My Final Column On Chris Benoit

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In my last column I basically said that Chris Benoit should no longer be enjoyed by anyone. A man who killed a woman and child with his bare hands is not someone a healthy person should enjoy watching pretend to beat up others. I believe that, I do, and with all of the Chris Benoit tributes popping up something needed to be said. A lot of people agreed with me, a couple disagreed with me for various reasons. One person literally called Daniel “a gimp anyway”, and said it was “no big loss”. Pretty sure it was meant to be a joke (made by one Ryan.Dacosta@lendlease.com.au) but it proved to me the quality of individuals who still view Benoit as a hero.

But this isn’t a celebration of the idiocy of some guy who sent an e-mail from his job extolling the virtues of killing children with Fragile X Syndrome. It’s a celebration of my great decision to ask God to send Chris Benoit to Hell. I had a pretty good point in my article and I decided to let people consider it unreasonable by asking a God I don’t believe in to send a person I never met to Hellfire for all eternity. I believe that’s a sign of maturity.

I let my emotions get the better of me sometimes. Steve Austin, JBL, and now the late wife and child murderer Chris Benoit got these mean columns I wrote while I was at the peak of some emotion. It certainly makes for a more interesting read, but not a fulfilling one. It’s like watching Fox News with talking heads screaming what they feel are the facts at you. There’s a point in the column somewhere, but all you get is the emotion.

I was writing another emotion fueled ‘how dare you all’ column when I clicked on the Friday Evening News update. Nancy’s parents are beside themselves with grief. Chris Benoit has a father who can only publicly say that he prays Nancy’s family is able to deal with the situation. Chris Nowinski wants to examine Chris’ brain to see if his injuries contributed to the murders. Bret Hart is trying in vain to understand the horrible actions of a man who was like family to him. Many wives of wrestlers are taking this chance to finally speak out against the business that left them abused and ultimately alone. And then there’s me asking God to put Chris Benoit in Hell. Boy did I help.

I know wrestling. I don’t really know wrestlers. I know that Matt Hardy seems like a really nice guy. I know that Ric Flair seemed like the salt of the Earth and then his wife claimed he beat the piss out of her. What do you think then? I know that there are some real life issues we can relate to from time to time. But I’ve never hung out with them backstage, never really tried to get back there. While I haven’t experienced it myself I’ve seen the way painkillers can mess with your head and make you delusional, but I only know about steroids what I’ve read or seen on television. Who knows who hasn’t done steroids what that feels like?

I believe that when a person kills his wife and child, that man should no longer be considered whatever his profession was. That’s simple. There are extreme exceptions, and maybe that’s what we’re seeing here. I’d still see the first man on Mars or the person who cures AIDS as more than a killer, and I guess others feel that Chris Benoit was on that level. I just don’t believe he did enough to get that kind of pass. Any form of ‘art’ a child killer has produced should remind us that the artist is a killer, especially when that art involves violence. It shames the memory of his victims to think of him as anyone but the person who killed them. If you disagree with me it’s your right and there’s always the chance I’m wrong, but I firmly believe this to be correct. There should be no tributes to Chris Benoit on Myspace. There should not be people discussing their favorite Chris Benoit matches and memories. There should be scorn and silence.

But on the other side of the coin there also shouldn’t be people who never met him publicly asking God to send him to Hell. I doubt even Nancy’s friends and family want to see strangers doing that. With the media blitz and the shocking way they died, the families and friends must want privacy in a way that I will probably never understand. The least I can do for them is to stop being one of the thousands of voices commenting on it. My words help no one. They don’t even make me feel better.

Being that I have said what I feel about the situation, being that I should not comment on the man and being that I will not comment on the wrestler, there is nothing more for me to say except for one more prayer to a God I call upon selfishly from time to time. I hope the families and friends don’t mind.

I pray Nancy and Daniel are in a good place. I pray for families and friends of the Benoit family. I pray for the confused fans who lost their favorite entertainer and don’t know how to react. And while I truly doubt this one, I pray some modicum of good comes from this horrible situation.

And forgive me for judging the dead. You don’t tell me how to do my job.