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00:01Previously on Dark Side of the Ring.
00:04If you're a wrestling fan,
00:05how could you not be a fan of Chris Benoit's work?
00:07This is my favorite page
00:11because this is the love that Chris and Nancy always had.
00:15Chris was always very much a great father,
00:17very much about his family.
00:18He was my hero, you know?
00:20I looked up to him.
00:22I have never, ever seen a closer friendship
00:26as I did between Chris and Eddie.
00:29Eddie Guerrero has passed away.
00:31My next thought was, oh my God, Chris.
00:34I love you, Eddie.
00:35He didn't handle it well.
00:36Let me just say it like that.
00:38Nancy started getting really worried.
00:40She's like, I'm really worried for Chris.
00:42I just had this really bad feeling.
00:44We have more for you now on a developing story in Fayette County,
00:47the deaths of a pro wrestler and his family.
00:50In the immediate wake of Chris Benoit's death,
00:53the world is desperately searching for answers.
00:55What comes to light goes beyond anything anyone could imagine.
01:00People just couldn't believe it.
01:02Couldn't fathom that something like that could happen.
01:04It can't be real.
01:06Like, where's my nephew?
01:07That can't have happened because the person that I knew
01:10would not do this horrific thing.
01:13But I think this is going to be gigantic.
01:15This will affect WWE.
01:17Well, the question is, was he on steroids at this time?
01:20Did the blows to the head Benoit received in the wrestling ring
01:25fundamentally change his brain?
01:26It really, really was the darkest time of my life.
01:51Fayette County, Georgia, it's a laid back community.
01:54It's more of a family atmosphere.
01:57Not a whole lot of crime.
01:59It's pretty peaceful.
02:01My name is Larry Alden.
02:03I was with Fayette County Sheriff's Office.
02:05I was a lieutenant in charge of the shift
02:07that was working the day of the Benoit incident.
02:10I had been a detective for about 15 or 20 years.
02:14I'd probably see Chris Benoit once or twice a week at the gym,
02:17which was right in the middle of Fayetteville.
02:20He didn't talk a lot, and he was pretty focused
02:22on getting his workout in.
02:25I never heard anything about him.
02:27I didn't even know where he lived at
02:28until the call came out on the radio that day.
02:31My name is Dennis Figg, and I run the security
02:33for World Wrestling, and one of our wrestlers
02:35that lives down there is missing.
02:37And what's his name?
02:39Chris Benoit.
02:41Okay, and he's a wrestler?
02:43Yes, he's a very religious gentleman,
02:45and yesterday he was supposed to show up at a pay-per-view
02:47and never got on the plane, never showed up.
02:49It's out of character for him.
02:52All right, we'll go ahead and send somebody out there to check on him.
02:55If you want to call us back in like 45 minutes or so.
02:58If he's there, we'll tell him to give you a call.
03:03I was in my patrol car just riding around the county,
03:06and it was pretty close to the area when the call went out.
03:10I wasn't thinking of anything other than a welfare check
03:13where maybe he was sick, maybe drunk, didn't really know what.
03:17I pulled up on scene about the time the neighbor was walking over,
03:21and I walked up to them, and I asked if she had seen Mr. Benoit or anybody.
03:26And she said, it's been three or four days since I've seen anybody over there.
03:31There was two large canines in the yard.
03:34If I remember correctly, they were German Shepherds.
03:36We asked her if there was any place she could put the dogs at,
03:39so we could go up there and do the welfare check.
03:42And she said, oh yeah, me and the dogs get along great.
03:45I feed them whenever they're out of town.
03:48And she jumped the fence, dogs right there with her.
03:52She walked them in there, never had to take a hold to them.
03:55It was taking a little longer than I thought it should take,
03:58but then she came running out the door screaming that Daniel's dead, Daniel's dead.
04:04I went from just being a regular welfare check,
04:07okay, we've got something more serious here.
04:16We crossed the fence at that time, myself and Deputy Mundy,
04:20and we made entry through the side door, which she had left open.
04:24We drew our weapons, not knowing what was going to come upon.
04:28It was daylight, and they had plenty of windows in the house,
04:31so you had a lot of light coming in.
04:34There was an odor in the house,
04:37and I looked over at Deputy Mundy and said,
04:39something is dead in here.
04:42There was a set of stairs going up to a bedroom,
04:45so we went up those steps,
04:46and sure enough, that's where the juvenile child was at,
04:50laying in bed.
04:51I noticed the child was laying on the bed, face down.
04:54Deputy Mundy said, do we need to start CPR?
04:57And I said, no, he'd passed away.
