Just how I felt. I don't want to get into the ins and outs and whys and what nots, for now I'm having trouble grasping that Benoit and his wife and seven year old son are dead.

Sad day.

It's on the front page of the Wrestling Observer website.

wrestlingobserver.com

^(the mackem) im pretty much over the deaths thereselves, just the fact that it happened freaks me out.

Does anyone know if TNA tape TNA Today days in advance or not?

Just wondering, because while Rhino is being interviewed he doesn't look right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-SjW1t4Bk

I'm not being crass here, I'm serious... how can you tell if Rhino looks right or not, he always looks fucked up.

Here is an article on ABC.com that had more information. I am really dreading the worst here:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3316319

http://a.abcnews.com/images/site/printlogo.jpg


Wrestler Benoit Found Dead With Family

Authorities Await Autopsies in Deaths of Wrestler Chris Benoit, Wife, 7-Year-Old Son

By DEBBIE NEWBY

The Associated Press

FAYETTEVILLE, Ga.

Pro wrestler Chris Benoit canceled a pay-per-view appearance at the "Vengeance" event in Houston because of "personal reasons" a day before he, his wife and their 7-year-old son were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide.
Details of the deaths "are going to prove a little bizarre" when released to the public, Fayette County District Attorney Scott Ballard told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Autopsies were scheduled Tuesday by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in DeKalb County.
Authorities were investigating the deaths at a secluded Fayette County home as a murder-suicide and were not seeking any suspects.
Investigators believe Benoit, (pronounced ben-WAH) killed his wife and son over the weekend and then himself sometime Monday. The bodies were found Monday afternoon in three different rooms of the house on Green Meadow Lane, in a subdivision off a gravel road about two miles from the Whitewater Country Club.
Ballard told The Associated Press a gun was not used in any of the deaths. But he declined to say how the three died.
"We're pretty sure we know, but we want to confirm it with the crime lab," Ballard said early Tuesday.
Fayette County Coroner C.J. Mowell did not return phone calls. The answering service for his funeral home said he was out of town.
World Wrestling Entertainment said on its Web site that it asked authorities to check on Benoit and his family after being alerted by friends who received "several curious text messages sent by Benoit early Sunday morning."
Sheriff's Lt. Tommy Pope told WSB-TV that the three were found about 2:30 p.m., but he wouldn't release other details.
Stamford, Conn.-based WWE also said on its Web site it had been asked by authorities not to release further information on the deaths of Benoit, 40; his wife, Nancy, 43; and son, Daniel.
Benoit was born in Montreal. He was a former world heavyweight champion, Intercontinental champion and held several tag-team titles over his career. He was known by several names including "The Canadian Crippler."
<!-- page --> "WWE extends its sincerest thoughts and prayers to the Benoit family's relatives and loved ones in this time of tragedy," the company said in a statement on its Web site.
Benoit had maintained a home in metro Atlanta from the time he wrestled for the defunct World Championship Wrestling.
The WWE canceled its live "Monday Night RAW" card in Corpus Christi, Texas, and USA Network aired a three-hour tribute to Benoit in place of the scheduled wrestling telecast.
Benoit's wife managed several wrestlers and went by the stage name, "Woman," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
They met when her then-husband drew up a script that had them involved in a relationship as part of an ongoing story line on World Championship Wrestling, the newspaper said.
Benoit has two other children from a prior relationship.


Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

Holy crap. Never expected anything like this to happen.

Chris Benoit was without a doubt one of the greatest wrestlers ever, capable of having a good match with anyone. He was never the best at interviews, but definitely made up for this with his in-ring ability.

I will always have respect for Chris Benoit the wrestler, but with all signs pointing to Benoit murdering his wife and son, it's become very difficult to have the same respect for Chris Benoit the man right now. It's quite unbelievable that so soon after Mr McMahon's "death" and investigation, there's a real-life "whodunnit" going on involving a member of the WWE community.

Love him or hate him, there's no doubt that Chris, Nancy and Daniel Benoit all left this world far too soon. My prayers go out to their family and friends.

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???

what in the blue hell could this be?
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I hope that the result of the initial investigations are wrong (which is quite possible), but if this indeed true then I'll probably have a new range of thoughts on the situation. This has WWE behind the 8-ball because they tape ECW and SmackDown! tonight and if Chris Benoit did indeed kill his family then WWE has to choose between honoring a lost brother or celebrating a killer. Also, imagine how his friends and family feel. They lost a friend, a family, and now they have to accept the possibility that their friend or family member is a fucking murderer. I hope this is just a freak accident, but the fact is that Chris Benoit quite possibly had a demon that finally took control. That is not an excuse, but something causes a man to kill his family.

