Ten years ago this month the wrestling world went through some of its darkest days. John Lister explores what really happened and how – or if– it changed the wrestling business.
At 9.25 pm on Friday, 22 June 2007 the US equivalent of directory enquiries received a call from the home of Chris Benoit, his wife Nancy and 7-year-old son Daniel. The caller asked for the number of the local police, but it does not appear they then used this number.
The following day Chris Benoit spoke to a neighbour and told her both Daniel and Nancy were sick with food poisoning. He repeated this claim in phone calls with several fellow wrestlers and explained he would be unable to appear at a WWE house show as scheduled, but would rearrange his travel to make the next night’s Vengeance pay-per-view in which he was booked to win the vacant ECW title in a match with CM Punk.
At 3.49pm that afternoon Benoit searched for “Elijah” and read the Wikipedia page about a prophet mentioned in Christian, Muslim, Mormon and Jewish religious texts. While she did not give a time, Nancy’s sister Sandra Teffaloni later told the Talk Is Jericho podcast that Chris Benoit also searched for information about the easiest way to break one’s own neck.
Shortly before 4am on Sunday Benoit sent five text messages to Chavo Guerrero and Scott Armstrong containing his address (to which he had only recently moved) and the information that his guard dogs were in an enclosed area and that the house could be accessed via an unlocked door in the garage.
These texts were the last time Chris Benoit communicated with another individual. And they were sent by a man alone in a house with two corpses.
After Benoit failed to show up to the pay-per-view, WWE asked a security firm worker to continue tracking him down. The worker made a final call to Benoit at 11am on Monday before contacting local police who advised him to call 911 and ask for somebody to carry out a welfare check. Two police officers visited Benoit’s house but were unable to access the property. At 2.45 pm, Benoit’s neighbour offered to help and entered via the unlocked door to find a scene of horror.
Daniel Benoit was lying dead on his bed with a child’s bible placed upon his hand. His death certificate listed the cause of death as “suffocation”, although his autopsy listed the cause as “cervical compression.” While there was no bruising on his neck, there was bruising to one of his arms and one side of his face. The pattern initially confused investigators until one saw a tape of a Benoit match featuring his finishing Crippler Crossface and concluded that the marks could be explained by Benoit having used a version of the hold (modified to fit Daniel’s smaller body) to suffocate him. The autopsy also revealed Daniel had received anti-depressant drug Xanax, which can act as a sedative in high doses.
Nancy Benoit was lying dead on the floor of a home office with a rug covering all but her head and feet. A bible lay beside her. Her hands were behind her back, hoisted up to her shoulder blades and tied with coaxial cable (like that used to plug in TV aerials), with both cable and rope around her neck. Her feet were tied with electrical cable and tape, while her face was heavily bruised. Teffaloni later revealed that “To be clear — it was serious rage — he brutalized my sister. Even though the police report, and the freedom of information act, and the people can kind of see some things — they didn’t have to see what I saw. And I have to put that out there as fact; he brutalized my sister. He murdered her brutally.”
Chris Benoit was found dead in his basement sitting upright on a bench in front of a weight machine. A total of 230 pounds (made up of machine weights and attached dumbbells) was pulling down on the weight machine cable, which was wrapped around Benoit’s neck, with a towel covering the section that had compressed his throat.
The positioning of the bodies, along with the absence of any forced entry to the building, meant there was only one possible explanation. Benoit had killed both his wife and son before taking his own life. The autopsy revealed that Nancy had likely died around midnight as Friday turned into Saturday, only a couple of hours after the call asking for the police number. The time of Daniel’s death was less certain, but was most likely some time on Saturday. Benoit took his own life at some point on the Sunday, having given friends and his neighbour the food poisoning story when Nancy for certain was already dead.
Police searching the property discovered three bottles of human growth hormone, two boxes containing testosterone prescribed by Benoit’s physician Doctor Phil Astin, and a host of other prescription drugs including muscle relaxers, sleeping pills and antidepressants.