05:00We started clearing all the different rooms and doors.
05:04We found another room, and that's where we found Miss Benoit at.
05:09She was laying on the floor, and she was wrapped up in a blanket
05:12or maybe a rug or something like that.
05:17Went downstairs to the basement area,
05:19which was a couple of large open rooms.
05:22And the last door we opened was the gym door,
05:25and that's where Mr. Benoit was at.
05:29Because of the mirrors and at the angle Deputy Mundy was at to my right,
05:34she saw the reflection at the far end of the room,
05:37which might have been five to seven, ten feet away from where he actually was.
05:40And she started to say, show me your hands,
05:44Fayette County Sheriff's Department.
05:47She could not see.
05:48He had cabled from one of his weight machines around his neck
05:51and had some weights on him.
05:53That's when I told her, I said, he's sitting right here.
05:55He's passed away.
05:56Radio had called us, asked if everything was okay.
05:59And I told him on the radio that it looked like it might be a homicide and suicide.
06:05It was within two or three minutes of us walking back outside
06:08that somebody had already strung crime scene tape across the front of the property.
06:14I was at the gym, and I remember I was driving home.
06:17My son was with me.
06:18And I got a call from one of the writers from WWE
06:23who called me and said, are you sitting down?
06:25I'm like, what's going on here, dude?
06:26And that's when he said, Chris is dead.
06:28And I said, what? Chris who?
06:30And he says, Chris Benoit.
06:31And I pulled over to the side of the road, and I just started bawling.
06:35And I remember my son, he said, Daddy, you cry funny.
06:38I was just crying, just bawling.
06:40At this time, no one knew what happened.
06:43And so WWE is just thinking that Chris Benoit has passed away,
06:48along with Nancy and Daniel.
06:49You're not trying to put together that, okay, did someone break in?
06:53Did carbon monoxide happen? What's going on?
06:55You just know that these two of your friends are gone,
07:00and no one has answers.
07:02Vince McMahon, the chairman of the board,
07:05couldn't go on the air and not do anything.
07:07So we went on the air and did what we thought was right.
07:09Tonight, this arena here in Corpus Christi, Texas,
07:12was to have been filled to capacity
07:17with enthusiastic WWE fans.
07:20We tried to honor the guy, we tried to honor his family,
07:22tried to honor his fans, but we didn't have a full story.
07:27Shame on us for that, I guess.
07:29So tonight will be a three-hour tribute
07:34to one of the greatest
07:38WWE superstars of all time.
07:40We just know that Chris Benoit is no longer with us
07:42and neither is his family.
07:44Of course I'm going to pay tribute to my friend.
07:47And I would trust you with me,
07:49with my life, with my kids' lives.
07:52Because I know, I know you, Chris.
07:54I know your heart.
07:56Yeah, they called me and asked me if I wanted to be on it.
07:58And I was like, absolutely not.
08:00I remember just sitting there, like, just watching, like, dead.
08:03The bottle of vodka just drinking, like, you know.
08:06Because Eddie's was bad.
08:07This was worse.
08:08Chris Benoit was not only one of the greatest wrestlers I ever saw,
08:11but he was one of the best friends I ever had in this business.
08:14We did not know all the information.
08:16That's our fault.
08:17We were trying to serve the audience.
08:20It was a major story.
08:21It was hitting all the news sources.
08:23And we had a TV show.
08:24We wanted to update people on what the hell was going on.
08:27But we didn't have all the information.
08:29But we didn't know we didn't have all the information.
08:31We were told from the authorities, here's what happened.
08:34Oh, guess what?
08:35We were wrong.
08:36This is not what happened.
08:39Chris was the type of guy he'd want to go to war with.
08:42It was hard because at that time, some guys were, you know,
08:46in their speeches, you know, praising Chris.
08:49Because Chris Benoit was my hero.
08:52I love you, Chris.
08:53It's interesting to me because when I watched the Raw tribute,
08:56and everybody was talking about Benoit and how great of a performer he was
08:59and how amazing he was, I thought Regal's words on that night were very revealing.
09:07Now all I'm willing to say is that Chris Benoit was undoubtedly the hardest working man in professional wrestling.
09:18And when you talk to him afterwards, you find out he lived in the same city as Chris
09:22and knew a lot about whatever fights Nancy and him had or whatever Chris was going through at the time.
09:28And I'm not sure if a lot of people would have noticed it, but knowing what I knew about him,
09:32I started thinking, wow, this is not good.
09:37My sister had told me to spoil myself and go to the mall and get some makeup and have some
09:43wine with lunch and go watch a movie.
