http://www.wwe.com/shows/ecw/superstars/chrisbenoit/articles/benoitupdate

What a bizarre, and terrible tragedy.

Man, I just heard about it this morning on the news. I fell asleep early last night and missed Raw, but I'll watch it later today.

Benoit was also one of my favorites. He was just an all around SOLID wrestler.

I couldn't believe the stuff I was reading. It's terrible...

I stole this from someone who found it at Arstechnica:

Well, here's the official report.

Yahoo! News: Benoit strangled wife, smothered son, hung himself.

What a loss, huh?

And this is the type of guy fans hold up as a hero, huh?

All of those in denial and making excuses make me sad for the normal fans who will no doubtedly be ostricized by the media.

Kind of.

Really shocking situation. I didn't know about it until Raw came on the air...there it was, Chris Benoit with those dreaded dates at the bottom of the picture. My heart sank, but when I saw that his wife and son were also dead, I got a sick feeling as it had to be some kind of domestic incident.

I can only imagine how his fellow wrestlers feel. By all accounts Benoit was a great guy to work with, but it just shows that you never really know somebody...and that how a person conducts their professional life can be a lot different from their personal life. It also shows us fans that you should never invest too much in these people. Enjoy and respect what they do, but that's as far as it should go.

It's also another wake up call for a business that needs to change. In no way am I making excuses for what Benoit did because there was something deeply wrong with this man, but this is an extremely demanding business and as evidenced by the search of the home, a business with a big drug problem - Pain killers to make the next show, and steroids (or the newer muscle enhancers) to have the right look. Unfortunately it looks like WWE is already "circling the wagons" with their statement about the media sensationalizing the drugs in the Benoit home, but look at Chris Benoit...look at all of that muscle, and that he was a man with a surgically repaired neck still performing multiple high impact moves in every match. Remember how big Eddie Guerrero was? And he was another wrestler in a tremendous amount of pain.

Yes, they chose this line of work, and of course there will be pain and injury involved but the business could do so much more to protect the wrestlers. Unfortunately, they live in denial, or only know one way to do things, and this continues. Chris Benoit was the worst case senario, but you're still going to see more Eddie Guerrero's and Brian Pillman's.

Hopefully this is a wake-up call for Vince McMahon. While the easy thing will be to demonize Chris Benoit, and he certainly deserves it, there's a bigger problem here that contributed, even in a small way, to this tragedy.

This is what makes it truly horriffic. Not only is someone I respected, admired, and have been entertained by for years gone, but now I can't even mourn him properly because he may have killed his wife and child?

Just to be clear, I whipped that pic up while RAW was still on. All the details hadn't come out yet.

I put it up because regadless of anything else, he was one of the best, and another tragic death when there's been so many recently in wrestling.

Having said that, I don't know if i can ever watch a Benoit match again, I know there's something to the idea of seperating a performer's personal life and professional output; but this is over the line.

I don't know if if was a drug psychosis, the pressures of the industry, or if he was always an amoral SOB; but a legacy has been tainted.

I was watching ECW tonight thinkin Benoit SHOULD be champion.

I still don't want to believe it.

I'm still in shock.

If it'd been whoever the hell you looked up to, would you blame me?

Well, now that everything is out and a couple days have passed, I can genuinely say this hasnt left a big hole in my heart.
Benoit was a great wrestler and performer, but not up the top of my list of favorites, if this had been someone like The Undertaker or Shawn Michaels who are on the top of my list i'd be severely hurt.
Still, he was one of those i knew would give a great match.

Still, it hurts to know that someone you saw entertain you for over 15 years could would have it in him to perform such a horrific act. I imagine this is how some fans of OJ Simpson felt but might've found some solice in that he got found not guilty of the murder (but found guilty in the civil trial), here though, we have no one to tell the details, we have no motive, we can all try and piece it together and formulate our own theories of what happened, sadly, we may never know the truth and i think it's better we dont, y'know? If it turns out he had no motive and did it just because, that he just snapped, I would truly see him as some twisted man we never saw.

Tragic.

Also, i'd like to add that i hope, i hope, Vince changes how things are done backstage. Wrestling has always left a trail of dead wrestlers for Vince and other federations to make changes to how things should be handled, sad that it might take this tragedy to finally correct things.
If this doesnt open the eyes of someone like Randy Orton, i dont know what will.

I mentioned elsewhere that i think having psychologists on the road might be a good thing from now on. Performers only hang out with each other on the road, which is why they form bonds and which is why they share their emotions with each other, but it's like being in a vicious circle, they need someone outside their lifestyle, from a another perspective, to get feedback from.

I also hope that Vince and the rest of the creative staff put an end to death storylines and realize that death is not something to mess with.
The thing with drunk Hawk falling down a scaffold, the thing with Tory Wilson's dad, and this last thing with Mr McMahon to name a few, i hope thats the end of it.

The thing about the attitude era was that it was built on solid rivalries between wrestlers, it was about guys saying im better than you and im gonna kick your ass to prove it, WWE need to go back and focus on that.