While it was hardly the first time a wrestler had died young – or indeed that an active WWE roster member had passed away – the fact that an entire family was involved made it newsworthy. The Benoit story led to unprecedented media attention, not just in the variety of outlets covering it, but the way cable news channels in particular continued covering the story night after night, apparently because it drew consistently strong viewership figures. One estimate had the Benoit story take up four percent of all available coverage on US TV news and in newspapers in the week of the tragedy. A nightly CNN show hosted by Nancy Grace led with the story on eight of the following sixteen nights.
While this was at least a rare occasion where wrestling being “fake” did not deter the media from covering its real-life events, it did highlight the problem of TV news in particularly looking for quick and simple explanations and angles that they could repeat and run into the ground before turning to the next development.
One such case came when a Canadian radio station quoted a local woman who – based on a conversation her since-deceased husband had had with Benoit in 2002 – concluded that Daniel Benoit was suffering from a developmental condition known as Fragile X. Despite this incredible flimsy evidence, the story was quickly retold and amplified until mainstream media outlets – with the encouragement of WWE lawyer Jerry McDevitt – were citing it not just as fact, but as a likely cause of mental stress that may have sent Benoit over the edge. Within a few days the district attorney overseeing the case made clear there was no medical evidence whatsoever to support the theory.
Another unexpected angle came with the mystery of a Wikipedia edit. 14 hours before the discovery of the bodies, Benoit’s Wikipedia entry noted his absence from the Vengeance pay-per-view “due to personal issues.” At this point it was edited to add “stemming from the death of his wife Nancy” by a user in, of all places, Stamford, Connecticut, the home of WWE. To add to the confusion, the same account had previously made a string of childish and offensive edits to a range of Wikipedia pages, but had removed racist vandalism made to the page for Chavo Guerrero Jr.
While conspiracy theories exploded, the poster anonymously explained that he had wrongly made the edit as speculation based on online discussion forums and the fact it turned out to be accurate before Nancy’s death was confirmed was “an incredible coincidence.” Local police interviewed the man, 19-year-old Matthew Greenberg, and were satisfied with this explanation.
The next big media angle came with revelations about Benoit’s steroid use. To mainstream media, it proved a simple explanation: for days on end you couldn’t turn on a TV news channel without hearing the words “roid rage.” While that was at best a gross oversimplification of what may have happened, WWE did not help itself with its response.
Following the release of the toxicology reports, the promotion was quick to say Benoit did not have banned steroids in his body. However, this is extremely misleading as the same tests showed his testosterone was at a level of 207 nanograms per millilitre, slightly higher than the 200 ng/ml threshold used in Olympic testing above which further testing will be carried out.
The same toxicology report also noted that the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone (T/E) in Benoit’s urine was 59:1. That’s significant as in most drug-tested sports, the threshold for a failure is between 4:1 and 6:1. In WWE’s own testing 4:1 will prompt closer examination, with 10:1 an automatic fail.
T/E ratios are an additional way of spotting potential steroid abuse beyond the simple amount of testosterone in the body. A normal healthy adult male will produce testosterone and epitestosterone in equal amounts. As a result, while each individual’s level of testosterone will vary significantly, the T/E ratio should be close to 1:1. A significant disparity is a strong indication that the individual has artificially boosted their testosterone levels.
The way T/E ratios work mean it’s not as simple as saying Benoit had taken 10 times as much testosterone as somebody with the 6:1 level who would fail a standard sports drug test. Instead the 59:1 ratio can best be interpreted as a considerably stronger indication – to the point of virtual certainty — that he had recently taken some amount of additional testosterone.
This means the claims that he had not taken anabolic steroids were in fact both misleading and untrue. “Anabolic steroids” covers a range of substances which have a particular chemical structure and a particular set of effects on the body. Testosterone is an anabolic steroid. The drugs that people commonly refer to as “steroids” are in fact a subset known as anabolic-androgenic steroids, which are synthetic materials designed to mirror the effects of testosterone.
To say therefore that somebody who was adding pure testosterone to their body is not using steroids is at best missing the point. As a crude analogy, it’s a little like an alcoholic who has begun consuming pure ethanol and thus claims to have given up drinking.