09:46And I came out of the theater and I turned my phone on and I had like 22 missed calls
09:51from my parents.
09:53And my parents made sure they wouldn't tell me anything.
09:56They wanted me to be parked in my driveway and inside my house before they told me.
10:00And that's how I found out.
10:04And then when it finally sunk in, I just absolutely lost control of myself.
10:09It was very difficult. Very difficult.
10:12I had to go to the hospital and be sedated.
10:17I was in Edmonton and then this number kept calling.
10:21My mom's cell phone, unknown number, unknown number, unknown number.
10:26And then she finally answered it.
10:28And it was the police, RCMP.
10:33So we left, rolled down to the station.
10:39She found out first.
10:42I see her crying there.
10:46She couldn't spit it out.
10:50So...
11:00The cop told me that they all passed away over the weekend.
11:08I punched them in the chest.
11:12And then me and the cop went for a walk.
11:14We talked.
11:17And that, you know...
11:19Your dad loved you.
11:24They all loved you.
11:27And, uh...
11:28If that was a joke, I really did.
11:33It wasn't until after the show and after the fact that all the details started coming in.
11:39We have more for you now on a developing story in Fayette County.
11:42The deaths of a pro wrestler and his family.
11:44Fayetteville authorities say the bodies of Chris Benoit and his family were found this afternoon in their home.
11:49Right now it's being investigated as a murder-suicide.
11:51However, it...
11:54Until we get the crime lab reports, it's undetermined exactly what happened.
11:59That's when all of this, you know, all of these details start coming out about...
12:03It's not just him that's dead, it's Nancy, and then Daniel's dead as well.
12:07And then that's when it just started getting out of control.
12:09The father killed his wife and son and then committed suicide.
12:13That's what's happened here.
12:15You didn't want to believe it.
12:16Can't believe it.
12:17Can't be true.
12:19But it was.
12:28The evidence indicates that it was a particularly brutal and vicious murder.
12:34It was something that showed some sign of real rage.
12:37I'm Matthew Arndazza V and I'm the author of Ring of Hell, the story of Chris Benoit and the fall
12:42of the pro wrestling industry.
12:44The weekend of the murders on Friday, Chris Benoit had a barbecue out by the pool with Daniel.
12:49And then that Friday evening, it appears that there was some sort of altercation between Chris and Nancy.
12:54That Chris restrained Nancy with duct tape and then utilized a telephone cord to strangle her.
13:01And then placed a Bible next to her body.
13:04There were a number of beer cans and wine bottles around that indicate Chris may have been drinking.
13:10Next morning on Saturday, Chris, we assume, gave his son Daniel Xanax and then murdered him in his room, being
13:18suffocated by his father.
13:20A Bible was then placed next to Daniel as well.
13:23After that, Chris made a phone call and let friends know that Daniel and Nancy were both suffering from a
13:29bad stomach virus.
13:30And then he had to take them to the hospital.
13:33That night, Chris went to bed with the bodies of his wife and child in the house.
13:39On Sunday, Benoit makes a couple searches on the internet that are chilling in retrospect.
13:45One for a story in the Bible about the prophet Elijah and the resurrection of a dead boy in the
13:50Old Testament.
13:51And then a search about the quickest and most painless way of breaking one's own neck.
13:57Chris then went down to his home gym with a half-drunken bottle of wine.
14:02He went to his lat pull-down machine, he took the bar off, he wrapped a towel around his neck,
14:06and he took the metal cord from the lat pull-down machine and put it around his neck.
14:12He adjusted the weights to 240 pounds, and then he released it.
14:18So it's a very bizarre scenario, it's a very bizarre weekend, and it doesn't leave a lot of answers.
14:24He was just a guy, you know, like my friend.
14:29Nobody expects a friend to kill their family, like what?
14:34When I found out what had really happened, the shock is just, you can't even believe it.
14:40He had put his knee in her back, and essentially broke her back.
14:45I couldn't fathom how cruel and how much pain she must have gone through,
14:50and how horrific that must have been for her.
14:53It was just unfathomable.
14:56If Chris did give Daniel that, you know, medication or prescription pills,
15:00and suffocate him, you know, like, shame on him.
15:04Daniel was innocent in all this.
15:06We were hearing other things come out about the circumstances of him putting the Bibles by their sides,
15:13and having a knife that he had planted underneath Daniel's bed or something like that.
15:20I still couldn't wrap my head around it.
15:23It just sounded so... like some bad horror movie.
15:29And now I'm a part of humanizing murderer.
15:35Strange.
15:37I mean, to think that Nancy was dead for two days before Chris took his life.
15:43How was that even logical for this man who loved her so much?
