Amen, brother.

What sucks for me the most about this is that it's being billed as a double murder/ suicide. Supposedly they think he killed his kid then his wife? I'm having a hard time getting past somebody stating they think this guy killed his 7 year old son. I know you need to rule everything out, but that contradicts everything I've ever heard about Chris Benoit. Cold-blooded was not something used to describe this man. And maybe I'm naive to believe what I have seen and read about him, but to kill your own young child to me in cold blood, is unfathomable. On the flip side, I have heard very few positive things about his wife, Nancy. Again it could be that I'm naive, I just am not buying the guy killed his kid. I have not been numb like this in a great while, and didn't think I'd be affected as I am.

From the sounds of things, the sherrif's department seem to be fairly certain that Benoit killed his family over the weekend and then himself on monday. I mean, you know how people get this sort of stuff wrong, but that's how WWE.com is reporting it, while hinting that more information is available but the sherrif's dept. has asked them not to disclose it. That certainly suggests that what we're hearing is truth - no way would the WWE report something that tarnishes the name of a guy they just did a 3 hour tribute show to without knowing for sure what the situation is.

Such a fucked up situation. The only thing I can think is that this is another situation where the pro. wrestling industry just chewed another guy out and spat him into the dirt - sometimes it's steroids, sometimes it's pain killers and sometimes, I guess, it's getting wound so tightly and put through so much shit that you do something like this.

I don't want to get into the morality of all this. I don't know what drives a man to kill his wife and child. I hope it didn't really happen like that, but I'm getting the feeling that everyone involved knows more than they're letting on and we're looking at the terrible effects of what stress and depression can do to someone.

This is a difficult situation. Wrestling has lost a great wrestler and a man whos in-ring performance was second to none. For his career and his in wrestling achivements he deserves nothing but praise and a tribute.

The way his death came about howevere makes it hard for a wrestling fan or a human who didn't know Benoit at all to really feel sad. If things happened the way it seems that he killed his wife and child and then himself, the tradgedy remains but is shifted to the deaths of his wife and child rather then that of himself.

Depression, fatigue and friends having died (Eddie Guererro) and a business where things may only seem to be heading for a fall at times, may drive people to the edge. Steroids changes people and turns mellow friendly men into monsters.

We don't know the truth and most likely we will never learn it at all. One thing is sure, a wrestling great is dead and the question if we are to mourn to to spit on his name and his action remains to be answered.

Apparently a former tag partner of his recently died too, and he was reported to have been unhappy with the Vince death angle. There's some story about him throwing a tantrum backstage for some reason too, so it seems like the guy was in pretty bad shape, emotionally. If he's the type to suffer depression and anxiety then, while it doesn't excuse what he might have done, it certainly sheds some light on the situation.

It's tough when someone you admire and want to honour does something abhorent like this

Over on 411, Big Mike said something about not letting one moment define the life of a person, no matter how horrible or insane that moment might be. If Benoit had survived, we might be right to call for justice or punishment, but ultimately three people are just plain dead, and no amount of anger over how it happened will change anything.

Benoit gave an awful lot to the fans throughout his long and storied career - it'd be hypocritical of us to forget that and pretend that that legacy no longer exists because of this.

We can't forgive or forget what he did, but I think it is possible to seperate the memories of the performer from the reality of the man in his final days.

Benoit was a great wrestler, but i'm torn as to if i should mourn him and his family or be angry with him, escpecially if this 3 day thing is true.

Well, I don't think anyone is asking you to judge him as a man - you can't (now) look at his life and say "yeah, good job", but you can look at his career and say "he was one of the best ever and he brought a lot of joy to a lot of people". That's what I'll remember him for; you don't judge a person's overall achievements based on their worst day ever, after all.

Maybe after seeing the Iron Sheik last week he couldn't stand the idea of eventually retiring and have to come back and give a vignet of gibberish in honor of VKM.

//one way ticket please.

The thing that's going to bug me, if it actually is a double murder/suicide, is that that's how I'll remember Benoit. I want to remember him as one of my favorites. Great wrestler, intense, passionate. But now, every memory is going to be prefaced by "The guy that killed his family."

Honestly, I think I'm done with wrestling. At least for a while. I just can't look at it the same way right now.

I'm really struggling with the circumstances too, but this is how I think I feel about it:

The whole thing is a tragedy. Three people died. One of those people was a man of whom I was a big fan, who I genuinelly believe was one of the greatest pro. wrestlers who ever lived - maybe the best ever, given the different circumstances and styles he worked compared to guys like Flair or Thesz.

So...someone I liked and respected is dead. He also did a terrible thing, but if you think he got what he deserved by dying, then I disagree because I don't believe in the death penalty. And if you think he should have lived and been brought to justice, well that didn't happen. And if you think he's rotting in hell, well I don't believe in hell either.

Three dead people is all we have. The situation is over and resolved - however tragically. The upshot of it all is that Benoit is gone, as well as his family - but they were just names to me and, while it's terrible, I have no personal feelings beyond basic human empathy. So I want to remember Benoit for who he was, because now he's gone and that sucks. I didn't watch him on TV for seven years killing his family, I didn't watch him kill his family in the ring with Eddie Guerrero at Wrestlemania XX and I didn't watch him kill his family against Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, HHH, The Rock, Edge, Great Sasuke, Rey Mysterio, William Regal, Shawn Michaels, and Steve Austin throughout his career.

So yeah. Shitty way to go, and shitty thing to do, but I didn't know him for being the guy who did that thing: I knew him for being a really fucking good wrestler who entertained me consistently for many years, and now he's gone.

Look at it this way: if the founder of an art gallery or a museum went on a murderous rampage before he died, would you bulldoze the gallery or museum?

You can't destroy a legacy that already exists. And, hell, if we really want to get into a morality debate, are you going to let a murderer destroy your enjoyment of something you love? It seems to me like the best thing you could do to spite these actions of his would be to not let them tarnish the good things he did throughout the rest of his life.

Uh...there were some Magnus posts in between mine originally

Crazy Vampire....

Sorry about then deletions of my post Thommy. As I have said I wear my emotions on my sleeve a lot and my posts were the result if that.

Sorry.

So word going around right now is that ECW & Smackdown will both be shows based on straight wrestling matches, sounds good to me