Well, I guess it proves wrestling isn't fake...

I wasn't going to blog about this, because when I found out yesterday morning that wrestling god Chris Benoit and his family were found dead in their home, I was trying to ignore the obvious. I mean, if it was a random truck driver, found dead in his house with a dead wife and kid, I'd be the first to say 'HE'S A MURDERER~!', but this was Chris freaking Benoit! His nickname was 'The Crippler', not the 'Murder/Suicider'!

I also figured if I put a 'Chris Benoit R.I.P' blog up, I'd get a few dozen comments along the lines of

lol wrestlin is gay

what r u a fgt

did chris benoit put a crippler crossface on your cock

And so on.

But, now it turns out the obvious was obvious for a reason. Chris Benoit murdered his family. A week ago, I would have put that sentence in the 'no way' category next to 'John Howard grew wings out of his anus and flew to the moon' and 'Wil Anderson had an original thought'.

It's hard to explain Chris Benoit's legacy to people who don't follow wrestling, or who think it's shit. Benoit was the wrestling fan's wrestler. He was the guy who you could appreciate, even if you knew the whole thing was scripted.

While The Rock was getting movie deals, and Hulk Hogan was getting VH1 reality shows, Benoit was on the road, 320 days a year, chopping the shit out of people. If a wrestler wanted to improve their work, they'd ask for a match with Benoit. If the WWE management wanted to get a new guy over with the fans, they'd put them with Benoit.

Benoit in WCW in 1999, totally not on roids.
The black armband was for Owen Hart, the dead wrestler who didn't kill himself and his family.

In March 2004, at Wrestlemania 20, he made me yell at the television for the first time since I was 8. (Since then, I've also yelled at the bit in Lost where Locke gets shot). I knew he wasn't really hurting Triple H when he locked in the Crossface submission, but I also knew that I wanted to see Chris Benoit, my favourite wrestler, the nicest guy in an industry full of arseholes and narcissists, win the World Title at Wrestle-fucking-Mania. So there I was, yelling 'TAP!@# TAP YOU SON OF A BITCH!@#' at my Foxtel at 11am in the morning.


And the son of a bitch tapped.


Chris Benoit had won the World Title. A few matches earlier, his best friend Eddie Guerrero had also won a World Title. For a few minutes, they made me forget that the Crippler Crossface doesn't actually hurt, that you can't physically whip someone into the ropes, and that the referee is never looking when the bad guy cheats. For a few minutes, it was real to me, damn it.

Eddie Guerrero (right) and Psycho Fucking Cockface (left)

By Wrestlemania 22, Eddie Guerrero was dead. Heart failure, induced by massive steroid and painkiller abuse. And last weekend, Chris Benoit had strangled his wife, asphyxiated his seven-year old son, and hanged himself.

And I know this sounds stupid, eulogising a murderer just because I liked to watch him do diving headbutts off the top rope. But when Chris Benoit the fucking psycho made his appearance this weekend, he didn't just murder a family. He murdered Chris Benoit the wrestler. And that sucks.

Does it even remotely compare to the slaying of a kid and his mum? No. Should I even be comparing the two? Probably not.

But well........ fuck you, Chris Benoit.