15:49Later, it turned out that there was a Bible in the house, similar to the ones left by Nancy and
15:55Daniel's body,
15:55that Chris had left something akin to a suicide note.
15:59Something along the lines of, I'm preparing to leave this earth.
16:03So, Chris did leave a suicide note.
16:06He did know what he was doing.
16:07He was at least enough in his right mind to understand exactly what was happening,
16:10and was still considering whether he would go make a flight to go wrestle that night on international television.
16:15Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
16:17We came up on air with Vince talking, and kind of letting everybody know what happened.
16:22Last night on Monday Night Raw, the WWE presented a special tribute show,
16:27recognizing the career of Chris Benoit.
16:30However, now some 26 hours later, the facts of this horrific tragedy are now apparent.
16:37Therefore, other than my comments, there will be no mention of Mr. Benoit's name tonight.
16:41It was understood that we were not to speak of Chris, speak of Benoit, speak of anyone of that incident.
16:49And by that next week, Chris's name was erased from everything that was involved with WWE.
16:56I mean, when we did interviews, we were not to mention Chris Benoit.
17:00So that's something that was really hard for us to do, but because we all wanted our jobs, it was
17:05understood.
17:07I know WWE has kind of like erased his history of being in the business, and I can understand and
17:13totally agree with what they did.
17:14We're not going to praise a guy who murdered his wife or son. I don't give many accolades for that.
17:20I went to the funeral with Nancy and Daniel.
17:24I can't even believe how sad that was.
17:27I was the WWE representative there, just me.
17:30It was the shits.
17:31I go to a funeral with people crying and a kid being buried and a woman being married for no
17:35reason.
17:36No reason to die.
17:38The WWE sent J.R. and I lost my cool with him and told him to his face that he
17:44wasn't welcome at the wake afterward.
17:47It was all a work, just fake, garbage, nonsense.
17:52I can see a work coming a mile away, and that's what I saw, and I knew that that was
17:57the truth.
17:59I felt like I was the most unwanted person in the building because I was a WWE guy, and I
18:04probably loved him as much as anybody there.
18:07Everybody was just a mess.
18:09It's shitty, and it's sad, and it's unfair because there's two people that could still be with us today.
18:16And if Chris wanted to take his life, then so be it.
18:20But to take all of them?
18:23I didn't go to Chris's funeral.
18:25I was angry.
18:26At that point, I was pretty angry at Chris, you know, for what he did.
18:30His funeral was very private.
18:32We didn't tell anyone about it.
18:33That's when it all hit me right there, all at once.
18:36I was crying my eyes out.
18:39Who in the wrestling business provided care for you and your family in the aftermath of this?
18:44Is that a serious question?
18:46Not a single person.
18:48No one.
18:49And did anyone from the WWE ever reach out to you and your family?
18:52Chris Jericho and Chavo Guerrero.
18:54That's it.
18:56Nobody else.
18:57You know?
18:58Screw them.
18:59They weren't there for me.
19:02You know?
19:03They backed off like I didn't even exist.
19:15It was so hard after the funeral because the media was just nonstop, 24-7.
19:23Tonight we are talking about the strange and very sad case of Chris Benoit.
19:27I didn't even watch news anymore.
19:29I didn't even watch TV for months.
19:31I couldn't even watch wrestling anymore.
19:33We're also told by the police here that there were instruments of death found, not instruments of murder.
19:39There's going to be an autopsy report, but there's an awful lot of confusion about how this happened.
19:44It really, really was the darkest time of my life.
19:49Benoit had an intense on-stage persona.
19:52He was nicknamed the Rabid Wolverine, the Canadian Crippler.
19:54The couple actually met when her former husband drew up a script that had put the two of them in
19:59a relationship.
20:00It made everything extremely difficult.
20:02It made everything under a magnifying glass because CNN and Fox and all the news channels were at the gates.
20:10It's, you know, a double murder-suicide with a seven-year-old kid as news, but I think that there's
20:15a point where you really just need to let the family grieve.
20:18All I really wanted to do was to be with my niece and nephew.
20:23The mainstream media's reaction was typical because, A, they love a tragedy, and it gives them another reason to take
20:30a shot at wrestling.
20:31It was a field day for them.
20:32Professional wrestlers are 20 times more likely to die before age 45 than professional football players.
20:40I think a lot of mainstream media looks down at wrestling as it is, and then suddenly it was public
20:44enemy number one.
20:45Chris Benoit's diary is revealing new information about his state of mind.
20:49The wrestler wrote a series of letters to his best friend.
20:52At one point, Benoit wrote, I'll be with you soon.
