A completely random post…
I haven’t blogged about the bizarre case of pro wrestler Chris Benoit, who killed his family and hanged himself a few weeks ago, but details from the medical examiner’s report were just released and they are pretty mind-blowing.
This was a chemically-enhanced horrorshow that makes you wonder what on earth kind of home life this poor child of Benoit and his wife Nancy had.
* Chris Benoit’s body contained 10 times the normal level of testosterone, as well as amounts of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax and the painkiller hydrocodone.
* Nancy Benoit tested positive for Xanax, hydrocodone, the painkiller hydromorphone, and had a blood-alcohol level of 0.184 percent, over double the level at which Georgia law considers a driver intoxicated.
* Daniel, their young son, had Xanax in his system (the article suggests he was sedated before he was killed).
While there’s no proof that high levels of testosterone are definitely connected to violence and erratic behavior in this case, 10x the amount coursing through your blood stream is an insane imbalance. The authorities did find prescription anabolic steroids in the home as well.
It’s such a tragic senseless event.
What I can’t figure out is who looked the other way/got paid off – the doctor involved in giving scripts for Benoit, Dr. Phil Astin, is charged with overprescription of performance enhancing drugs to other wrestlers as well. You have to think this is the tip of the iceberg.
41 Responses to “What was going on in the Benoit household?”
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Mr Benoit used steroids because you have to use steroids in pro wrestling; you just do. Mrs Benoit had been involved in pro wrestling in some way in the past, though I don’t know what it was.
We reward perfoemance in sports, and the higher the performance, the greater the rewards. Steroids inhance performance, and are going to be used, period. That such things are against the rules doesn’t seem to matter.
I’ve been wondering if the autopsy could light a full-on scandal on pro wrestling. I was surprised that when the reports came in that numerous holier-than-thous weren’t jumping on the cable news shows and demanding the pro wrestling be banned, etc. But now there’s fair proof that the athlete was on steroids, and that the home was a cesspool of drug abuse, there should be a massive scandal. This is more than Vince McMahon admitting some ’small amount of steroid abuse’ in his entertainments.
Or was all that grandstanding on steroids just lipservice by the Chimperor?
Nancy was a valet/manager for years in wrestling. She actually hooked up with Benoit when her current husband booked a story in which she left him for Benoit. He insisted on it looking real, and made them book flights together, spend time together, and stay in the same hotel. The result was that she actually left him for Benoit.
Yes, steroids are ubiquitous in wrestling, and probably have contributed to the outrageous death rate. (I think something like 100plus wrestlers who were active since the early 90s have died before the age of 50.) Lots of drug use and partying, too.
From all reports, Benoit fell apart after his best friend died 18 months ago and only got worse as time went on and others he knew passed away.
Family annhilators usually seem to thinkt he family won’t survive without them or without their income/job. (He was in no danger of losing his job as he was probably the most respected wrestler from a purely technical part of the craft working today. Even as he approached retirement, he would have been given a trainer/road agent role.)
It’s been a weird story for fans like myself, because he was always the one we could point to as an example of how good the craft side of the show could be. Plus, he was considered a family man, not a trouble maker, and there weren’t stories of him going wild partying or the like.
I’m not so sure I believe that steroids should be ‘against the rules’. His testosterone levels were indicative of steroid-abuse, not steroid-use. Also, it would be nice to know what his baseline test levels were prior to steroid use (though this isn’t pro-cycling so we will never know that…). Chances are he naturally had high test levels, which he then enhanced to stupid levels.
I can’t even remember the name of the last guy who won the Tour de France; his mark in history is to go down as a cheater, thanks to steroids. (Several potential riders had been caught before the race, and barred.) He managed to be clean for the pre-race testing, and was doing well in the early stages. But he was hurting, and used some form of steroids mid-race, for the mountain climb stages, and pulled away to win.
Well, maybe he hoped that they wouldn’t catch him through mid-race testing, but they did. I remember all of the hoopla, especially in the Philly papers, over his amazing feats. Then it all came crashing down.
Americans were rooting for this guy; we were cheering him on! And look what his “victory” gained him.
Floyd Landis was his name.
And I don’t think that case has been settled yet.
http://www.dailynews.com/sports/ci_6400135
There is a relatively recent story that talks about it (though mostly about his book).
