Posted on 06/25/2007 3:53:58 PM PDT by HitmanLV
We are still awaiting further details, but PWInsider.com is extremely saddened to report that former WWE and WCW World champion Chris Benoit and his wife, former WCW and ECW personality Nancy "Woman" Benoit were both found dead today in Atlanta, Georgia. Obviously this will be a huge developing story in the days to come but at this point, we'd like to express our deepest condolences to the Benoits' family, friends, and fans at this time.
A meeting is currently ongoing at WWE TV and it is expected that tonight's three hour Raw will now be dedicated to Benoit's memory.
6:09 Update: WWE.com issued the following statement this afternoon:
"WWE is sad to report that Chris Benoit and his family have been found dead in their home. Police are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding the deaths. Tonight's Raw will be a tribute to Chris and his family."
I agree. Wrestling is in a spiral as it is, long past its last flirtation with mainstream right around the time of WCW and the nWo angle. It’s as if one of the stars of a long-running, past-its-prime TV show were to suddenly commit murder. No more TV show.
As for the physical damage, the best way I can describe it would be to combine the impact of NFL football and the schedule of MLB baseball. I can see how wrestlers 30-40 years ago wrestled into their 50s, but no way with today’s high-flying style.
Tully Blanchard? JJ Dillon part of that as well.
I started watching the WWWF on UHF TV back in 1975, at the age of 7. Began my life-long love affair with wrestling! To me, that will always be the greatest era! Not as flashy but it had a basic credibility to it. Storylines were tame by modern standards, but looking back to that era, less was clearly more.
I was a nyc kid so I was deepin the heart of WWWF/WWF territory. I liked the other wrestlers, though, in the Carolinas, Georgia, Texas, and MidSouth. I followed them through the magazines, which were really wild back in that era.
I wish wrestling was more like the old days!
Of course, not having watched it in years I am only speculating. Do they still have good story lines like that or are they just dumb and vulgar?
Roddy Piper screamed that for years. Nobody ever listened. Vince has such a monopoly on wrestling the guys don’t really have anywhere else to go. They have no leverage. There’s TNA, but they can’t pay the way Vince can.
Dumb and vulgar.
He did not have the acting ability to be truly hated, nor a country he represented that people hated.
Sure, they tried stirring patriotism throughout the years, but it was never like it was in the 70s. Could be because of the pc way it was presented.
Then again maybe not. Whatever the reason one thing is for sure -- they lost something and never gained it back.
I used to love Saturday mornings & afternoons. We had Mid-South, Memphis, WCCW, Mid Atlantic, etc. I grew up in Crockett country. When Ted Turner took over it wasn’t the same & went downhill for me. And Vince has done everything he can to destroy the very thing that’s made him a rich man. It’s not really wrestling anymore.
The Apter mags? LOL! Loved those. Never broke kayfabe.
The policy is not perfect, of course. But Vince isn’t their father, either. Clearly there is a lot of travel and pressure with the schedule and all. The competition to look good under those circumstances leads people to steroids. The stresses lead to a variety of drugs - painkillers, mj, cocaine, and more.
But you can make a comparable case for the tv and movie business. In fact, you can make a comparable case for many large, powerful law firms, or wall street companies. The bigwigs in those industries aren’t directly responsible, and neither is Vince.
It pains me to come to Vince’s defense, since the guy is a lowlife. But fair is fair - he can’t be considered any more responsible for these problems than any other bigwig. While it doesn’t take him entirely off the hook, it just places it in context.
As for insurance, the premiums for a pro wrestler must be astronomical. I don’t blame Vince at all for not making it his problem. Performers are independent contractors. Vince does offer a nice health plan for his employees. I know - interviewed at WWF back in early 1990 for a staff position. If anything, the health plan is probably better now than it was back then.
I went to law school instead.
I just read that Konnan quit TNA because he asked for a raise from $50k to $80k, and it wasn’t happening. Now, TNA does tapings every 2 weeks, 1 PPV a month, and limited house shows, so the schedule is much easier than WWE.
Also Konnan was just a manager these days, pretty much, not a wrestler.
But still, I read an article that suggested Benoit made about $500k a year. The difference between working in WWE and TNA, as far as money is concerned, is significant.
You no doubt did the right thing. The pressure on these guys is astronomical.
You were in a great area for wrestling! In the NE we pretty much got WWF and that was it.
Crockett ran a good show, but you are right: when the territories died and Turner bought into Crockett and it became WCW, it was never the same. WCCW in the early 80s was on fire, as was Bill Watt’s Mid South and later UWF (which was great wrestling).
In the summer of 1986, I think, or maybe 1985, as WWF wrestling was exploding, a UHF channel in the NY area (U68) ran wrestling from NWA, Mid South/UWF, Memphis, and WCW every weekday at 7pm. For a 17 year old fan like me, it was the best summer ever since I had only rarely seen those territories, and relied on the magazines and their fanciful backstories for my fill of wrestling outside of the WWF.