20:55Mike Benoit believes it's the diary of his son going mad.
21:00We just didn't understand this was going on at that time in Chris's life.
21:06I got a call from Chris's dad, Mike Benoit, because he knew my relationship with Chris.
21:11The first thing he asked me was why.
21:14Which, from a father's standpoint, I can understand how upset he was.
21:18Unfortunately, I felt bad. I didn't have any answers for him.
21:21People need to understand that that was not him.
21:24Not the person we knew.
21:26The person I loved with all my heart. My hero.
21:29The term that's been being thrown around everywhere is roid rage.
21:31Some say steroid abuse is rampant at the organization, and everyone just turns a blind eye to this.
21:37The media's initial response to the Benoit tragedy was that this was a roid rage incident.
21:41Where do steroids stand in the bizarre Benoit deaths?
21:45Pro wrestling, when Chris Benoit entered it in the 1980s, was extremely discriminatory against people who were not six-foot
21:50-plus tall,
21:51who were not 250 pounds or more, and very, very muscular.
21:55My understanding is that Chris Benoit was using steroids from when he was in high school.
21:59In the months before the murders, Chris received a number of text messages from Nancy,
22:04in which she made it very clear she was sick and tired of his steroid abuse.
22:08Nancy definitely directly accused him of abusing steroids to the point that it led him to be an angry and
22:13violent and unhappy husband.
22:15And she said that the WWE's drug enforcement policy and testing regime was obviously nonsense.
22:21Something called the Wellness Program that alleged that it was testing every WWE wrestler
22:26to make sure they weren't using recreational drugs, performance-enhancing drugs, or steroids.
22:31I think at that time, you know, instituting a wellness program like that,
22:35I think everybody was happy that finally some of these guys that needed the help were gonna get help.
22:39I thought it was a great idea of anything to help talent, save guys from themselves.
22:47After Eddie died, the WWE's drug testing was super strict.
22:51It went through the roof. Like, you couldn't even take a frickin' aspirin, like a high-powered aspirin,
22:57unless you had, like, a prescription. And I'm not kidding.
23:00The drug testing is so strict that there's this rampant steroid.
23:04Dude, you can't. You can't go snort cocaine or smoke weed or anything.
23:10In practice, it was seen that this initial version of the wellness program had large loopholes in it
23:17and large blind spots that allowed wrestlers to continue to use drugs at a really large scale without tripping the
23:24tests.
23:25Speculation is running wild. Did steroids play a role, or is there another explanation?
23:31We have an exclusive interview with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon.
23:34WWE did everything it could combat any coverage in the news media
23:37that indicated that drug abuse or steroid abuse was the cause of the homicides.
23:41And obviously, this is not an act of rage. It's an act of deliberation.
23:44When you do something like this for three days, it's not an act of rage,
23:47be it steroid rage or roid rage, whatever it's called, or any other rage.
23:51WWE strongly suggests that it is entirely wrong for speculators to suggest that steroids had anything to do with these
23:59senseless acts.
24:00It's all speculation until the toxicology reports come back.
24:03In his autopsy, Chris Benoit was shown to have enormous amounts of testosterone in his body.
24:08Testosterone is still a steroid that's banned in all major sports.
24:12It directly leads to increased muscle growth.
24:16Some folks have said he had ten times the normal amount of testosterone in his body as a normal human.
24:19And did Benoit pass a wellness program check leading up to the murders?
24:23Yes, preposterously, Chris Benoit passed a wellness checks leading up to the murder,
24:27despite the irrefutable fact that he was taking enormous amounts of steroids.
24:38Well, after it initially happened, I actually had nightmares.
24:43It was very traumatic because as a female, I tend to really get angry with him.
24:48The one person she thought was there to protect her is the one that really took her life.
24:53There was a lot of stuff going on behind closed doors that no one knew about.
24:57I think there was a lot of volatile fights.
24:59One thing I'd always heard about Nancy, the fact that she didn't take shit.
25:03So I just know there was a lot of volatility there.
25:08That's the word I think was used, volatile.
25:10There was a few times that Nancy would call me and she would say that her and Chris were fighting.
25:15There was an instance when they were in Tampa and Chris was upset when they were driving on the way
25:20to our house.
25:21And Chris went and busted the windshield of their car.
25:24Did you ever witness any abuse that was going on in that relationship?
25:29My sister called me to the house and she called Mike Durham, known as Johnny Grunge, who was also a
25:35professional wrestler that lived in the area.
25:39And Mike said, I'll go wrangle Chris, I'll go wrangle Chris, don't do anything rash.
25:43But it was already kind of done.
