Gone Too Soon: Deaths That Changed Wrestling Read online

  Again, wanting to portray this to the wider world, WWE’s website posted a video from backstage in the arena in Sheffield, England, where Vince McMahon announced the news to all of the wrestlers present on the tour, specifically stating that he would be given the news from the drug testers after the wrestlers had been told themselves (so there would be no case of management “forgetting” to pass the news on), and that there would be no “special exemptions”. Whilst the exemptions part wasn’t strictly true (the policy only applied to wrestlers on a permanent talent contract - so someone like Vince, who only made sporadic in-ring appearances, would be exempt), the news clearly made a few wrestlers nervous, with Kurt Angle in particular being shown on the video to ask about whether they’d be testing for prescription medication and how they would determine what was abuse.

  WWE did post the Wellness Policy on their website, stating that the company now prohibited the use of steroids in any circumstance (both testosterone and anything based on testosterone, such as stanozolol), as well as recreational or “non-medical” usage of various street drugs (ecstasy, cocaine, morphine and their variants), diuretics, muscle relaxants and even painkillers. In short, if your usual doctor didn’t prescribe it to you for a valid reason, you weren’t allowed to test positive!

  Whilst the main focus of the Wellness Policy concerned drug testing, the company also introduced cardiovascular tests, perhaps on the idea that if WWE had been aware of the damage that had been done to Eddie’s heart, they wouldn’t have promoted him as much (or indeed, given him the full time schedule that he had had). Less than two years after the testing was introduced, wrestler Montel Vontavious Porter (aka “MVP) received the diagnosis of a condition known as Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome, a heart condition which carries the risk of sudden cardiac arrest. MVP was given time off as doctors assessed his condition, but whilst the cardiac tests may have flagged up some wrestlers who may have had their lives saved as a result, the headline story - the drugs tests - played havoc with the WWE’s cards. Days before a pay-per-view in July 2006, the Great American Bash, test results came in that forced Bobby Lashley and the Great Khali to be pulled from the card. At around the same time, seven more performers were also suspended as a result of the company’s new Wellness Policy, with the likes of Rob Van Dam (suspended after being caught with marijuana by police) and Kurt Angle (given time off to deal with a prescription pill issue that eventually led to his firing by WWE later in the summer of 2006) being snared by the new rules, prompting even more headaches on a creative team that was struggling to cope with the task of creating interesting scenarios whilst working with a crew of characters that was trying to adjust to the business’ new landscape.

  Away from the impact that the Wellness Policy created, the Guerrero family had to adjust to life without their figurehead. A widower, Vickie found her way into the business that she had seen her husband devote his entire life to. Although she had had some cameo appearances in the 2005 “Dominik is Eddie’s son” storyline with her husband and Rey Mysterio, Vickie became something of an on-screen character as Mysterio successfully mounted a challenge for the World Heavyweight Championship. Her role as a motivator slowly segued into that of a hated figure, after turning her back on Mysterio after attacking him with a steel chair and sided with her nephew-in-law Chavo Guerrero.

  Since then, Vickie has been used in various roles as a perennial heel character, including storyline relationships with Edge (whom she married on TV), Eric Escobar (a Puerto Rican wrestler whose WWE career was over in the blink of an eye) and Dolph Ziggler. Away from love interests, Vickie has also been portrayed as someone of an authority figure, having fulfilled the role of General Manager of SmackDown and Raw on several occasions, whilst also (bizarrely) being a “Pro” on the all-female season of WWE’s NXT show, where Vicki saw her “rookie” replaced just days before the show started - her initial rookie, Aloisia, was fired by WWE following revelations from her past, and was replaced with the season’s eventual winner, Kaitlyn.

  CHRIS BENOIT

  (May 21, 1967 - June 24, 2007)

  Unlike Owen Hart or Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit started life as a wrestling fan in Edmonton, often going to one of Stu Hart’s Stampede Wrestling shows, where he would idolise the Dynamite Kid. Meeting his idol backstage at a Stampede show in his home town, only made Benoit more determined to become a professional wrestler.