Indeed, prescription records later showed that in a one-year period, Benoit’s physician Doctor Phil Astin had prescribed what was described as a “10-month supply” of testosterone cypionate “every three to four weeks.” Testosterone cypionate is simply pure testosterone that has been modified to slow its release into the body, meaning fewer doses are needed in any particular time period.
With that in mind, you might wonder how Benoit had not been caught out by WWE’s wellness testing policy, instituted following the death of Eddie Guerrero in 2005. Evidence supplied to a Congressional investigation later showed Benoit had been tested four times in the year before his death, failing for steroids on three occasions. Had he tested positive for a specific anabolic-androgenic steroid he should have been suspended under the policy. That he was not heavily implies that he failed for either the amount of testosterone in his body or his T/E ratio and that it was not treated as a violation because he had been given a therapeutic use exemption (TUE).
Such exemptions were – and still are – acceptable by WWE when backed by a valid prescription from a licensed doctor. In the case of testosterone, such a prescription could result from a wrestler having naturally declining testosterone from a medical condition, or as a result of extended anabolic-androgenic steroid use having caused their body to effectively shut down natural production.
One big problem with the WWE policy is that once a TUE is granted, it automatically negates any failed test for the relevant substance, regardless of the levels at which it is detected. The policy’s wording makes no distinction between a wrestler who is taking prescribed testosterone to restore their body to its natural levels and one who is taking excessive amounts to gain the same benefits as somebody abusing steroids.
Whether this is abused in practice is hard to tell. Benoit’s T/E ratio is certainly a strong indication that he was using testosterone beyond merely restoring his body to normal levels. The doctor responsible for assessing WWE’s therapeutic use exemptions in 2007 told Congress that “There’s still shadiness in almost every case that I’ve reviewed.”
However, in the most recent example of a wrestler going public as having received a therapeutic use exemption, Ryback insisted that he had uses testosterone replacement therapy during his time in WWE “to keep me within the normal range.” He also pegged the reason for his needing such therapy as being that he experimented with steroids five years before working for WWE and that this experimentation led to his body shutting down natural production.
It certainly appears that ten years on from the Benoit scandal, WWE has cracked down on a major loophole, namely wrestlers getting prescriptions from medical professionals who were, to say the least, not exercising the fullest professional scrutiny. Just months after Benoit’s death, ten WWE wrestlers were suspended when it emerged they had received drugs (most commonly steroids) from Signature Pharmacy, an organization that was accused of prescribing without legitimate medical cause. In 2009, Benoit’s doctor Phil Astin was sentenced to 10 years in prison for illegal distribution of prescription drugs.
Today WWE’s wellness policy specifically requires that wrestlers submit prescriptions for any banned drug in advance of any testing, allowing the company to check with the prescribing physician that the use is medically legitimate. In recent years both Eva Marie and Paige have been suspended under the wellness policy and publicly stated that although they had legitimate prescriptions for the drugs in question, had failed to submit the paperwork as required.
A few weeks after the steroid talk died down, the next possible explanation emerged. Benoit’s brain was donated to the Sports Legacy Institute, an organization co-founded by former WWE wrestler Chris Nowinski that investigates the effects of concussions and other head trauma. Tests carried out by the Institute’s Julian Bailes showed severe damage that prompted the memorable description that it “resembled the brain of an 85-year-old Alzheimer’s patient.”
That description proved particularly controversial when it was, wilfully or otherwise, misinterpreted to suggest that Benoit had similar brain function to said 85-year-old sufferer, something many dismissed given his ability to function from day to day. Bailes had of course diagnosed the physical damage itself, not the symptoms, noting that every section of the brain contained brown spots made up of dead brain cells. One possible explanation for Benoit apparently not showing symptoms of the damage is that the brain can attempt to “rewire” itself by configuring new pathways of neurons around damaged sections, but that the success rate in doing so falls with age.
