involved something about “A violent life of wrestling. A violent end,” or something to that effect, and I felt numbed by the painful reminder of what had occurred until I realized that it was more than a reminder, or a summation. It was a crack. It was a crack about the violence in wrestling and an implication that it has something to do with Nancy and Daniel Benoit’s terrible deaths.
I knew then that the media would Lionel Tate World Wrestling Entertainment using Chris Benoit’s tragic end, and I feel sick knowing it now. In the coming weeks, we will hear about steroid abuse in wrestling; the violent nature of matches; the grueling schedule; the disturbing effect a Randy Orton match can have on a child. All of it is cause for some level of concern amongst parents, academics and the wrestlers themselves, but none of them caused Chris Benoit to kill his family. People don’t become killers because of professional wrestling. Since the story broke, it’s taken more and more twists, from the disgusting revelation that Chris Benoit may have been giving his child human growth hormone to the release of Nancy Sullivan’s attempt to divorce Benoit for prior abuse to the details about the murder itself, but it should not be taken as an indictment of professional wrestling.
Vince McMahon and his company might deserve some blame for not noticing what had allegedly been a steady breakdown in Benoit’s psyche for the last several weeks. World Wrestling Entertainment’s steroid policies are a joke and they should be scrutinized and criticized. But let’s not pretend that this case of extreme violence has to do with the “violent nature” of professional wrestling, because you wouldn’t be close to the root of the problem, whatever it was, as the problem is in Benoit’s head, not the industry’s soul. The industry and its fans grieve as much as anyone. And rest assured, they are violent tears, not inspired by wrestling but by tragedy.
I, for one, can’t understand what Chris Benoit did or why. I can’t fathom what would drive a man to kill his family. I don’t know the man or his situation, and I don’t hate him for what he’s done. I hope he and his family can find closure in another life, on the other side, if there is another life or other side. I’ll leave it for God to sort out, because that’s all I can do but feel this sickness in my stomach. I hope that his remaining children can be okay. I pray for Nancy’s living family. I wish it hadn’t happened. It did, and it’s all terrible, for the children who enjoy wrestling to the adults who might as well be children to those who have never grown up and make no excuses for it. I hope this tragedy can end — for us — with the investigation into what happened, why and how, and what, if anything, the rest of us (wrestling fans and non alike) can learn from it for when someone we know is losing it.
I hope this situation isn’t exploited by the media to go after their old, favorite whipping boy in professional wrestling, because that isn’t appropriate to the situation, and the situation is too serious for scapegoats or to scrape up old wounds as the newest wound runs deep enough.