Chris Benoit

Yesterday afternoon I was just checking the forums and my usual websites before sitting down to have dinner with my girlfriend, when I saw something that shocked me. "Chris Benoit and family found dead." At first, I didn't know what to make of this, especially after two weeks of "mourning" Mr. McMahon after his staged limousine explosion. But there it was, on WWE.com, that Chris Benoit and his family had been found dead. As more details became available, it was specified that by "family" they meant his wife, the former wrestling valet known as Woman, and their youngest son, who was seven years old. Benoit's other two sons were in Canada, and are alive. At first there were no details on what happened, just that police were investigating.

The first two theories that popped into my head were that the family died from carbon monoxide poisoning or someone busted into their house and murdered everyone. I didn't want to even think for a second that my favorite wrestler could have committed a murder/suicide. It simply could not have been that.But now there are reports everywhere, from legit news sources like the Atantla DA office and such, that they believe this was indeed a murder/suicide. They believe that Woman was killed on Saturday, the son was killed on Sunday, and Benoit took his own like on Monday. There is still no word on what the cause of death was, though I assume it would have been shooting. I don't even know how to begin to comprehend this.

Chris Benoit: the former World Heavyweight Champion, Intercontinental Champion, United States Champion, multi-time Tag Team Champion, and internationally loved and respected professional wrestler. Chris Benoit, a man who I believed in. In a "fake" sport, Benoit was my hero. He represented everything about wrestling that I loved and percieved to be good. I remember going to my first wrestling show in 2002, and it was Benoit's first television match since coming back from neck surgery. That meant the world to me at the time. Later that year I saw Benoit team up with Kurt Angle and tear the house down against Edge and Rey Mysterio in a 26 minute 2/3 falls tag team match. That meant the world to me as well.But now my hero is murderer. I don't know how to take this. I don't want to be in denial and grasp to any theories that somehow it didn't happen that way. I don't want to make excuses for him either. All I know is that this is going to haunt me for a very long time to come.