FSM explored the issue of concussions in detail in issue 130. In short, the company has dramatically shifted its attitude on the topic and now works with the Sports Legacy Institute (now renamed the Concussion Legacy Foundation.) WWE’s testing and rehab program for concussions, while certainly not infallible, is now a serious response to the subject. Whatever role concussions played in Benoit’s actions, it’s a reminder of why the risks of being overcautious – as some feel is the case with Daniel Bryan’s enforced retirement – far outweigh the dangers of doing too little.
While the critical attention eventually faded away, the summer of Benoit stories may have been the first sign to media outlets that the often bizarre behind-the-scenes world and dual reality of wrestling was something that interested far more people than they realised. As online news and social media has grown more important in the past decade, that realisation has grown even stronger with the ability to see exactly how many people view and share an article in a way that was never possible in printed publications. And yet at the same time some mainstream outlets, most notably ESPN with its close WWE ties, still shy away from treating wrestling’s business and realities as a serious subject. Indeed, it was shortly after receiving sustained criticism over his failure to cover the reported bullying of Mauro Ranallo that ESPN’s Jonathan Coachman announced he would no longer be covering wrestling on the station.
Perhaps the biggest problem for both reporters and fans alike with the Benoit story was that there was not, and never will be, a simple explanation. The respective condition of Nancy and Daniel’s bodies suggests the most likely sequence of events was Benoit killing Nancy in a fit of rage and then taking Daniel’s life (and in turn his own) in a more premeditated manner. Blaming any single cause would miss the point that his brain, and eventually his humanity, were damaged by a mixture of a diverse cocktail of drugs, physical damage from blows to the head, and a series of mental pressures. Descriptions of his behaviour in the weeks leading up to the tragedy suggest he was afflicted with both paranoia and depression while a string of close friends in the wrestling business had died in recent years.
As far as officialdom went, only one element attracted formal attention. Congress’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, led by Henry Waxman, conducted an investigation into the use and abuse of steroids and associated testing programs in WWE. It involved interviews with Vince, Stephanie and Linda McMahon along with WWE medical staff and TNA’s Dixie Carter
The hearings did not lead to any formal recommendations or action, but in January 2009 Waxman wrote to the Office of National Drug Control Policy and noted that “The evidence obtained by the Oversight Committee indicates that illegal use of steroids and other drugs in professional wrestling is a serious problem that the wrestling organizations are not effectively addressing.” He recommended that the agency “examine steroid use in professional wrestling and take appropriate steps to address this problem.”
It appears that Waxman’s recommendation went unanswered and whatever public relations fallout either the WWE as a company or the McMahons individually may have suffered was short-lived. In the same month as Waxman wrote his letter, Linda McMahon was appointed to the Connecticut board of education. In both 2010 and 2012 she secured the Republican nomination for a Senate election in the seat. Although she spent a total of $96.8 million on the two campaigns, she was defeated both times by a 55 percent to 43 percent margin. Despite these political failures, in January 2017 she returned to Washington DC, this time not to testify but rather to take up a position as head of the Small Business Administration, a cabinet-level position that puts her among the 24 most senior officials in Donald Trump’s government.
While the public may have moved on, the wrestling industry had to deal with the legacy of the incident. It proved controversial from the very day the bodies were found. In a bizarre twist, that night’s Monday Night War was scheduled to be a mock funeral for the Vince McMahon character who had supposedly been blown up in a limo on a recent episode. In the event the scheduled show was dropped and replaced with a series of archive Benoit matches interspersed with personal tributes from his colleagues. Although the news that the deaths were a suspected murder-suicide case broke publicly during the final hour of the broadcast, the show aired in full when replayed for viewers on the west coast of the US.
While it seems certain that most if not all the wrestlers giving tributes had no reason to suspect foul play, comments by people who were aware of the true situation before it was made public certainly imply that while it’s not impossible key decision makers in WWE were unaware what really happened putting on the tribute, it is somewhat implausible.
Whoever knew what when, it was a very different story the next night when the ECW TV show began with Vince McMahon saying that “the facts of this horrific tragedy are now apparent” and instead declaring the show “the first step in the healing process.” It would be the last time Benoit’s name was mentioned on original WWE programming.
