The Life and Death of Former WWE star Chris Benoit

In one night, “The Crippler” Chris Benoit went from being recognized as one of wrestling's greatest in-ring performers to committing the most heinous acts outside the ring. 

Chris Benoit’s childhood heroes were The Dynamite Kid and Bret Hart. Wanting to become a pro wrestler himself, he was trained by Stu Hart, father of Bret Hart and owner of Stampede Wrestling down in the famed Hart Dungeon. Benoit soon became one of the best wrestlers in Stampede after debuting in 1985. One of his signature moves he performed was the flying headbutt off the top rope, the same move he saw Dynamite Kid perform years earlier. Stampede Wrestling was no longer able to remain profitable, and in 1989, they went out of business.

Benoit immediately found work in New Japan Pro Wrestling and became one of their top junior heavyweight stars winning the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship in 1990 and would go on to win the Best of the Super Juniors tournament in 1991 and 1993. Benoit spent a brief period of time in WCW between 1992 and 1993 before going to ECW in 1994. During the Summer of 1995, Benoit had WWF tryout matches against names like Bob Holly, Adam Bomb, and Owen Hart. He returned to WCW in the Fall of 1995 and became a member of the legendary Four Horsemen stable.

When Brian Pillman left WCW in the middle of a storyline feud with head booker Kevin Sullivan, Benoit was inserted into Pillman’s spot. Nancy Sullivan, also known as Woman in WCW, was the real-life wife of Kevin Sullivan. Sullivan paired Nancy with Benoit. As so often we have seen, real life imitates art in the wrestling industry and Benoit and Nancy began having an extramarital affair. Kevin said that he and Nancy had been having marital problems for six months before Benoit came into the picture and were living in separate homes at the time. He also did not suspect anything was going on between the two of them as Benoit had a pregnant wife at home.

Benoit became unhappy with his push in WCW, so to try to appease him, Sullivan put the WCW World Heavyweight Championship on Benoit at Souled Out in 2000 as he defeated Sid Vicious. Despite this, Benoit was still unhappy with Sullivan being the booker. The next day, Benoit, along with Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, and Perry Saturn, left WCW and shortly thereafter, appeared for the WWF.

Guerrero, Malenko, Saturn, and Benoit came to the WWF as a faction known as The Radicalz. Benoit won every major championship in WWE including the World Heavyweight Championship in 2004 at WrestleMania 20 by tapping out Triple H with the Crippler Crossface. Also on the show, Benoit’s best friend, Eddie Guerrero retained the WWE Championship over Kurt Angle. The show ended with both of them in the middle of the ring holding their titles in the air with confetti raining down on them from the ceiling.

The close of WrestleMania 20 was an especially heartfelt moment with Benoit and Guerrero. It represented years of wrestling in multiple promotions together, most of the time in the junior heavyweight division. During their early years, they were viewed as too small to be headliners for a major wrestling company. While WWE and WCW were slow to embrace the smaller, faster pace style these two and many others brought to the ring, the audience knew how talented they were and the ending of WrestleMania 20 represented that their years of hard work finally paid off.

The friendship between Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero dates back to the early 1990s. Their career path took them to the same promotions at the same time from New Japan Pro Wrestling, AAA in Mexico, ECW, WCW, and WWE. The bond between them was closer than most brothers.

Eddie Guerrero was involved in a horrible automobile accident in 1999. He developed an addiction to pain medication and was sent to rehab in May of 2001. In November of 2001, Guerrero was arrested for drunk driving and was released by WWE. Eddie was determined to get clean and sober. He spent the next year on the independents and in Japan proving he was capable of returning to WWE. He successfully returned to WWE in April 2002.

On November 15, 2005, Guerrero was found unconscious in his hotel room by his nephew, Chavo Guerrero. Eddie was pronounced dead when the ambulance arrived on the scene. The autopsy revealed he died of acute heart failure due to underlying atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Eddie was 38 years old.

The death of Eddie Guerrero took its toll on Chris Benoit. Upon hearing the news of Eddie’s death, Benoit, usually reserved, started crying uncontrollably. Chris Jericho said Benoit took Eddie’s loss like that of someone losing their spouse. Friends of Benoit noticed a change in him and said he became a hermit and refused to see them. The death of Guerrero took its toll emotionally as time went on.