I’m not even quite sure who to believe in his case, because the sheer level of stupidity needed for him to take a large injection of testosterone in the middle of the Tour De France is mind-boggling. First, there really isn’t strong evidence that Test can increase your endurance so directly and quickly (usually its used in training to help increase endurance). Second, how could he have not known he would be tested and caught after having such an amazing stage?
What’s going to come out of the investigation, I imagine, is going to be a much larger issue involving painkillers and mood-altering drugs like Xanax. Those wrestlers live a pretty brutal life–the outcomes of the matches are fixed, but they abuse their bodies horrifically while putting on the show, and they perform night after night with precious little recovery time.
Re: Benoit, another thing that needs to be kept in mind is that this is a man who took blows to the head for a living, over a period of many years. Wrestling may be “fake”, but there is nothing fake about the physical damage.
Repeated blows to the head (and Benoit was the sort who took a lot of blows to the head) can lead to all sorts of mental problems, including the type of delusional behavior he apparently exhibited. This was not a crime of rage - it was carefully orchestrated (placing objects with the bodies, possibly sedating the victims, etc.)
I’m not suggesting the drugs helped, but this man was deeply disturbed, and getting his brain bounced around his skull for 15 years may well have been a much larger contributor than steroids.
Hey if anyone needs an estrogen overdose - the latest carnival of the feminists is up over at my place!
No proof and no consensus are very different things. There ARE studies that link high levels of testosterone to violence. Please correct your article.
I’m not even quite sure who to believe in his case, because the sheer level of stupidity needed for him to take a large injection of testosterone in the middle of the Tour De France is mind-boggling.
Not to mention how mind-bogglingly USELESS such an action would be - testosterone isn’t exactly a pick-me-up like red bull! It has to be chronically administered in conjunction with training to produce muscle mass.
There are also chain-of-custody, false-positive/false-negative issues, and quality control issues with the laboratories who conduct testing during events that make the MA State Police Crime Labs look ISO 9000 worthy by comparison.
Not that I think any of these guys are “innocent” given the culture - I just don’t think you can tell given all of the problems with the testing, the labs, and the transport systems PLUS the huge potential incentives for doping clean samples to eliminate competitors!
My theory, which I freely admit is based on nothing but a very limited amount of sensationalizd “journalism” overheard on television, is that things were not going well in the Benoit household. She filed for divorce once, didn’t she?, because he was abusive? In any case, I see a huge fight in which he lost control and killed his wife. He spends a day or so trying to figure out how to get away with it and finally is forced to recognze that isn’t going to happen and that his son is going to be left alone while he’s in prison. Thus, he kills his son, then himself, as a way out.
Please, feel free to refute me. I’m not a wrestling fan and know nothing about the situation, really. I’m just another feminist who recognizes another man who believed, at some level, that he owned his wife and children and had the right, or maybe even the obligation, to control and dominate his family.
I don’t see the situation so much as the fault of steroid use as the result of a patriarchal culture that celebrates violence and hypermasculinity.
I also wonder if a poor family with so many drug problems would have had issues of neglect, abuse, and drug abuse go without intervention for so long.
The assumption of family health given wealth or lifestyle is not valid.
BadKitty.
Nancy filed for separation or some such in 2003. She did cite fear of him abusing her as the reason.
I also think that something along the lines of what you think is what happened. There have been back and forth rumours of a medical condition for the son, which may have added to the stress in the household. I’m not sure if we can leap to the conclusion of “how do I get away with it”, but he obviously at some point reached the decision that killing his son and himself was the only way out.
Hmm.. My first comment seems to be trapped in moderation.
Having had rather high levels of testosterone at one point — not quite double the top of the “normal” range — I can tell you the following:
While it didn’t make me violent, it did make me very short-fused so it was much easier over react to stimuli of all flavours.
There was an overall feeling which I described to my endocrinologist as “dangerously well”. It’s hard to explain — on the one hand I felt really well, on the other hand I knew that this feeling was the result of an imbalance of some sort and not normal.
I can see that the “dangerously well” feeling could easily become addictive and quite possibly blind one to real problems because after all — “how can there be anything wrong when I feel this good?”