  Thanks to a set of weights purchased by his father, Benoit put in the time in the gym and turned from a scrawny kid who sat in the crowd, to a more defined man who was about to take his first steps into professional wrestling. He travelled to Calgary to be trained by Stu Hart in the world-famous Dungeon. Benoit eventually made his in-ring debut on November 22, 1985 for Stampede Wrestling in a tag team match, where he was billed as “Dynamite” Chris Benoit - a homage to his childhood idol.

  Benoit largely stayed on the local scene, and wrestled in Stampede up until it’s closing in 1989 - by which point he made the move to Japan, training in the New Japan dojo. Despite having wrestled under his real name in Japan in 1986, Benoit was given a new character: the Pegasus Kid. Although in hindsight, such a character didn’t seem to mesh with Benoit, the Pegasus Kid really fit in amongst a Japanese wrestling scene that contained wrestlers such as Jushin “Thunder” Liger, Black Tiger and El Samurai - characters that looked to come straight out of the pages of comic books, whilst still being serious workers in the ring.

  Through word of mouth, and the trading of tapes of his matches in Japan, Benoit slowly started to carve out a name for himself, with a series of matches against Jushin “Thunder” Liger producing memorable results. In November 1991, one of these matches saw Benoit lose his Pegasus Kid mask and character after suffering a defeat to Liger - a loss that saw Benoit reinvent his character into the Wild Pegasus. It was under this new moniker that Benoit would win the 1994 Super J Cup Tournament - but in the time since becoming Wild, he would have his first flirtation with the North American wrestling scene, courtesy of some blink-and-you’ll-miss-them appearances in WCW, including a NWA tag team tournament loss with his best friend Biff Wellington (Shayne Bower).

  By the end of 1994, however, Benoit was becoming a regular in an upstart promotion based out of Philadelphia: Extreme Championship Wrestling. Having worked for ECW in-between tours of Japan, Benoit was given a huge push in the company, and accidentally gained the character of the “Crippler”, thanks in part to a match with Sabu in November 1994. That match ended prematurely, when Sabu botched a face-first pancake bump, instead under-rotating for what should have been a back bodydrop. This confusion resulting in Sabu landing on his head, causing him to break his neck. Sabu would eventually wrestle again, and sustain plenty more injuries in his career (including countless cuts that were glued back together, and a broken jaw that he wrestled through after wrapping his mouth together in duct tape!)

  Privately, Benoit was freaking out that he may have paralysed and ended the career of a fellow professional wrestler. However, ECW booker Paul Heyman instead opted to use this incident to emphasise Benoit’s “cold blooded” character and ensure that the nickname of “The Crippler” stuck with him for the majority of his career. Despite having held the ECW tag team titles, and being in line for a run with the ECW heavyweight title, that promotion’s notorious lack of back-office organisation resulted in Benoit’s work visa expiring, forcing the Canadian to return to New Japan until the required paperwork was completed. In the meantime, New Japan had struck up a talent exchange deal with WCW, which gave Benoit a back door return to WCW just as that company was preparing to embark on its biggest run ever.

  Although he spent most of his first year back in WCW technically working under the New Japan banner, Benoit’s first real crack in WCW was as a part of one of that company’s iconic stables - the Four Horsemen. Throughout WCW’s run, the Horsemen had undergone numerous changes since its inception as the quartet of Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Ole Anderson and Tully Blanchard. The 1995 flavour still kept Ric
and Arn, but added Brian Pillman and Chris Benoit to the group, as Ric Flair’s feud with new arrivals from the WWE such as Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage expanded to something resembling gang warfare.

  Whilst the Horsemen would remain as a group, the two new arrivals would splinter off into their own storylines, starting with Pillman’s bizarre feud with Kevin Sullivan - a feud that was designed to showcase Pillman’s unpredictable “loose cannon” persona. Pillman somehow managed to one-up them by convincing them to give him his release from the company, in order to develop his new persona in the decidedly less-family-friendly ECW. Unfortunately for WCW, their plan to bring him back to the company backfired, when he chose to sign for the WWE in the midst of their ongoing “Monday Night Wars”. With Pillman gone, Benoit was substituted into the Sullivan feud - a move that would have effects for all involved both on- and off-screen.