I don't know if we'll ever figure that out or not, but my sympathy are with the 2 children left without their father and step-mom and half-brother. A family left without 3 people they loved. A long list of people who are left without a friend. All those people have to deal with a tragedy that could forever change how they felt about someone they loved. That is more than salt on a wound...that is pouring acid on it. This directly affects so many people on a personal level that I feel selfish for even thinking about how it affects wrestling and its fans. I can only hope that Nancy and Daniel didn't suffer in their death. Rest in peace Nancy, Daniel, and hopefully I can say the same for Chris. I hope my memories and respect for Chris Benoit are not destoryed within the upcoming weeks. I hope we are all wrong. Like Chris Benoit's catchphrase said, "Prove me wrong."

That is what I am afraid of. I really don't want to remember Benoit as a murderer, but it is looking like I will and that really is hard for guy who has been a Benoit mark since he was in 2nd grade.

Who the fuck wrote this, Don West?

I have a horrible, horrible feeling about that, and I'm not even going to mention it unless I hear it from somewhere else first. Suffice it to say it has to do with

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I'm really afraid it's going to shift onto something that makes it hard for me to watch wrestling.

Human nature, I can't help but wonder and speculate as to what he did that is "bizarre". We know its not guns or knives, and I highly doubt any kind of blunt force or poisoning would be seen as 'bizarre' and be evident, yet pend a lab result....

This could get stranger, if at all possible.

It's all speculation at this point.

I know exactly what you mean....I'm already having a hard time with this as it is.

This is hardly a major concern, but I mentioned to a friend..What do you do when a former champion, royal rumble winner and wrestlemania main eventer goes Charles Manson? It's going to be very strange....I don't know if I'll ever be able to return to enjoying things as I once did, and thats a shame.
This isn't your average accident, suicide, drug overdose or old age/disease death tragedy.
This is quickly getting to the point where it's entering Stephen King territory. The Shining to be exact... only with one of the top stars and favorites ever, and in real life.

Incidentally, doesn't Benoit have like 2 other kids? Where were/are they?

I just hope Nancy and Daniel didn't die a painful death.

I was wondering the same thing. I just found out they were children from a previous relationship and not Nancy. They must live with their mother.

He had 2 other kids by his ex-wife and they were in Canada. I want to know how old they are, and I can only begin to try and assume what they are feeling.

I hope neither of them knew what was happening.

He's 40 and he's been with Nancy for like over 10 years. So they must be at least teenagers, and could probably be up to and including 20 years old.

I know very little about his personal life; I wasn't sure if he had been married previously, and before last night I'm not sure I knew that he was married to Woman (who I only vaguely remember from WCW anyways.) God, I feel so sorry for those 2 kids right now. :(

I pray that somehow Chris didn't do this. This will drag not just his name, but this will be haunting his entire family for a long time. People will always ask and annoy his 2 other children and ex-wife. I can only imagine what his parents are feeling. I lost my sister in January of 2006, and that was something I am not "over" and probably never will be. Losing a brother,father,and possible a step-mother they might have been close to is unfathomable to me.

Me too, but Occam's Razor is pissing in my face on this one.

I keep on asking myself what the hell can drive a man to do this, and then it hits me that I might not want to know. I have a good understanding of mental illnesses due to personal experiences, and I have a feeling something was wrong with Benoit mentally if he did this. There is no other explanation that would make any sense to me, but there is no sense in killing your wife and 7-year old child.

Any word on what time the autopsy results are coming in?

Not any updates that I can find.

I'd imagine in by this evening.

At first glance, you might say that it doesn't matter why he did it, that they're all dead, so what's the difference.

The difference is that while all three of them are dead, anyone who ever had any respect for him as a man, a wrestler, a father, anything, we don't want that respect to have to die too.

Possibly around noon, too, when the news cycles kind of spike.

I think the authorities have all the "whats," they just need the "whys."

and "hows"

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the cause of death was caused by "instruments found at the scene"

which are, "very bizarre" and are "going to bring the whole wrestling world under scrutiny"

I can't really think of any possilibites that come to mind, that also would pend an autopsy....
I have suspicions, but I don't really want to venture guesses

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Actually I would bet they have those too.

are we 100% sure he did this....I dont want to beleive that. Benoit was deffinatly in my top 5

but not 100% certainty.