Dealing with the legacy of a performer’s career and life has continued to prove challenging, as demonstrated by the recent video tribute to Jimmy Snuka that some felt inappropriately celebrated his life despite having died just 12 days after third-degree murder charges against him were dropped on grounds of ill-health.
Over the years, the promotion has walked a thin line in trying to handle archive material including Benoit, largely opting to minimize any mention of him. While he was surprisingly included in the WWE Encyclopaedia book, he was not included in DVD releases where possible. For those where a match featuring him was unavoidable, such as a complete set of Money In The Bank matches, he was not mentioned on the packaging and commentary mentioning him in a positive manner was removed. Archive episodes of Nitro aired on WWE Classics on Demand (a forerunner to the WWE Network) were often edited to remove his matches.
Things changed somewhat with the launch of the WWE Network where the selling point of a complete pay-per-view archive (and in time complete runs of WWE and WCW TV shows) made his inclusion unavoidable. Still, WWE minimized his involvement by not including him in program descriptions and not adding ‘milestones’ to his matches, making it impossible to find his appearances through the search tool. While the relevant milestones have recently been added, the descriptions are worded in a way that avoids directly mentioning him.
There’s something of a myth that Benoit matches receive a special warning on the WWE Network. In fact, the warning, which reads in part that “WWE characters are fictitious and do not reflect the personal lives of the actors portraying them”, is a catch-all content warning that appears to be triggered by the show’s parental advisory rating rather than whether any particular wrestlers appears within it.
In short, the promotion has done the minimum possible to make sure people who knowingly subscribe to the Network for its archive are able to rewatch Benoit bouts, but that it can in no way be accused of using his name for marketing purposes. In the words of Vince McMahon, speaking to WWE Magazine in 2009, “It’s one thing to include him as part of a historical perspective, which I believe is okay, and it’s another thing to promote him, which is not okay.”
Amazingly, some fans not only argue that edits and a lack of network milestones are a form of censorship, but still advocate for Benoit to be inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame, a view that may be held by few people but is expressed in vehement terms by them. It’s an argument that missed the mark in three distinct ways.
Firstly, there’s the simple ethics of honouring somebody after committing such horrendous acts. While it’s certainly true that Mike Tyson was inducted into the celebrity wing despite his rape conviction, that at least was not related to his WWE career, whereas it’s at the very least highly likely that a Chris Benoit who became a postman or accountant would have had a very different life story.
Secondly, the arguments for Benoit’s induction seem to be largely based around his accomplishments in the ring and subjective assessments of his performing abilities. Such arguments completely misunderstand the purpose and criteria of the Hall of Fame, which is as much a marketing opportunity as it is a genuine tribute, and in which the inclusion of Koko B Ware establishes shows there is no barrier to entry and thus conversely even the most talented grappler has no “right” to be included.
Finally, there’s the complete lack of grasp on the sheer reality of how an induction would play. Bear in mind WWE has already held off on the seemingly obvious induction of Owen Hart for fear of upsetting his widow Martha. Now try to imagine the reaction were Benoit to go in. It would go down about as well as the Paralympics Hall of Fame inducting Oscar Pistorius.
If nothing else though, the pro-Benoit arguments have at least prompted enough condemnation from most wrestling fans to show that one lesson has – if only to a small extent – been learned from the horrific events of 2007. That lesson is that supposedly smart fans need to grasp the difference between appreciating the skills and professional battles of professional wrestlers and their real-life moral outlet. Much of the shock of the Benoit tragedy came from fans who had become emotionally attached to his journey to the top of the WrestleMania tree and mistakenly believed they knew and understood him as a human being.
This is not to say wrestling aficionados should automatically reject the possibility of their favourites being good or decent people, but rather that life is not always clear-cut. It’s a problem that dates back years, with a leading example being the infamous brawl in a Blackburn hotel room between Sid Vicious and Arn Anderson, after which many fans automatically favoured Anderson’s side of the argument for no better reason that his superior ring skill and inferior promotional positioning automatically made him the “good guy”, despite neither factor having any meaning in such a real-life event.
In the ring, wrestling is a straightforward battle between good and evil. In the real world, nothing is quite that simple.