I have said many times that one problem with wrestling today is that they try too hard to be funny. These days, WWE and TNA just try to write comedy skits for their charactrers, and it’s too deliberate.
Back in the day, it was more that the characters were funny and therefore the situations were funny. Gino Hernandez, ‘the Handsome Halfbreed from Highland Park,’ insisting to the fans that hated his guts that he was ‘your champion!’ was priceless. It was naturally funny. He didn’t need a script or a contrived storyline to get that across - he did it on the strength of his character.
Sorry to bring up Gino, who too died in suspicious circumstances almost 20 years ago now.
Anyway, that distinction seems lost of promoters these days - now it’s characters doing funny things (often not very funny), as opposed to funny characters just doing things that are funny. Know what I mean?
There’s lots of sex in it now; and heck,
The “good old days” sometimes mean someone like Maddog Harley Race tearing someone’s forehead to be bleeding like all get out;
But those days really were better;
Guys like the Rock maybe get out of it.
And we had cable, each region if not virtually every state had their own wrestling.
I’d see it from Atlanta and LA and Vegas too on the old ESPN.
I think that even ephedrine can get people all wired up; heck even caffeine, I’ve felt more testosterone getting in shape in the gym than when I was sedate though have never (and one could tell by my physique) touched stuff like the juice, the roids, whatever you might call them.
I think I did the right thing. Even at my tender age of 22 coming out of college, already one of my universal truths of life was to never work for (essentially) a family business. Strange places.
I interviewed with the VP of Arena Booking at the time, Ed Cohen. Nice guy and we hit it off. I spent the day at WWE and interviewed in many departments, and spent much of the day with Ed. He is an oldschool fan so we just ended up going down memory lane about wrestling from the 1970s and early 80s! I didn’t pursue a job with WWF seriously, but stayed in touch with Ed now and then, since we got along so well. Nice, nice man. He was there for a long time and I know he ended up having some health problems. I don’t know if he is still there. Super guy.
I do & I miss the old days dearly. When I was uh...younger, the Boogie Woogie Man could always get a laugh out of me running around acting crazy calling Tony Schiavone “Tony Sha-van-toe”
Modern wrestling doesn’t create that aura in anyone. Too choreographed, acrobatic, etc.
I had high hopes that Bret Hart might being back the tough, credible, take-all-comers champion. They tried it, then went with the 200lb acrobat Shawn Michaels, who gives up a lot in credibility in my book.
I like it when wrestling has a basic credibility to it. Moves off the top ropes are fine, but when they get too acrobatic, with flips or whatever, I ask ‘how does that make the move more destructive?’ It doesn’t, and to me that always cheapened the product.
Admittedly, I may have a minority position. I had a tape from Japan, early 1990s, it was Stan Hansen & Dan Spivey vs Williams & Gordy, I think. Nothing fancy, no acrobatics. But it had tremendous heat, lots of great moves and double team moves, and an explosive mayhem. I have seldom seen that kind of intensity in US rings. A long, dramatic, and credible match with incredible drama. To me, that should be the model for wrestling.
Those days truly were better. I’d rather watch Nick Bockwinkle methodically take some guy apart in a dramatic match than 3/4 of the stuff that passes for wrestling these days.
I bump into Bockwinkle now and then here in Las Vegas. I think he either vacations here a lot or lives here. Nice guy and still in great shape - doesn’t look that different than he did back in the 1980s.
Hahaha! That’s what I mean. A naturally funny character just being himself. And that’s entertainment! ;-)
I agree, wrestling changed but not because it got PC. I grew up in South Florida in the 1970’s with NWA wrestling and Gordon Solie announcing it. The wrestlers were: Dusty Rhodes, Joe LeDuc, the Brisco Brothers, Pak Son, Mike & Eddie Graham, Maniac Mark Lewin, Professor Tanaka, et al. I ate that stuff up. I even remember midget wrestling!
Back then, there was a good guy and a bad guy with very few in between. Today, there are no real good guys and everyone is pretty dark and evil. There also has been a lot of sex (even porn) and misogyny (I am pretty conservative guy and I rarely throw that term around) injected into wrestling the past 15 years. Oh course, there is a whole lot more money in it and that is why they are constantly pushing the envelope. I did catch a brief snippet of the Vince M. death the other day and I thought that this was a new low by even professional wrestling standards.
Bottom line, pro wrestling is total trailer trash entertainment; however, there is a little bit of trailer trash in all of us.
In the 70’s, the best thing ever was when a masked wrestler got unmasked.
I also remember going to the West Palm Beach Auditorium (the leaky teepee as some called it) and I saw a match with Dusty Rhodes against ?? and an audience member hurled a metal folding chair up onto the ring. It was the first time I ever witnessed public mayhem. Naturally, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputies dispatched that overzealous fan in short order.
For good or bad, I do not care if the “sport” survives. This is an epic tragedy that should garner national attention.
Not to make light of the above statements, my favorite was always "the Polish hammer" Ivan Putski. ;) I guess that's "old school".
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