These scenarios aren't new. Marital stress can turn to dispute, divorce. Sometimes in the highly emotional moments a person does things they'd never image they could do. Then they are left feeling they have to kill themselves for atonement. Clearly if all the reports are right, Benoit wasn't in his right mind. I doubt very much he expected to kill them.

That worries me.

100%? No, all we have are selective, less-than-half-full reports.

TMZ.com:

My second cousin is an officer with GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigations) and what he's heard in his circle is that Chirs Benoit's wife killed their son Daniel, called Chris and told him to rush home because of an emergency which is why he missed last Sunday's Vengeance PPV. Upon arriving home Benoit killed his wife in a rage for the death of his son and then killed himself Monday morning. His wife's body was found in the master bedroom, strangled with the cord from an alarm clock. The son's body was found in his room appearantly suffocated with a garbage bag. Chris then wrote a suicide note explaining what had happened, apologized to his family, his other children (from a seperate relationship), and his fans. He then fasioned a slip-knot noose from from rope taken from the garage and hung himself from the ballaster in the foyer of his suburban Atlanta home.

<font color=white>Now in this it says Benoit was in the foyer but we've since found out he was in the weight room.</font>

Did he kill them with a replica belt or something?

This is unusual though in that situations like this don't usually span an entire weekend. I don't want to speculate though.

God damn...

This entire situation has creeped me the fuck out. I'm not going to speculate, or pretend that I knew Benoit, but this was unexpected, to say the least.

TMZ.com is a bullshit celeb site.

Didn't they also say that his wife died first, on Saturday?

CSL: Is that true?? Fucking hell.

Seriously, this whole "friend of a friend" thing is the classic urban legend template.

Real or not, this story makes the most sense out of them all. I could definitely see Benoit doing that out of rage. If this is true, it will be a huge relief. At least there would be a reason behind it, and it would mean he didn't kill his own son.

But until it's confirmed, it's still just another rumor.

I'd imagine they wouldn't know until the autopsies give them a more precise scientific time of death.

'If' that's true, my God.

Sounds like it might be one of those 'I heard from my friend's second cousin' stories.

Yeah could be wishful thinking from a wrestling fan.

It would be a more comforting thought to his fans, but it's still speculation.

God i hope that story is the truth, its the most positive thing ive heard today.

:y:

so fucked up

Man do you realize how sad that is?

God, this feels like one big clusterfuck creepy ass game of Clue.

Yes, i do.

Whenever I read that, I can't help but see a mental image of Benoit bashing Nancy over the head with one of his title belts.

Death by belt shot would be a bizarre twist to all of this. :-\

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In response to that TMZ report....It's strange to think that such an awful thing could actually be a best case scenario...I don't even know what to say to all this. No matter how you slice it, the whole thing is just so terrible.
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From UKFF:

Keller's Audio Update

-He said it is being reported he suffocated his wife and son, perhaps a day apart. And then hung himself. Late Sunday night, he sent a strange text message to a person within the WWE. The police broke into the house at 2:30 pm today and found them in separate rooms.

-Vince called all the wrestlers backstage this afternoon for an emergency meeting. Wrestler were already bawling and crying. A longtime WWE wrestler said it was the most emotional state he's ever seen the wrestlers.

-There was a really uneasy feeling Sunday. Everybody felt something was wrong.

-One wrestler said "It was bound to happen". There was a strong suspicion backstage that Benoit did this right away. There was also a suspicion that Nancy had done it. They had a volatile relationship and everyone knew it.

-Hardly anybody backstage really knew Benoit. He had a very small inner circle that one time included Eddy Guerrero and recently included Chavo Guerrero. But even they had a certain psychological distance from Benoit. Everyone could tell that something wasn't right lately with Benoit.

-He said that he was a very nice and pleasant person to be around, but a person close to Benoit said that Chris had "snap potential".

-A lot of steroids were found in the Benoit household, and Benoit has had bouts with "roid rages". WWE may suffer publicly because of their unenforced "Wellness Policy".

<font color=white>Now I gotta admit, first thing I thought when I heard Benoit might have killed them was 'Can constant steroid abuse drive you this far?'

If so, and it turns out steroids could be related, my guess is pro wrestling could be in for a giant shitstorm.</font>

God have mercy on Chris Benoit's soul.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

I... your son? How could anyone do that...

<font color=white>Toxicology reports will be at 1pm EST apparently.</font>

I just want to know who killed who and how it all went down...

:nono:

I don't know if I'd believe that report by UKFF. It is just some british wrestling forum.

Makes me think of Roid Rage personally.

I hate to say this at this point, in this thread, but anyone who took one look at Chris Benoit could tell he was on the juice.

