Here is what BSG had to say. I think he captured things pretty well:
Any comment on the Benoit situation, is this the end of pro wrestling, it seems like it would be hard to watch again after this.
Bill Simmons: (3:41 PM ET ) I am still gathering my thoughts, waiting for all the facts to come out. It just doesn’t seem like any non-wrestling fan realizes how huge this story is to everyone who actually follows wrestling - in my opinion, it’s the biggest sports story of the year even though wrestling technically isn’t a sport. Benoit was one of the 12-15 greatest wrestlers of the past 30 years. For the wrestling world, it’s like the OJ thing all over again - only its worse because his little son was involved. It might be the single worst sports story since the Rae Carruth thing.
Bill Simmons: (3:43 PM ET ) The weird part was the WWE inexplicably running the 3-hour Benoit tribute on Raw last night - by the time it re-aired on the West Coast, reports were starting to come out that it was possibly a double murder-suicide... I don’t know how they let that show continue to run. One of the weirdest TV moments ever. I was really creeped out.
Carl (Lansing, MI): How come people condem wresting becuase of this but not the football because of Rae Carruth? Is it becuase people are looking for a reason to bash it? I never really liked it a ton after college, but I never understood why people have so much HATE for it.
Bill Simmons: (3:45 PM ET ) Well, the bigger issue here is that pro wrestling has suffered an abnormal number of early deaths - actually, abnormal might not even be the right word. it’s almost an epidemic. There have probably been more wrestlers die before the age of 45 in the past 15 years than every sport combined. And you knew the tipping point was coming, eventually, and now it’s here. I don’t know if wrestling will survive this one.
Adam (NY): So what does WWE do from here? With the macmahon death awkwardness floating over their heads I think they’re going to lose a huge portion of their audience. They have to, right?
Bill Simmons: (3:48 PM ET ) Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. I think this could be it - it’s going to be the dominant story of the next 2 weeks and everyone is going to bring up the death stats and all the crazy incidents that have happened, I don’t think the average person realizes what a damaging sport this has been (physically and psychologically) to the people who do it. Again, I think we’ve reached the tipping point. Sorry to be so somber, but the Benoit thing... i mean, it’s hard to explain how big he was in wrestling circles.
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.