  By this point, the Four Horsemen had numerous female valets, including Woman (Nancy Sullivan) - who in real life was married to Kevin Sullivan. As WCW hadn’t quite learned from Brian Pillman burning their proverbial fingers in their last flirtation with realistic storylines, Sullivan - who was the man in charge of WCW’s storylines at the time - insisted that the storyline between himself and Benoit should be as believable as possible. For reasons which were never really understood, Sullivan wrote a storyline that saw Woman become Benoit’s on-screen love interest, whilst ensuring that their on-screen chemistry was as real as possible by coercing the pair to stay in the same hotel rooms whilst travelling and appearing in public together.

  In a move that was not entirely unexpected, the relationship between Chris and Nancy became a full-blown love affair that ultimately led to Nancy divorcing Kevin and marrying Chris. During this period, the storyline between Benoit and Sullivan gained an edge, with WCW television airing a video of Chris in Kevin and Nancy’s home, taking a shot at his rival by saying "you consider yourself the master of human chess. Well, my bishop just took your queen.” Woman was removed from television in May 1997, before the fake/real rivalry came to a head when Benoit beat Sullivan in July 1997’s Bash at the Beach pay-per-view in a Retirement match. This would prove to be Sullivan’s final match before taking a full-time behind the scenes role in WCW.

  Benoit’s next big assignment would be a lengthy series of matches with Booker T, as the pair initially locked horns over the WCW Television title. After trading the title back and forth on live events (which really didn’t make sense, given the Television title was only meant to be defended on TV!), Fit Finlay ended up winning the title from Booker, meaning that the ongoing feud between Booker and Benoit became a Best-of-Seven series to get a shot at what was WCW’s third-tier title. After taking a 3-1 lead in the series, Benoit would conspire to throw away the lead and force a seventh and deciding match, which Benoit looked to have won, thanks to interference from Bret “Hitman” Hart. Refusing to take the win in that fashion, Benoit admitted that he’d won with some extra help - a move that saw Booker awarded a disqualification victory, only for Booker too to reject the win, forcing the deciding match to be replayed at the Great American Bash in 1998. Benoit lost the second decider, going down to a missile dropkick as Booker went on to win the Television title from Finlay later on in the same pay-per-view event. Although he left the feud without the gold, this series of matches propelled Benoit’s single career into a solid mid-card position, but it wasn’t until he turned to the tag team division that WCW gold returned to the waist of the “Crippler”.

  A reformation of the Four Horsemen coincided with Benoit teaming with former ECW alumni Dean Malenko, with the pair unseating the West Texas Rednecks - Curt Hennig and Barry Windham - leading to an ongoing feud against the likes of Billy Kidman and Rey Mysterio, or Raven and Perry Saturn. However, the Horsemen reunion didn’t last long, as Benoit splintered away from the group with Malenko, eventually forming a new group known as the “Revolution”.

  The Revolution were created at a time when WCW was hoping to use more reality-based storylines to connect with the audience, as the company started to flounder behind a resurgent WWE. Starring Benoit alongside Dean Malenko, Perry Saturn and Shane Douglas, the group were bound together by their privately-held hatred of WCW’s backstage politics. Only problem was, it was only the hardcore, internet-savvy fans of WCW who were aware of this - the vast majority of their fans weren’t online, and as such, the whole Revolution storyline just did not resonate with them. During the Revolution’s existence, WCW fell into the booking hands of Vince Russo, who became a false messiah as their hopes of a revival fell by the wayside.

  It was during this run that Benoit had two of his more heartfelt moments in wrestling - firstly, at a house show in Baltimore, Maryland in September, paying tribute to WCW referee Mark Curtis (Brian Hildebrand). Benoit, along with his Revolution team mates, spoke candidly about Curtis, just days after he had passed away days following a fight with cancer. A rather more public memorial came in October 1999, when Benoit wrestled Bret Hart on an episode of Nitro in Kansas City - held in the same arena where Bret’s brother Owen had passed away in May of that year. In a great technical match, that jarred somewhat given WCW’s product at the time, Benoit refused to go over Bret, insisting that “the Hitman” won the match in tribute to Owen.