WWE goes to Congress!

:wtf:

Toxicology usually takes a couple of weeks to be conducted.

I'm sure you've got it confused with the autopsy.

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There's only two things that are for sure at this point...

..this whole thing is a tragedy
and the real victim is an innocent 7yr old boy, regardless of how it happened and who killed who and what went down.
There's no good answer to all of this...
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Roid Rage was my first "Benoit Did It" thought...

Last night I thought to myself "I don't know how much of a juicer he was."

Then I looked at the cover of his DVD and thought, "Fuck." :(

Really, really terrible. :nono:

<font color=white>Yeah, I was thinking that. Wrong wording me thinks.</font>

I don't think anyone has really denied that he was on the juice.

But hell roid rage caused him to murder his family? :-\

If anything I would've taken Scott Steiner to do some shit like that before anyone else.

I'm not sure if I just woke up or if I just went to sleep. I've cried until my eyes burned, then felt nothing at all. I had dreams that seemed like reality, and this reality seems like a bad dream.

I agree with you. If this is true, however, it again shows how much we don't know, in a place where we all think we know everything.

<font color=white>Whoever posted it lifted it from somewhere else, just doesn't mention where so I put UKFF.</font>

I drank most of a bottle of whiskey last night, and cried so hard at times that I couldn't breathe. I have the hangover of my life right now.

Just when we think we have all the answers, life changes the question.

.....Are you sure we're not the same person?

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It's strange to think that I was attending a TNA house show, joking about how much of a loose cannon Kurt Angle was and all that jazz, in a small room full of fans and well known wrestlers who knew Benoit and the family. And we were all sitting there enjoying wrestling, including my friend and I wondering who won the Punk/Benoit match.
And at the very time Benoit was in his house contemplating suicide with his dead family, unbenownst to all of us.

just a thought
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Life changes at a blink of an eye.

I'm really not sure of anything right now.

Its weird i havent shown much emotion for this..i understand in my head how sad it is but i guess im used to it after Eddies death now, though i am dissapointed, ive learnt how you get over this i think, or maybe it just hasn't sunk in for me yet. I dunno, just in a detached from emotions state atm.

true that DT.

At this point I just want to know what happened. I'll go from there. I haven't known what to think. When I saw the graphic and saw that Benoit had died, and saw Vince out of kayfabe in tears, I became momentarily grief stricken. I began to well up, but when I found out it was foul play of some kind I couldn't help but put aside the grief and be overcome with confusion and the demand for answers...
Either way it'll take a while to come to terms with this as a fan

I was in a state of disbelief and confusion the second I saw "Chris Benoit and his family found dead."

I teared up for a second last night during Punk's speech, but that was it.

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Same here, i found out the minute i woke up, literally.

I feel so sorry for Punk, as much as I don't care about him otherwise... he was probably backstage Sunday bitching about not getting to wrestle him and having to wrestle Nitro instead. Can we assume that Benoit was going to be given the ECW title Sunday?

JBL and Tazz got me sniffling.

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Meltzer:

Dave@wrestlingobserver.com

The lack of an understandable explanation to the circumstances of the death of Chris, Nancy and Daniel Benoit has left virtually the entire wrestling community reeling.

Within WWE, the obvious questions and lack of answers are no different from fans and most of his long-time friends.

Vince McMahon was the inspiring general both to the wrestlers as well as the office staff all day yesterday. He held it together and was a rock of strength for much of the talent, which because of their admiration and in many cases love for Benoit, were saddened, perplexed and having an incredibly difficult time dealing with it.

Vince made the decision to run Smackdown and ECW tapings tonight without any angles or backstage storylines. The show will consist of straight wrestling matches and like last night, the original shows were scrapped. The attempt to put together a show was difficult because the crew and creative staff were said to be both emotionally and physically wrecked after yesterday.

The belief is they will brief viewers on what happened early in the show, and then product two low key shows of nothing but matches.

<font color=white>Makes sense.

Also, with all the bad things of the last 24 hours, we might at least see some stellar wrestling out of it :-\ </font>

I loved Joey Styles and Tazz's story about the car ride after the draft. They were talking about how they were marking out about getting to see Benoit compete on their show and getting to call it, and as a former wrestler and a longtime announcer they are both known to have a deep love for the business. It was just a true moment, especially when they said they had the talk during a car ride, which lovers of the business know of.

I highly doubt he was bitching, in fact he was probably more worried about Benoit and his family than some wrestling match.

Punk has too much respect and admiration for Benoit not to.