Johnny B. Fair
July 2nd, 2007John Meehan of 411mania has posted a comprehensive timeline of all the things that have happened in this story and what they mean to the wrestling community, coupled with rebuttals and support of every claim made by critics of wrestling and reporters in the wake of Chris Benoit’s actions last weekend. It’s very much worth a read (that means “read it,” Dear Reader), and I’d like to say thank you to Meehan for posting it.
After that, I’d like to direct your attention to this article about Benoit and drugs, specifically “GHB,” which is often used as a date-rape drug. There’s evidence to suggest that that was a drug he was using and that it caused him, as it’s caused others, to go insane. I’ve long believed that prescription drugs, mental illness and a lack of harmony with his wife were the causes of Benoit’s actions. It’s a much more sensible reaction than “Oh, it’s the steroids!” and “Oh, it’s wrestling! because if it were the steroids, all of Major League Baseball and professional football would be filled with wife-killers and if it were “wrestling, more wrestlers would be murdering.
Now, before I go on and discuss the mainstream media’s handling of Chris Benoit further I’d like to take a moment to challenge the charges made by Scott Williams of the Wrestling Observer.
We also know that for every outraged parent who first read or heard Benoit’s name when this news broke, there’s a wrestling fan trying to rationalize. Don’t take my word for it – use any search engine to find an online wrestling message board or blog. You will find someone trying either to explain circumstances to mitigate the double murder, offer bizarre alternate theories, or argue that we should focus more on Benoit’s tremendous in-ring ability than the crimes that punctuated his life. It’s this mentality that has kept fans from getting outraged at the dozens of drug tragedies in wrestling’s recent history. It’s this mentality that led fans last year to care more about Kurt Angle’s next in-ring opponent than the real circumstances of his departure from World Wrestling Entertainment, where Benoit also worked.
This is the mentality of wrestling fans — not all of them, but a disturbingly large percentage who speak out. It allows them to weep and wail about wrestling’s latest tragedy (which they inevitably never saw coming), while they plunk down money for entertainment they know is bought with dangerously heavy drug use and simultaneously say, “It’s not my fault that (dead wrestler’s name here) chose to put bad things in his body.” Is WWE owner Vince McMahon to blame for Chris Benoit killing his family and himself? Are wrestling fans? No, Benoit has deservedly traded in adulation for revulsion, ultimately accountable for his hideous acts.
But the wrestling business fosters an environment that’s anything but healthy, and both it and its fans spring to the unhealthy system’s defense whenever tragedy hits and outsiders question it. We’ve seen plenty of that this week, as well. In the weeks to come, we’ll get an answer to at least one question: will this tragedy torpedo the wrestling business? Those who knew him best say Chris Benoit loved the wrestling business. Ironically, it’s possible that his end could precipitate its end. However, we already have an answer — one that’s been evident for a long time, to anyone willing to look hard and honestly — to another question: Does wrestling deserve to be sunk?
That answer is a sad, sorry “Yes.”
This wrestling fan, for one, is criticizing and defending which is what I believe to be the proper and necessary response. When the mainstream media uses the testimony of the Ultimate Warrior and Chyna on the air it deserves to be criticized for presenting a misleading and incredibly tainted version of speculation, let alone events, and when the press does a number on what actually happened by hypothesizing nonsense about Nancy Benoit’s ex-husband murdering the them all, well, it deserves to be criticized. It deserves to be criticized for running amok with Steroids! as the headline when the truth is far from it, as many believe, myself and the wrestlers who knew him and the police department investigating included. Similarly, anyone that would claim that wrestling “creates the monster,” as Nancy Grace did and Williams is doing, deserve to be criticized and vehemently so. I simply can not accept any claim of “Wrestling creates the monster!” or “The wrestling business encourages this behavior!” as that’s demonstrably untrue (how many other wrestlers have gone off on double homicides?). Anyone who would argue that wrestling creates more monsters than the post office or working at Dairy Queen or writing on a political website for a living has an agenda, and anybody who would argue that wrestlers themselves are inherently more dangerous than most just because of the work they do is dishonest as well.
I’m just disappointed that someone who covered wrestling for a living would fall for such gobbledygook, because I’m only defending wrestling from those who would claim that it creates double murderers and child killers and monsters as a matter of routine and use the Ultimate Warrior and Chyna to paint a picture of steroids as if every professional wrestler is a homicide waiting to happen. I am defending the business from nonsense. I am not defending it from the claims that it should be forced to change the way wrestlers schedule, especially in the WWE. I am not giving the drug policy (”The Wellness Program”) a ringing endorsement, as I definitely believe it should be tightened. That said, let’s not lose our mind and start calling for an end to professional wrestling or perpetuate the partyline about wrestling creating monsters.
Bruce Hart, who was Bret Hart’s father and Benoit’s trainer in the famed Hart Dungeon, made some interesting comments on Friday that I missed until now. First, let’s look at the introduction to the article,
Chris Benoit was a “delusional juice freak” who chased the dark side and had trouble distinguishing between his fictional character and reality, says the man who started him out in professional wrestling. “The last time I saw him he was in pretty rough shape mentally,” said Bruce Hart, son of the legendary Stu Hart. “I didn’t know all the details but I knew it wasn’t good. I was not at all shocked (by what happened).
and now let me say, “Nowhere in the article does Hart call Benoit a ‘delusional juice freak.’” He goes on to talk about Benoit’s mental health, and he says that Benoit appeared troubled every time he saw him in recent years, then he criticizes the WWE for not being able to see that something was wrong with Chris. All of these points are interesting, and I think the last one is valid (an employer must be able to tell when its employee is ill; to WWE’s credit, they’ve said numerous times that Benoit’s been a different man lately: to their detriment, they didn’t ask him to see a counselor or do enough to help him, but it is also important to know that two of his best friends in the business had died within the last two years). But beyond all that, I think the author of the article deserves to be fired for the introduction, as do the editors who allowed (and, I’m sure, encouraged) it, as it’s completely dishonest but drags in the reader.
Let me ask you something, Dear Reader. Do you think editors and producers all over called a conference and said, “The man and his family are dead, right? So nothing matters now besides ratings, right? And bringing down the wrestling industry?” because it sure seems like that’s what happened to me.
I’d like to briefly discuss the mainstream media’s coverage of the Benoit murder now and focus a little on cable, since I’ve spent a few hundred words talking about print sources already. Here is a YouTube page that has video of many of the wrestling segments on cable news. First, I’ll say that I’m disturbed by the inclusion of Johnny B. Badd Mark Mero to the list of wrestlers who’ve been interviewed as Mero didn’t know Benoit particularly well, hasn’t held a steady, serious job in the wrestling industry in ages — but other than that, he’s a great source!
Actually, I think he might be a little better than the Ultimate Warrior, and he’s a lot better than Geraldo Rivera, but that doesn’t excuse him or the media from turning this tragedy into a circus, and in so doing creating a second tragedy. I only wish Johnny P. could B. Fair and Accurate, but that’s far too much to ask when there’s money to be made, right?