RIP Chris Benoit

It’s 1am in the morning in Tuesday, June 26th. I’m sitting on my bed, switching off my laptop having just typed up some of the notes for my review of WWE’s Vengeance pay-per-view. Raw comes on air on Sky Sports, and the first thing I see is a still of my favourite wrestler, with the caption “In loving memory of Chris Benoit, 1967 - 2007. I find myself saying “you’re fucking joking.”

Vince McMahon then appears on the screen, standing in the middle of the ring in an empty arena. He tells the world that Chris Benoit, his wife Nancy and son Daniel are dead.

I feel numb. I feel sick. I feel like someone has punched me in the stomach. I feel like someone is playing a cruel joke on me.

Over the next three hours I watch as many of Benoit’s peers pay tribute to him. The various WWE announcers look shocked. They look as if they really don’t want to be doing what they are doing. One can’t help but feel sympathy for Dean Malenko, as he tells us how he’s lost his two best friends in the space of just two years.

We see some of Chris Benoit’s finest moments in the wrestling ring. We see him in action against Jushin Liger in Japan, the classic match against Malenko at Hog Wild, winning the Royal Rumble, ending with the poignant moment where, having just defeated Shawn Michaels and Triple H at Wrestlemania 20, he’s joined in the ring Eddie Guerrero. The two best friends, World Champion and WWE Champion, embrace in the ring, each having achieved their ambitions, each of them recognised as being the best they are at what they do.

As the hours pass, the shocking news gradually hits the world. Local authorities announce that they’re investigating the incident as a murder-suicide case. Things are getting worse by the moment.

Fans around the world are quickly changing their views. Whereas people were quick to praise him for his career and his achievements, they began to criticise him without having all the facts at their disposal.


It’s not my place to publicly criticise a man who has given me so much enjoyment since I first saw him in action over fifteen years ago. That’s not my style. I don’t know all the facts, and I don’t claim to. None of us will ever know exactly what happened.

But what we do know is that three people have lost their lives in the most tragic of circumstances, and that the professional wrestling world has lost one of the greatest wrestlers it has ever seen.

Let’s not spend our time condemning the man for what he may or may not have done. Let’s spend our time remembering just how much we’ve been entertained by him, and let’s spend our time thinking about the loss of three lives.

Rest in peace Chris, Nancy and Daniel.