WWE wrestler Chris Benoit's double murder/suicide a setup?

[FastTadpole]

I watched wrestling Wrestlmania II through to ~VII when I was a kid and I also watched the local Stampede wrestling with a young Benoit, Dynamite Kid, British Bulldog and the Hart Foundation.

I was a 'smark' up until about a 6 months before I joined ConCen, maybe a bit of overlap. It was always interesting to predict what they were going to do next who would turn heel or face. Who would jump corporations. I learned a lot about social engineering following wrestling for about 3 years for 5 hours a week steady. They pulled some clever tricks in the WWE, TNA and ROH (ROH was by far the best ~2006-2008). They were at the cutting edge of viral internet marketing. They could turn a crowd against someone in an instant, had hidden messages (and subliminals) embedded in their programs to decipher, polarized the audience with the personalities and the themes and promoted wars incessantly, they still do.

Getting back to Benoit. I grew up and still live close to his old high school (He's from Edmonton). Everyone that knew him here was shocked. On the wrestling front he was recently demoted to ECW to take on more of a trainer role and probably set up to give the young guys a push but first he was going to be given a belt. The guy who ended up getting it in his place, Jim Morrisson, is now one of their top guys, which may not have happened as quickly if he were still around, but who knows.

Drug use is rampant in the WWE and all wrestling for that matter. Soon after the Benoit death they gave a big push to their clean (in real life) guy, former ROH standout CM Punk, to clean up their image.

We'll never know for sure, but after listening to all the insiders and other smarks, I have little doubt it was a combination of head trauma (from flying head butts) and drugs, in the form of massive amounts of steroids, anti-depressants and pain killers which he was busted with on multiple occasions.



There was a huge delay of 2 days where Nancy was dead, then Daniel was murdered (in a variation of his crippler crossface wrestling hold) before Chris finally took his own life, allegedly hanging himself with wire from his weight room. Now because of the gap in the course of events. Lots of people tried to call him but no one went to visit. Daniel's medical condition (that Fragile X bullshit) was thrown into the story to make it seem more humane and deflect attention away from the excessive drug use and the non-stop travel schedule that wears on the guys. Benoit had recently lost 6 life long friends to premature deaths froma variety of causes. There may have been a bit of family problems too with Daniel having 'food poisoning'. Chris's relationship with Nancy actually started with him seducing her when married or dating another wrestler, not the best start. WWE wellness policy (drug testing program) states it does 'random' testing on the wrestlers and have a 3 strikes rule but they selectively enforce it. Randy Orton, another one of their top guys, got at least one pass and Jeff Hardy got more than one before he imploded his WWE career. Hardy got busted with a bunch of dope by state police doing a 'random' stop less than a week after he quit WWE. He's with TNA last I heard.

About a year later the WWE scripted matches where the crossface was used with their top guys using it every second match. Fuck them for that.

I don't watch wrestling anymore.