06.26.07

Updated: Jumping the Gun

Posted in death, rant at 9:03 pm

Yesterday, news reports stated that WWE wrestler Chris Benoit and his family were found slain in their suburban Atlanta home. In response, WWE cancelled their regularly scheduled programming (a “funeral” for their “murdered” chairman Mr. Vince McMahon, a storyline they began two weeks ago), and aired a three hour tribute to Chris Benoit. The tribute included video of Benoit’s previous wrestling matches and images of him hugging the wife and child that he is believed to have killed.

According to the WWE, Benoit called them on Saturday night to say he could not perform due to a family emergency. Early on Sunday, people with WWE received “curious text messages” from Benoit. These messages prompted the WWE to contact authorities and request that the police check Benoit’s house. The WWE also has said that they have further information about the deaths, which the police have asked them not to release.

I have a couple of problems with all of this.

First, and obviously, the death of Benoit’s wife and 7 year old son is a tragedy. My heart goes out to their families.

I am hoping that the WWE wouldn’t have aired a tribute to him if they knew with 100% accuracy that he killed his wife and child. However, it seems clear that the WWE had reason to believe, “curious text messages,” that Benoit killed himself and his family from the moment it was announced that they were dead. Why, therefore, didn’t they wait to air a tribute to him until they knew for certain how the Benoit family died and who the culprit was?

I believe that the WWE was highly irresponsible for honoring this man so quickly when they had knowledge that the fans didn’t about what happened to their wrestler. I think that a better option would have been to air a re-run with a footer explaining that the deaths of Benoit’s family were under investigation and the McMahon “funeral” was canceled out of respect for the tragedy.

Update: The WWE has released a timeline of what they knew about Chris Benoit, including the contents of his “curious text messages.” Benoit sent five text messages and almost every text message was “My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane. Fayetteville Georgia. 30215″ or something to that effect.

I am sure that the WWE posted the timeline and information about what they knew prior to the discovery of the bodies to deflect the criticism they are receiving from people like me. However, in my case, I have to stand by my original opinion.

If someone, other than Benoit, was guilty of these crimes, wouldn’t his messages have been, “Help! My family has been murdered!,” “Nancy went berserk!” or similar? Instead, Benoit’s text messages were essentially calls for someone to come to his house and find the bodies.

Yes, I realize that this is some excellent Monday-morning quarterbacking on my part, but I can’t see how the WWE wouldn’t have been immediately suspicious that their “superstar” was involved in the death of his family. If it turned out those suspicions were in error (but they weren’t) then they could have run a tribute at a later time. As it was, they jumped the gun, and lovingly eulogized a double-murderer. I still believe they should have aired a re-run, with a message that Benoit and his family were dead and they couldn’t air the “McMahon Funeral” due to the tragedy.

Update #2: Oh, how stupid did I feel when I realized that Chris Benoit’s name is pronounce “ben-wa,” not “ben-oyt?” Quite, stupid actually. My brother used to watch wrestling all the time and I had heard of Chris Ben-wa, not Chris Ben-oyt.

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