25:48He hurt her.
25:49I don't know whether it was intentional or accidental, but he hurt her.
25:54Out of respect for the kids that he still has here, I won't go further into that.
26:00She got a restraining order against him.
26:02I went down there and stayed at the house.
26:05Mike had him at a hotel there in the area.
26:08Chris contacted me directly because Nancy wasn't answering any of his calls and asked me to talk to my sister
26:16on his behalf.
26:18And please, please, please let him come to the house and talk to her personally.
26:23She called him and he came over the next day and they were back together a couple of days later.
26:29So I look back on that moment and say, you probably shouldn't have gotten involved.
26:33And why did I take his call?
26:36Because maybe that would have been the end of it.
26:39Almost every day I think about that.
26:42When police found steroids on the scene, many assume that explained it.
26:47The killer had flipped out because of drug use.
26:50Or might there be another explanation?
26:52The initial media coverage all focused on steroid use and I said, there's no way.
26:58I'm Chris Nowinski.
27:00I'm a former WWE superstar.
27:02And now I am a neuroscientist and run the Concussion Legacy Foundation.
27:07My wrestling career came to an end because I had a series of concussions that I didn't quite appreciate were
27:13concussions.
27:18I never stopped performing until the damage was sort of too much.
27:23So I decided I would start digging into what else was known and it became a book.
27:29Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE is a progressive degenerative brain disease
27:34that appears to be started by hits to the head.
27:45What I knew about CTE at that time was that there were four cases of NFL players.
27:50Two had died by suicide.
27:51And one had started hearing voices and led the police on a chase through upstate New York and died in
27:59a fiery crash going on the wrong side of the highway.
28:02When I heard about what happened with Chris Benoit, I immediately remembered a conversation I'd had with him maybe six
28:09months prior.
28:11I remembered that he had sat next to me in the locker room and he said, I heard you write
28:15in a book about concussions.
28:17I was like, yeah.
28:17And he goes, I'm interested in what you're learning.
28:20And he's like, how many concussions have you had, you know, before you had to retire?
28:24And I said, well, I can remember at least six, but I probably had more.
28:28And I said, how many have you had?
28:29And he said, I've had more than I can count.
28:33And then he said, I'm going to give you my phone number and I want you to call me next
28:36week.
28:37The next week I called him.
28:39It sounded like he was in the middle of an argument.
28:41He was clearly agitated.
28:42It sounded like someone else was there.
28:44He just said, hey, I can't talk right now.
28:46Can I call you back?
28:47And I said, sure.
28:48I wonder if the reason he was asking me to call him was that he knew that something was going
28:54on, but he didn't quite appreciate what that was.
28:57And so I decided that I really needed to know if Chris had CTE.
29:02There was so much media attention.
29:03I really couldn't imagine his family answering the phone, but I said, I'll give it a try.
29:09And Chris's father answered on the second ring.
29:12He was in a state of mind you could imagine when you just lost your son and learned what happened.
29:19I told him my theory.
29:20And he immediately said, yeah, I want to see this done.
29:24We have the brain in early July.
29:27And I think within about a month we knew that it was positive for CTE.
29:31And it was a pretty severe case of CTE.
29:34And so we held a press conference in New York.
29:36When you look at Christopher Benoit's brain, it is in fact shocking.
29:40Our findings showed extensive areas of tau protein deposition throughout his brain.
29:47Tau protein is a marker for brain damage.
29:51With Chris, he actually had a, what would be defined as a severe case of CTE at 40 years old,
29:56which is early to have it.
29:58So it wouldn't just be areas of his cortex or areas of his brain stem, but there was damage in
30:03areas that you would think could influence emotional behaviors.
30:08And I believe the degeneration of his brain changed who he was and what he was capable of.
30:13If you get hit in the head thousands of times, your brain essentially can start to rot.
30:18You get this damage in your brain that even after you stop getting hit in the head will continue to
30:23spread and changes who you are and how you behave and what you become.
30:40I think about, you know, when me and Chris would be talking and he would just be crying so much
30:45that, you know, I wonder why he couldn't control his crying.
30:47Does that, does that go with the concussions? Does that go with his brain?
30:51You know, Eddie and Chris took a lot of chair shots.
30:57And these chair shots from like years ago were hard and they were mean.
31:04In the nineties, we used to take chair shots to the head.
31:08That was a badge of honor.
31:10And what I mean by that is someone would swing a steel chair at your head.
31:18And I literally remember you would grit your teeth and you, you, you know, tense yourself and tense your neck.
31:27And just take it, hit you in the head with it and you just take it.
31:33That was what you did.
31:35That was expected.
