Don’t Think Twice 07.01.07: The Love You Take

“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” – The Beatles

I remember exactly where I was when I found out that Brian Pillman was dead. It was my freshman year in college, and my R.A. came down to my dorm room to tell me the news. I remember exactly where I was when I found out that Owen Hart was dead. It was the summer between my sophomore year and junior year in college, and I was over at my grandmother’s house helping her with some cleaning when I heard the news on the radio. I remember exactly where I was when I found out that Eddie Guerrero was dead. I had started writing for 411 less than two weeks earlier. I came into my lab early that morning and went to WWE.com to watch Heat, but it was the news on the front page that would become the focus of my day. I had seen Eddie in the main event of a house show just seven days earlier. And I remember exactly where I was when I found out that Chris Benoit was dead. I was out of town working on an experiment up in Chicago and staying at my mother’s house. We were watching Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel, but when she left the room for a moment I flipped over to Raw. The first thing I saw was Dean Malenko talking about losing his two best friends, and it took me several minutes to understand what was happening despite how obvious it was.

I remember exactly where I was when I found out that those four men had died, but that’s really all I remember about Pillman and Hart and Guerrero dying. I mean, sure, I remember the ensuing tribute shows, but I don’t remember where I was and how I felt about it all in the days and weeks that followed. That’s not the case now. For almost a week I’ve been thinking about Chris Benoit everywhere I go, and I remember where I was and how I felt every time a new detail emerged. I’ve received phone calls from relatives who wanted to make sure that I was up to date. I’ve been emailed by friends who don’t follow wrestling but wanted to hear my views. I’ve been contacted by coworkers that I haven’t spoken with in years who just wanted to see how I was handling the entire situation. And I remember it all. This has been a week that I will never forget, and I’m sure the same thing can be said for many wrestling fans.

Chris Benoit murdered his wife Nancy and his son Daniel before killing himself one week ago. This has been a week like none other in the history of professional wrestling. I’m not a religious man, but I pray that we never see another week like this again. The mainstream media coverage has ranged from mildly sensationalistic to blatantly exploitive, but unfortunately I don’t think that comes as much of a surprise to anyone. What did surprise me was the degree of honesty, candor, and sensibility shown in virtually all of the internet columns that I’ve read. I’ve agreed with some of the opinions and disagreed with others, but I’ve always respected each individual’s right to have opinions that differ from my own. We’ve all spent the past week forming and reforming our own opinions of Chris Benoit while trying to figure out how we feel and why we feel that way and where the hell we go from here. And in this case there truly is no right or wrong answer. If you feel sad, then be sad. If you feel angry, then be angry. If you feel numb, then be numb. Take a break from wrestling if you need one, and come back when you’re ready. Rally around the industry we all love if you have the strength, because the industry needs its fans more than ever. No one will fault you for how you grieve and how you move forward.

I’m not here to tell you what to feel about Chris Benoit or what to believe about his final days. We’re all intelligent enough to make those decisions for ourselves. However, I do want to tell you what I’m feeling and maybe give voice to what some of you have been feeling as well. There are those of you who will disagree very much with what I’m about to say. That’s fine. Like I said, in this case there truly is no right or wrong answer. I hope that there will be a few of you that agree with part of what I’m going to express, but I’m prepared to accept that this might not happen. That’s fine. Maybe I just need to vent and express my feelings, for myself as much as for anyone else. Maybe I hope that this will give some of you a new perspective on the situation. Maybe I don’t know what else to do but type.

Over the course of the past week I’ve begun to realize that I still haven’t really accepted the fact that the Chris Benoit I’ve been hearing about and reading about and thinking about all week is the same Chris Benoit that I have admired for years as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time. It seriously seems as though my mind is having trouble connecting Chris Benoit the wrestler with Chris Benoit the murderer. At first I thought this trouble I was having was just a form of denial. I’m grieving the loss of Chris Benoit, and the first stage in that process is denial. Unfortunately, I know that Chris Benoit the wrestler is in fact also Chris Benoit the murderer. I came to realize that what I was feeling was more than just denial. It was the first step in the formation of my belief that it’s fair to separate the man that Chris Benoit was for the first forty years of his life from the monster he became in the last three days of it.

No one will ever really know why Chris Benoit killed his wife and his son and himself. There will be evidence and toxicology reports and speculation without end, but the honest truth is that no one will ever really know with absolute certainty what was going through the mind of Chris Benoit last weekend. And so we each have a choice. Each one of us has to decide for ourselves how we’re going to look at the last three days of Chris Benoit’s life. Some of you will see him as a cold, calculating, ruthless killer. You have that right. But I choose a different view. I choose to give Chris Benoit the benefit of the doubt. There are those of you who will hate me for saying that, and that’s fine. You have that right. But I choose to believe that at the end of his life Chris Benoit was a broken man. I choose to believe that Chris Benoit simply snapped for reasons that may never be understood. I choose to believe that Chris Benoit was no longer the man that he had been for all of his life. I choose to believe that Chris Benoit loved his family very deeply. I choose to believe that the emotion Chris Benoit displayed in the ring with his family at WrestleMania XX was genuine and true. Like I said, I choose to give Chris Benoit the benefit of the doubt. And I do so because I believe Chris Benoit deserves it.

