Chris Benoit: Legend turned pejorative.

Being an avid fan of professional wrestling for almost 20 years, it pains me to say that Chris, Nancy, and Daniel Benoit are no longer with us. However, once the details leaked out about why they died, the pain was turned into confusion.

While watching Raw, I was stunned when I saw the graphic of “In Memory of Chris Benoit.” I was actually proud of Vince McMahon for canceling the show, and canceling the ridiculous storyline of the death of Vince McMahon’s character. However, as time progressed, the truth finally came out.

Once Raw was over, I quickly turned to the news at logged in to wrestling news websites as more details were presented. All of a sudden several wrestling sites were saying that Chris Benoit allegedly murdered his son, Daniel, and his wife, Nancy.

It felt wrong that Chris Benoit would be marked as a murderer and at first I didn’t believe it. More details were presented thanks to WWE.com. Strange text messages were sent from Chris Benoit to several of his wrestling friends, allegedly to Chavo Guerrero. Immediately, most wrestling fans and websites were saying that these text messages were probably suicide messages.

TMZ.com presented information on a divorce decree filed by Nancy in 2003 as well as a restraining order, which is bizarre since the internet doesn’t leave any stone unturned in wrestling. However, Nancy would surrender the divorce decree as well as the restraining order. The reason for a divorce and the restraining order? Nancy claimed Chris was an endangerment toward his family.

At 3pm of June 26th, the police would give details on the case. They ruled that Chris Benoit was supposed to have wrestled for a house show on Saturday, which he didn’t. Chris left the wrestling tour for “personal family concerns.”

According to police, Chris Benoit entered the house, bound and tied Nancy Benoit by her hands and feet and then strangled her. There was also blood coming from the back of Nancy’s head, but no details about that were presented. Nancy would die on Friday.

Next, Chris would smother Daniel and die early Saturday. After Chris murdered his wife and young son, Chris would place a Bible next to their bodies. Chris would move to his weight room, and then proceed to hang himself by a pulley attached to some weights.

There were steroids at the scene and the news media ate it up; however, for once, the media makes a valid point. Was it “roid rage?”

Roid rage is based on the excessive use of anabolic steroids, which were the steroids at the Benoit house. According to most news media roid rage is when the testosterone has decreased so much that it leads to depression unless the person has taken the steroids to substitute for the decrease of testosterone. Roid rage is basically an act of rage; uncontrollable rage. The toxicology report hasn’t been presented yet, and roid rage hasn’t been supported yet, and yet Vince McMahon has already felt the need to explain his opinion that Benoit didn’t act on rage.

How does Vince know?

Obviously, Vince is worried about the “sensationalistic journalism” that media outlets like Fox News and MSNBC are pursing as far as this case is concerned. While yes the news outlets seems to be ruling that it was indeed roid rage, and yes even some media outlets have already pointed the finger at Vince McMahon, the wrestling business, and even the World Wrestling Entertainment. I don’t agree that it is Vince McMahon’s fault, the wrestling business’ fault, and even the World Wrestling Entertainment’s fault. This was a tragic event that will forever leave a mark in the world of wrestling.

However, my opinion is, Vince does play a small part with the bumptious atmosphere that the wrestling business, specifically the WWE, has with the scheduling and the fear of possibly getting “fired!” from Vince McMahon.

I’m not attacking Vince personally, but I wonder why Vince had to take it upon himself to specifically give out details on what roid rage allegedly is, and why did Vince take it upon himself to come to conclusions that Chris Benoit didn’t have roid rage?

First of all, Chris Benoit’s steroids were medically prescribed; therefore, there’s nothing Vince has to worry about. However, Vince feels he needed to “educate” the media on more of roid rage, including making claims that “steroids were not, and could not, be related to the cause of death (asphyxiation).”

Vince goes so far as to say, “WWE strongly suggests that it is entirely wrong for speculators to suggest that steroids had anything to do with these senseless acts, especially when the authorities plainly stated there is no evidence that Benoit had steroids in his body, pending the toxicological reports, and that they had no evidence at this time as to the motive for these acts.”

I think everyone knows why Vince is worried about the media attacking steroids, because history may just repeat itself. Vince has had trouble with the government, and he’s not afraid to exploit how he “took on the government and won,” but it seems as if the media is trying to round up the troops for another crack at Vince, and this time I’m sure Vince will lose.

Fox News countervailed by stating that “in addition to uncontrollable fury, other possible behavioral side effects of regularly taking large quantities of steroids include paranoia, delusions, depression and mania."

"They lead to psychotic episodes of aggression," said FOXNews.com's managing health editor Dr. Manny Alvarez. "It's not inconceivable that this wrestler was indeed suffering from some of the psychological consequences of anabolic steroids, which might have led him to commit this heinous act."

As more details come in on the double murder-suicide of the Benoits, this fan is saddened, shocked, and quite frankly upset. I didn’t want to believe that Chris murdered his family, but as the functionaries continue to corroborate that Chris did in fact murder his family I have to say that this fan is a fan no more.