On Saturday, June 23, 2007, Chavo Guerrero received a voice message from Benoit’s phone saying that Nancy and their son Daniel both had food poisoning and that he would be late for the house show in Beaumont, TX. Benoit didn’t show up for the house show which was unlike Chris. Late in the morning on Sunday, June 24, 2007, Benoit called the WWE talent relations office stating that Daniel was vomiting blood and he and Nancy were at the hospital with him. He said he would be taking a later flight into Houston where he was scheduled to face CM Punk for the vacant ECW Championship at the Vengeance Night of Champions Pay Per View, but failed to appear.

On Monday, June 25th, it was announced that Chris Benoit, Nancy Benoit, and Daniel were dead. Vince McMahon and WWE decided to cancel their plans for that night’s Monday Night RAW and instead do a tribute show to Benoit. Ironically, this episode of RAW was supposed to be a memorial for the Mr. McMahon character, who was “blown up” in a limo on the June 11th episode. Following the show, word got out surrounding the deaths of Chris, Nancy, and Daniel. WWE removed all mentions of the tribute show and removed Benoit from their website.

The next night on the WWE’s ECW broadcast, Vince McMahon said, "Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Last night on Monday Night Raw, the WWE presented a special tribute show recognizing the career of Chris Benoit. However, now some 26 hours later, the facts of this horrific tragedy are now apparent. Therefore, other than my comments, there will be no mention of Mr. Benoit’s name tonight. On the contrary, tonight's show will be dedicated to everyone who has been affected by this terrible incident. This evening marks the first step of the healing process. Tonight, WWE performers will do what they do better than anyone else in the world. Entertain you."

Autopsy results showed that Nancy was murdered first by asphyxiation on the night of June 22nd. She was found wrapped in a towel with blood under her head. The couple's son, Daniel, who also died of asphyxia, was killed as he was lying sedated in his bed on the morning of June 23rd. The reports determined that Daniel was sedated with Xanax and was likely unconscious when he was killed. Benoit placed bibles near the bodies of his wife and son. On June 24th, Benoit killed himself in his weight room when he used his lat pull-down machine to hang himself.

It was alleged that Daniel had fragile X-syndrome and that was the cause of the domestic problems between Chris and Nancy and the needle marks on Daniel’s arms were from growth hormones given to him because he was considered undersized. The district attorney said Daniel had no pre-existing physical or mental ailments.

Some believe the murder-suicide happened as a result of steroid abuse and others said it was from CTE. There are also those who blamed it on alcohol abuse and depression. Tests on Benoit’s brain showed that it was severely damaged and resembled that of an 85-year old Alzheimer’s patient.

Friends of Chris Benoit after the murder were shocked and all of them said that this was something they never saw coming. While it would be no surprise that he did have CTE issues, especially with what we know today in comparison to even back in 2007, some didn’t buy into the concept that it was so bad that he was out of his mind when he murdered Nancy and Daniel as he made all of his flights from town to town without missing a beat right up until the incident took place.

Christopher Nowinski, a former WWE Superstar who now runs the Concussion Legacy Foundation, told of the possibility that the damage to Benoit’s brain possibly had an influence on his mental state.

Sandra Toffoloni, the sister of Nancy, believes it was the combination of Benoit’s head trauma, steroid use, potential alcohol abuse, and the emotional trauma of losing Eddie Guerrero that all led to Benoit committing this heinous act.

Chris Benoit had two children from a previous marriage. Nancy’s sister, Sandra, was able to connect with one of them, David Benoit, who was only 14 years old at the time of the incident. They remain close to this day.

If we can find a bright spot in this tragedy, the WWE has instituted strict drug testing and state-of-the-art CTE protocols into their Health and Wellness Policy spearheaded by Nowinski, the leading expert in the field. No longer will wrestlers in WWE take chair shots to the head and they are granted time off for as long as they need to properly recover from concussions. This, no doubt, will save wrestlers from brain damage now and later in life. The drug usage in WWE has been cleaned up. The younger talent in wrestling today have seen the effects of their previous generation’s behavior and are not repeating this, and if one does develop drug, alcohol, or mental health issues, WWE is quick to respond by getting them help. The wrestlers no longer have to worry about taking time off to get help for fear of being fired. Hopefully, at the very least, some good came out of one of the most horrific incidents in the history of professional wrestling.