There’s only one reason to be a professional wrestler. You can do it for the fame and you can do it for the money, but you’ll never make it through the rigors of life in the industry if those are your goals. The only reason to continue to be a professional wrestler in spite of the life you must lead is because you absolutely love to perform for the fans. Each and every one of the wrestlers that perform for us week in and week out steps into that ring for the sole purpose of entertaining the fans. There’s something incredibly noble about that. These men and women make almost unimaginable personal sacrifices just to add a little pleasure to our lives. Chris Benoit was no exception. In fact, he was a shining example of the best that a professional wrestler could be. He gave up twenty-two years of his life for us. And we all know what this industry can do to a wrestler. We all know the kind of damage that life as a professional wrestler can cause. We know what it did to Matt Hardy’s love life. We know what it did to Kurt Angle’s body. We know what it did to Eddie Guerrero’s life. Is it so hard to imagine what it might have done to Chris Benoit’s psyche?

That being said, please understand that I blame no one but Chris Benoit for his actions. I absolutely do not believe that any shred of blame should be placed on WWE or Vince McMahon or any of the writers, bookers, or wrestlers. However, if there is any blame to go around, then perhaps some of it should rest with the industry itself. Chris Benoit was a professional wrestler, and it is virtually impossible to imagine him as anything else. But I have serious trouble envisioning a scenario in which his life would have ended in the way that it did if he had been a doctor or a lawyer or a construction worker or anything other than a professional wrestler. The life of a professional wrestler is a hard one. It may have been too hard for Chris Benoit.

I’m certainly not trying to excuse the fact that Chris Benoit murdered his wife and son. There is obviously no excuse for such actions. The sanctity of human life may be the most basic tenet of civilized society, and it will always be wrong for one person to end another person’s life. But for me it seems somehow important to remember that the deaths of Nancy, Daniel, and Chris Benoit may have resulted, at least in some small way, from the fact that Chris Benoit dedicated twenty-two years of his life to entertaining us. And I’m left with the following question: Is it okay to turn our backs on Chris Benoit after he spent twenty-two years of his life dedicated to us?

Some of you will say, “yes,” without a second thought. And that’s fine. Maybe you’re right. Maybe, in this case, that’s justified. But I have a hard time doing that. I have a hard time abandoning a man whose quest to bring joy into my life may have contributed to his transformation into the monster that he became at the end. I really don’t know where I’m going with all of this other than to say that I simply can’t bring myself to condemn Chris Benoit based on only the last three days of his life, no matter how horrific those three days may have been.

The Beatles taught us that, “in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” They meant that those who spread love will receive the same in return, and maybe that more than anything else has dictated my reaction to the deaths of Nancy, Daniel, and Chris Benoit. On one level I look at the love that Chris Benoit had for the fans. And that’s what I truly believe it was. I have to believe that the only way for Chris Benoit to continually perform on such a high level was for him, on some level, to feel some sort of love for the fans. It was that love that led him to sacrifice twenty-two years of his life for us. And now I have trouble not returning some of that love to him. I can’t defend his actions or condone his behavior. I can’t say that he was justified. Murder is never justified. But I can continue to appreciate his body of work. I can watch his matches and remember the good times. I can continue to support and love the industry that Chris Benoit loved as well. I can remember Chris Benoit as the man that he was instead of the monster that he became. I can return to Chris Benoit a small part of the love that he gave to me for twenty-two years. And in that way I make one more choice. I choose to move forward. I choose to forgive. I choose to spread love, because I choose to believe that one day all the love that I spread will be returned to me. Because I choose to believe that Chris Benoit felt the same way. And so I still consider myself a fan of Chris Benoit’s work, if not the man himself. I haven’t watched any of his matches in the past week, but I will soon. I’ll still regard him as one of the greatest professional wrestlers that ever lived. And I’ll still be a fan of professional wrestling.

There are many points that you can raise in objection to everything that I’ve said here, and most of them are probably valid. Maybe I’m just trying to rationalize my inability to let go of one of my heroes. Maybe I’m not emotionally prepared to accept the fact that I had a great deal of respect for a man who may not have deserved it. Maybe I’m too naïve to really understand or appreciate all that has transpired. But maybe none of that matters. Because, for right now, I’ve made my choice about Chris Benoit. And maybe the most important choice I’ve made is to always appreciate the dedication that each and every professional wrester has to the fans and remember the terrible price that they often must pay for it. If you’re at all familiar with my work here at 411, then you know I spend a good deal of time taking pot shots at guys like Eugene and Jim Duggan. That might not be something I’m able to do anymore. And it breaks my heart that after Brian Pillman and Owen Hart and Eddie Guerrero, it took Chris Benoit murdering his wife and son before killing himself for me to truly appreciate all of the ways that being a professional wrestler can destroy a person’s life. And it’s going to take a while for me to come to terms with the fact that these wrestlers are destroying their lives for us.

But in the meantime I’ll continue to be a fan. I’ll write a Heat Report every week and appreciate the wrestlers who may be a little lower on the totem pole. I’ll vote for Wrestler of the Week and appreciate the wrestlers whose stars shine the brightest. And I’ll remember Chris Benoit, not with hatred, but with love. That’s the love I make.