31:36If you had a concussion in wrestling, you just shake it off, shake it off, go in there and do
31:42it.
31:42And all of us did it.
31:45I wrestled for 20 plus years.
31:49It makes me wonder how much GTE do I have?
31:54How much GTE do these other wrestlers have?
31:56Because we all got it to some extent, you know, is this going to be my end?
32:02So one of the most incredible things to me is you have Harley Race invents the flying headbutt and tells
32:07everyone after,
32:08don't do this move. It fucks your spine up horribly.
32:11It ruins your ability to have an old age.
32:13Dynamite Kid hears that from Harley Race, does it his whole career, ends up in a wheelchair.
32:16Dynamite Kid tells Chris Benoit. Chris Benoit does it his whole career and then loses his mind.
32:23I mean, there is a clear history of people repeating the most self-destructive story imaginable over and over again.
32:32I think the Benoit tragedy led to some institutional changes.
32:37The awareness of what CTE is was never before even a conversation point.
32:42Now it is.
32:43And finally, unprotected chair shots and subsequent concussions are now being addressed.
32:49Because the one thing we've got to do is protect the athlete.
32:53I think when you look at what Chris Benoit did as a symptom of some sort of medical problem, whether
32:59it's drug use or brain damage, I think that misses the point.
33:03Ultimately, this thing that is the core reason this happened was Chris Benoit made a decision when he was a
33:08very young person to do absolutely whatever it took to succeed at his childhood dream of becoming a pro wrestling
33:15star.
33:16No matter what happened that weekend, Chris Benoit's story was going to have a tragic end.
33:22I think his fate was sealed the day that Eddie died, whether he knew it or not.
33:27I don't think anybody could save him after that.
33:29Not his kids, not his family, not his other friends.
33:33I just think that was the one guy that he said, I can't do it if Eddie's not with me.
33:39Whatever it was that he was going through, you know, I think he just continued to shrink his whole world
33:45until all that was left was just whatever was in his head that caused him to snap.
33:51And he fucking snapped.
33:54It's not one thing.
33:55I think that it's a factor of alcohol and drugs and yes, possibly CTE and stress and grief.
34:04And all of those things rolled together, put him on a path that weekend that he couldn't get off.
34:10Chris was always going to be my friend and my brother.
34:14I just know that there was something going on with him that wasn't him.
34:17And it's something that, you know, I'm still very much torn with.
34:20Because you love Chris, you just hate what he did.
34:24The act of what he did is unthinkable, unforgivable.
34:30But it's still hard for me to separate a friendship that I had with him, matches that I had with
34:35him, moments, times, car rides.
34:37I think I can always look at Chris as one of the best performers our business has ever seen.
34:43Just kind of leave it at that.
34:48I get questions all the time, does Chris Benoit deserve to be in the Hall of Fame?
34:51And I'd say, absolutely not.
34:53No.
34:53The issue is, is that if Chris were here, we could talk to him, he would say, putting me in
34:58the Hall of Fame is going to be one of the great distractions of the entire event.
35:01So all it's going to do is bring up Nancy and Daniel and Chris in their last 24 hours.
35:06So therefore I say, Chris Benoit does not belong in the WWE Hall of Fame, now or ever.
35:13You have two guys that were the same basically their whole life.
35:17And had the same reputation of being just immaculate professionals, immaculate human beings, the nicest guys.
35:23And they both die very young, and one's legacy is acclaimed, and one's is buried to that you almost can't
35:32say his name.
35:34If you would have told Chris, you know, when you die, your name and your body of work is going
35:41to be erased from existence forever.
35:44It would have broke his heart.
35:46Because I think if nothing else, I remember he told me once, like, listen, the critics are the critics, but
35:49if you have the respect of your peers, then nothing else matters.
35:55So to find out that he would have lost the respect, not only of his peers, but his friends, his
35:59family, I don't think he ever wanted that.
36:02It almost took down the whole business.
36:04What Chris did almost, and that's another thing, what Chris did almost destroyed the only thing that he ever loved,
36:12from a professional standpoint.
36:13The only thing he ever loved, pro wrestling, Chris Benoit almost destroyed it.
36:19That would have torn him apart as well.
36:21So it leads us around to like, why did he do it?
36:25And I don't think anyone's ever going to be able to answer that question.
36:37You know, people would look at me different now.
36:40Because of what he did.
36:42People talking shit behind my back.
36:45Looking at me different.
36:47Getting bullied.
36:48Screw it.
36:50I'm defending my family.
36:52And what I believe in.
36:54You know, he loved them.
36:56That definitely was not him.
37:00He's still my hero.
