Benoit Is Us: Facing Evil Head On

I've been working on this post for sometime. If you are visiting this site by way of PWinsider.com thank you for stopping by. Be advised this post is not for the feint of heart. Also, I'd like to thank Dave Scherer for agreeing to post a link.

Benoit. Chris Benoit. The Wolverine. The Rabid Wolverine. The Crippler. The Canadian Crippler. Former WWE Heavyweight Champion. The man who won said championship at the main event of Wrestlemania 20 at Madison Square Garden. Revered as quite possibly the greatest in ring worker of all time. His technique, superb. He could adapt to any style: lucha libre, Japanese, American Strong, hardcore, Sports Entertainment. So gifted was Chris Benoit at his craft that at the 2000 Royal Rumble, after losing a 20 minute match with Kurt Angle, he, and by he I mean Benoit, received a standing ovation from the crowd. It wasn’t the first time. It wasn’t the last. If we lived in the Marvel Universe, Benoit would have been a mutant, or at the very least, rumors of genetic mutation would have dogged him to the grave.

Then again, no one really knows what dogged Benoit. The stories twist and turn on themselves, but something dogged him. Something chewed at his mind—chewed up his mind. He killed his wife. He killed his son. He killed himself. For me, Benoit was a personal hero. Some guys had John Wayne, others had Clint Eastwood or Michael Jordan; I had Chris Benoit.

I’m hesitant to talk about this, how Benoit relates to me. He is survived by an ex-wife, two more children, and his parents. Whatever my connection to Benoit, its pails in comparison to theirs, and then there’s the parents of his wife Nancy, who I imagined are pretty fuckin’ pissed at Chris for taking their daughter and grandson to an early grave. Still, I’m compelled.

My girlfriend was raped. I was forced to watch, the barrel of a gun pressed against my head. (If I’m extremely unlucky she’ll be reading this right now). We thought we were going to die, but we didn’t. We survived, but survivors need reasons. They need reassurance that life is worth living, that despite all the evil and cruelty in the world Hawaiian pizza is great, that the letter to a certain Virginia about a certain fat man wasn’t bullshit, that people still love them, and that Chris Benoit is the best in the biz.

{So what do I do? I just lost my favorite reason, but I am more sad than angry, more frustrated than betrayed, yet I feel all these emotions as does every wrestling fan.}

I don’t know if the memory of Chris, both the character and the person, can be rehabilitated, that seems too just, too fair; fairytales, despite their popularity, exert no influence on physics, have no sway in the kingdoms of chance and uncertainty.

There is something I want to address though, something that has maddened me as I listen to hotlines and lurk through message boards and chat rooms:

“We will never understand why Chris Benoit did what he did; and we shouldn’t, that will make us more like him”

I’ve heard several variations on this asinine drivel over the last few weeks and I’d like to take the time to squash it now. It is time for this bad idea to do the J-O-B.

First, I’d like to accuse anyone subscribing to this philosophy as engaging in an act of moral and intellectual cowardice. You are horribly misguided. Second, I’m going to prove it…once I subsume my rage.

(pausing to subsume rage, which sits in my throat like a hot ball of iron)

What facilitated the crime is secondary, ( I am concerned with the “why” not so much the “what”) and I cannot speak to the nuances of the case, but Chris Benoit killed his wife and child because he was afraid of losing them, a gruesome act, yes, but a normal part of the animal kingdom. It happens every day, whether it is in the wild or by domesticated pets.

Congratulations, you’re a bit more like Chris Benoit now. Are you going to murder someone? Do I need to call 911? Is a suicide watch more appropriate? Of course not, knowing why he committed murder is no different than listening to a Judas Priest song. Maybe you don’t believe me. Maybe you think I’m being glib. Then consider this. There is an entire science devoted to the study of crime: criminology. Criminologists study crime statistics, the power of the media on crime and how it shapes our perceptions of crime. They study the impact of crime on victims, and the hold trauma can have on a person’s life. And yes boys and girls, they study criminals. Why they do it, what happens before, during, and after the act; and they construct profiles. Oh yeah, guess what! Do you know who is most likely to steal from you? Rape you? Murder you? Most likely someone you know, and often times someone you love.

Hmmm, but if we follow the logic of the given quote to its conclusion, that means criminologists are more like Chris Benoit because they understand more about trauma and the nature of evil! Folks, we are gonna need a lot of prison cells.

No, it is the refusal to understand what Benoit did and why he did it that really makes a person MORE like Chris Benoit, because he, in a state of ignorance, with no sense of context, is far more likely to fall into a hell like Benoit’s because he lacks the tools to see the signs, to diagnose the symptoms in himself or someone he loves! This is why genocide happens over and over again. It is why rape is used as a tool to terrorize entire populaces, and it’s why no one who knew Benoit anticipated his descent: ignorance makes us susceptible to evil! What’s wrong? You don’t want to know what made the SS commit atrocity upon atrocity against the Jews? Wonderful! Consider yourself one step closer to being part of the next SS. Evil doesn’t merely thrive on ignorance; evil works through ignorance.

Human nature isn’t pretty. We are capable of astonishing ugliness, all of us, Benoit, McMahon, me, and you. I’ve studied terrorism. I’ve studied pedophiles. I’ve studied the holocaust—and god damnit I didn’t let the nightmares stop me--been the victim of a heinous crime, and with each book I read, each film I watch, I become less and less like them, and in return they are demystified, stripped of their gimmicky boogie man powers, and I see them as they really are: broken people. If you don’t have the constitution to plunge into these materials the way I do, that’s ok, some of it is gruesome stuff, but don’t sit there and tell me that you are preserving your humanity or keeping yourself pure from the taint of evil because we’re covered in it. Your shit, my friends, does in fact stink.

There is another reason though. One that is more important. Chances are that the “men”—I use the term to denote biology only— who violated us will never be caught. My girlfriend and I will not have the satisfaction of staring them down in a courtroom, in the presence of a judge and a jury of our peers. We will never know why one of them raped her, nor will we know why the other never made a real effort to stop him. Ignorance hurts. Now consider the family of the deceased. Chris’s parents will never know what made their son, a quiet kid who loved to read, into a killer. He threw all his passion into become a professional wrestler, an entertainer, someone who takes pleasure in making other people happy, not crushing them under the heel of his boot. Nancy’s parents will never have the chance to confront Chris, never have the opportunity to interrogate him “Why did you kill our daughter? Why did you kill our grandson? We trusted you” But it may be Benoit’s remaining children who suffer the most. They must have more questions than surely you or I could anticipate and they burn, these questions, like a drop of uranium on their broken hearts. Their loyalties divided: the shame, the agony, and the guilt reaching cancerous levels. What could heal such astounding suffering? I don’t know, but every time someone says “We will never understand why Chris Benoit did what he did; and we shouldn’t, that will make us more like him” they deny the survivors the balm of knowledge. They make it sinful—evil—to search out those answers. I will not stand for this. I will not accept it. These survivors have a right to know why they have been made to suffer, regardless of whether or not it makes anyone feel icky inside.