{"id":137,"date":"2007-06-26T13:51:04","date_gmt":"2007-06-26T12:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tinyplanetblog.com\/?p=137"},"modified":"2007-06-26T13:51:04","modified_gmt":"2007-06-26T12:51:04","slug":"benoit-murder-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tinyplanetblog.com\/?p=137","title":{"rendered":"Benoit murder-suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I’ve been left shaken by the news Chris Benoit murdered his family before killing himself<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What exactly happened is unclear, although police say the details will seem a little “bizarre”. The 40-year-old is believed to have killed his wife and seven-year-old child over the weekend and himself on Monday.<\/p>\n

(Update:<\/strong> police have said he strangled her, smothered the child and then hanged himself. The incident may be linked to steroid-induced depression or ‘roid rage’)<\/p>\n

For those who don’t know Benoit, he was a performer with World Wrestling Entertainment<\/strong>. He was due to appear on Sunday night’s Vengeance<\/em> pay-per-view, but was withdrawn due to “personal reasons”.<\/p>\n

He was also one of my all-time favourite pro-wrestlers, although I haven’t followed the industry for several years.<\/p>\n

According to WWE<\/strong>, the company asked authorities to check on Benoit and his family after being alerted by friends who received “several curious text messages sent by Benoit early Sunday morning”.<\/p>\n

The bodies were found in three separate rooms<\/a> of the wrestler’s Atlanta home.<\/p>\n

Born in Canada, Benoit trained in Calgary with the legendary Stu Hart and competed for Hart’s Stampede Wrestling<\/strong> group from 1985-89.<\/p>\n

His strong grappling style won him legions of fans in Japan, before enhancing his reputation in the US with a stint for Extreme Championship Wrestling<\/strong>. He style earned the nickname “Canadian Crippler”.<\/p>\n

His career blossomed in World Championship Wrestling<\/strong> after he became one of the Four Horsemen (along with Ric Flair, Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman). A lengthy best-of-seven feud with Booker T propelled him toward the upper ranks before Benoit jumped ship to WWE<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

He, along with the likes of Eddie Guerrero — who died of heart failure in 2005 — were the workers who renewed my interest in professional wrestling.<\/p>\n

Although I was always aware of the backstage booking work, I was genuinely surprised when Benoit defeated Triple H in 2004 at Wrestlemania XX<\/strong> (the first time WWE’s<\/strong> flagship PPV ended with a submission). The footage of Benoit celebrating in the ring with Guerrero, who also won a world title that night, is one I will remember for a very long time.<\/p>\n

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In an industry replete with characters, Benoit was one who stood out. He wasn’t good on the microphone, nor was he a showboater, nor was he charismatic in a traditional sense.<\/p>\n

He won the crowd over the old-fashioned way: by working hard in the ring, using his physical strength and demonstrating one of the best technical-wrestling arsenals of recent years.<\/p>\n

This was what brought me back to wrestling. I seldom found the storylines compelling, but the in-ring work by the likes of Benoit was compelling. He made me appreciate the traditional aspects of the industry. It was a combination of no-nonsense physical grappling and expert ring psychology. His was never a “brawl for all” style, but you could see his use of tactics to bring down his opponent.<\/p>\n

(Yes, the finishes etc are scripted. But it’s one thing to be told what to do and something completely different to go out there and make it realistic.)<\/p>\n

A combination of moving home for work and then night shifts for the Examiner<\/em> put paid to my WWE <\/strong>watching. I occasionally checked in on the website but never recovered the passion.<\/p>\n

It is disturbing to think one’s heroes could be capable of such terrible acts. There could be many reasons, but it would be uncouth of me to speculate without a deeper knowledge of the facts.<\/p>\n

All I can say is that professional wrestling has lost a true great, and I have lost an idol.<\/p>\n

[youtube]http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WS8Kw4SyG1E[\/youtube] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been left shaken by the news Chris Benoit murdered his family before killing himself. What exactly happened is unclear, although police say the details will seem a little “bizarre”. The 40-year-old is believed to have killed his wife and seven-year-old child over the weekend and himself on Monday. (Update: police have said he strangled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,29,33,34,45,65],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tinyplanetblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tinyplanetblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tinyplanetblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tinyplanetblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tinyplanetblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tinyplanetblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tinyplanetblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tinyplanetblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tinyplanetblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}