37:02I think about him all the time.
37:05I want them to recognize Nancy though.
37:09She definitely deserves the recognition that she doesn't get.
37:14That's the unfortunate and the sad part about the story is that she needs to be remembered for a strong
37:20woman pioneering in this business and her talent and focus on that instead of what happened to her.
37:29She's a hall of famer all across the board in my opinion.
37:32She was a pioneer and one of the best at a role that doesn't exist anymore.
37:37As a pro wrestling manager, she created the role.
37:41She perfected the role.
37:42And then when she stopped doing it, the role basically disappeared.
37:46I would like nothing better than to see Nancy, uh, you know, Nancy Benoit.
37:51Once again, you can't even say that name, right?
37:54Woman.
37:55I would like nothing better than to see woman be put into the WWE Hall of Fame.
38:01She was a great mom.
38:02She was a beautiful friend.
38:05And Nancy will always be the superstar that she was meant to be in my, in my mind.
38:11Can I blow a kiss?
38:17What do you remember the most about Nancy?
38:21I remember everything about her.
38:25I remember how her hair smells.
38:29She just took me in with both hands real hard, like on her both sides of the blanket to tuck
38:38me in.
38:38Almost like she was putting a lock on me to keep me safe.
38:42And to this day, when I get sad or upset or stressed out, I will tuck myself in on the
38:49sides so that I feel more secure.
38:52What do you remember the most about Daniel?
38:56Everything.
38:57I close my eyes and I could see him doing everything.
39:00He was our whole lives, all of us.
39:02He was very, very, very, very loved by our family, by his siblings.
39:08He and his brother were just thick as thieves.
39:12Did you go on to have any relationship with the Benoit family afterward?
39:17I tried.
39:20Unsuccessfully.
39:25I was told, I won't say by who, that the children didn't want anything to do with us.
39:31And apparently the children were told that we didn't want anything to do with them because of what their dad
39:36did.
39:37Which was absolutely not the truth.
39:42My last trip with my family was for WrestleMania 23 in Detroit.
39:49And then after the match, we flew back to Atlanta, me, Nancy, and Daniel.
39:55My dad went to Mexico for a tour.
39:59And then me, Nancy, and Daniel were just hanging around the house, taking pictures, you know, up by the trees,
40:07with the dogs.
40:09And then, you know.
40:33David is absolutely a victim.
40:35He's a great kid that was just dealt a bad hand.
40:39It's just not fair.
40:40It's not right he didn't do anything wrong. He's just he's an innocent bystander in in all of this
41:02It's good for us
41:10I felt that because Chris killed his family that the family he left behind was was automatically blackballed from the
41:17world
41:19Like they're gonna be blamed for what Chris did to me those who needed to be reconnected because
41:25Talking with David and meeting Sandra and no issues having the same issues and pain and hurt that David had
41:32and nobody will ever really understand
41:35What they went through with the exception of each other?
41:37so I thought if I if I could connect them if they had a chance to talk that maybe they
41:42could move on and
41:43Still realize that they have family in each other
41:47Chris Jericho wrestling angel come to life
41:50He gave my number to my nephew and gave my nephew's number to me. We hadn't touched him before everything
41:56happened
41:58So 13 years the last time we saw each other
42:02It's been a very long time
42:04She finally called me I answered
42:07We talked on the phone for
42:09Probably a good two hours and now going to watch wrestling
42:14Because I still love it
42:16Then my blood
42:18Feels like we never
42:20Were apart felt like we just reconnected left off where we started nothing has changed. She's still my auntie Zaja
42:28Chris lives on and David every day and Nancy lives on and Sandra every day and I think they're both
42:33lost when Chris and Nancy died
42:36So
42:38Hopefully this will help them get found
42:40We feel better
42:41Yeah, because you guys have the same
42:44Perspective you know and I think more than anyone else
42:47Stick together on this right because you know
42:49Yeah, we can be friends and be supportive, but it's not the same as for you guys
42:54No, it's not the same as family. Yeah, exactly
42:56I've never been
43:01I've never been more grateful and happy to see someone that I love as I was when I saw my
43:06nephew
43:07Do you think you will ever be able to or want to give forgiveness towards Chris?
43:13Yes, I think I do someday want to be able to forgive him. I do because carrying around
43:22The burden of hate
43:25Gets exhausting
43:28Everyone deserves forgiveness
43:33And everyone deserves mercy
43:35So I think that within time
43:37There will be a day
43:39When I got on my knees
43:42And I finally say it
43:44That I forgive him
43:49You never know
43:50It might be tomorrow
43:51But I do know it's not today
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