  As 1999 became 2000, Benoit’s time in WCW was numbered, as he left the company alongside Eddie Guerrero and close friends Dean Malenko and Perry Saturn. Whilst Guerrero, Saturn and Malenko had been underused, Benoit’s departure caught WCW off guard, as they had made him the company’s champion. Truth be told, the move - which came after Vince Russo was fired for having the brain-wave of making Tank Abbott champion - was a last ditch ploy to keep Benoit and co. happy. With Kevin Sullivan back in charge of WCW, Benoit knew that bygones wouldn’t remain bygones, and his longevity as a top line wrestler in WCW would remain extremely limited. Surprisingly, Benoit was allowed to leave WCW, despite being champion - although a lot of that was down to alleged threats of violence made towards Benoit by then-WCW road agent Mike Graham - allegations that made it a lot more straightforward to just let him go than hold him to his contract.

  In the WWE, Benoit debuted on Raw as part of the Radicalz - alongside Eddie Guerrero et al (which is why I’m not repeating the Radicalz’s early days). Whilst the rest of the Radicalz quickly settled into the midcard though, Benoit was given somewhat of a push towards the WWE’s main events, having won the Intercontinental championship at WrestleMania 2000 in a two-of-three-falls match for Kurt Angle’s two titles (Chris Jericho won the European title in the second fall, leaving Angle belt-less by the end of the show). After dropping the title to Rikishi in June, Benoit found himself in the picture for the WWE title - initially losing to the Rock at the Fully Loaded pay-per-view in July 2000 (despite “winning”, the match was restarted due to outside interference, which led to Benoit ultimately losing). That match was followed up with Benoit appearing in a four-way for the title at Unforgiven two months later, but with a similar fate, losing to the Rock Bottom.

  Away from the WWE title, Benoit crossed paths numerous times with Chris Jericho, culminating in an entertaining ladder match at the 2001 Royal Rumble that saw Jericho lift the title. Benoit remained in storylines though, losing to Kurt Angle at WrestleMania 17 - a show that was somewhat overshadowed by the WWE’s purchase of WCW. Shortly after WrestleMania, Benoit started to team up with Jericho, with the duo winning the tag team titles from Steve Austin and Triple H in a match that was marred by Triple H suffering a serious quadriceps tear as he tried to break up a Walls of Jericho submission. Just 24 hours later, Benoit and Jericho defended their titles in a four-way Tables, Ladders and Chairs (TLC) match against Edge & Christian, the Hardy Boyz and the Dudleyz. In a sign of the times, the TLC match received little advance promotion, and resulted in a serious injury, with Benoit suffering a broken neck from a rather innocuous move: a missed big splash off the top of a ladder, as Benoit crashed through the table after Matt Hardy got out of the way. Benoit was stretchered out
of the arena, with the initial fears being that he had broken his ribs, but in truth the injury was far more severe than anyone thought.

  In spite of the injury, Benoit would continue to wrestle for almost a month afterwards as his ongoing storyline saw himself and Chris Jericho fail to unseat Steve Austin for the WWE title, both in separate one-on-one matches then in a three-way match at the 2001 King of the Ring pay-per-view. Although the three-way saw Benoit and Jericho force a submission when their holds were used in tandem, the match was restarted until a clear winner was decided.

  Benoit would get surgery to repair his broken neck shortly after that match - surgery that would pin him to the sidelines for over a year. Despite being off of television, Benoit was “drafted” to SmackDown as the WWE’s brand extension saw the company split into two distinct shows with their own travelling crew. Picked as SmackDown’s third choice in the initial draft in March 2002, it was only natural that Benoit would return a few months later... on Raw! His spell on Monday night’s was short lived - but long enough for Benoit to dethrone Rob Van Dam as the company’s Intercontinental champion before being moved onto SmackDown, completely ignoring the initial draft storyline. Unfortunately, the Intercontinental title went back to Raw, after Benoit dropped the title back to Van Dam at SummerSlam 2002, but it wasn’t long before gold would be around the Crippler’s waist - in the form of the newly created WWE Tag Team Championships.