Hugh, what you’re describing sounds an awful lot like being in a manic state, and that’s definitely dangerous.
When it comes to pro wrestling, testosterone or steroids are not needed to enhance “performance.” Pro wrestling is a “performance,” of course, but not in the sense of a legitimate sport. You don’t need muscle-enhancing drugs to help you fake beating someone up (or getting beat up yourself).
The reason pro wrestlers take that stuff is so they’ll have physiques as impossibly muscled as comic-book characters, which contributes to the illusion. Would anyone pay to watch a bunch of ordinary-looking guys pretend to beat each other up?
I’m with ya, bad kitty.
Bitter,
They also may be using anabolic steroids to heal. There is some evidence that those types of steroids promote faster healing and while the outcome of matches are certainly fake, I’m pretty sure that smacking into things still hurts like the dickens. Same reasons pitchers might use steroids.
Would anyone pay to watch a bunch of ordinary-looking guys pretend to beat each other up?
Actually, when I lived in TV-deprived environs in the early 70s, we did pay to see that same schlock when it came to the Armory (and it is always the Armory!). That’s because the costumes more than made up for the lack of beefcake on display.
Now I guess flashy costumes aren’t as entertaining as they used to be. I blame Teh Ghay Lifestyle for ruining Wrestle America!
So, it’s okay to prescribe steroids so men can turn into mammoths, with the side effects of excessive testosterone increases and propensity for violence… but it’s NOT okay to prescribe marijuana to a dying cancer victim so she doesn’t vomit from her intestines because of the chemo.
Got it.
“They also may be using anabolic steroids to heal. There is some evidence that those types of steroids promote faster healing and while the outcome of matches are certainly fake, I’m pretty sure that smacking into things still hurts like the dickens. Same reasons pitchers might use steroids.”
Or football players. It’s likely a lot from Column A (”bigger -> more popular with the fans -> bigger salary & better merchandise contracts”) but still a fair amount from Column B. The floors of the ring have some spring to them, and they’re obviously taught how to stage-fight and take a fall and roll with the blows and so forth, but the performance is still hard on the body. And, as with any other sort of athletic display, accidents do happen–things get pulled, sprained, torn, and twisted every so often–and taking some time off to heal the natural way may or may not be something the performers really have the option to do.
Yeah. That pretty much describes every action movie I’ve ever seen.
(Sans Arnold.)
BadKitty,
Likely enough scenario, but I wonder about the drugs in Nancy Benoit’s system and also in the son’s system.
Chris Benoit may have had an acute psychotic episode, exacerbated by drug use/addiction and intense environmental stressors (divorce). He may well have premeditated the whole damn thing, slipping them a mickey to make his work easier. They describe the son as “sedated,” but great christ, .184% blood alcohol combined with any amount of Xanax and codeine — never mind if they were moderate-to-large doses — pretty much qualifies nancy Benoit as “sedated,” too.
Well, who knows; there’s no scenario that’s not ghastly to consider.
Yeah. That pretty much describes every action movie I’ve ever seen.
I saw HHH in Blade III: Trinity. There is a reason they don’t put the biggest of wrestlers in movies more often: they run like little fat kids.
No offense to little fat kids, but their running style (arms out to the side moving with too much torque and with a little side to side wobble as they transfer weight from one leg to the other) just isn’t the athletic movement necessary for an action hero who are supposed to have amazing body control to make all those stunts plausible.
Of course, implausible stunts and action sequences are exactly what made the transporter movies so much fun. So who knows…
There may be something to this - the pro wrestling circuit culture is notoriously punitive on performers who have to cancel or whom are no-shows, whether it’s from injury or without an excuse.
Pro Wrestling was much more entertaining when I was a kid in Tulsa in the early 70s. The wrestlers look like they trained in bars lifting pitchers of beer. The local promoter,Leroy McGuirk, who called the matches, was totally blind.
It was so much more honest back then.
This whole case is just wrong. You can look at it from the sports angle- are steroids evil or the pressures put on star athletes? Or you can look at it from the domestic violence angle- what drove this man to murder his wife and son? Personally, the more compelling issue is the patriarchal sense of ownership that makes men more likely to murder their spouse and children.
And it’s all the woman’s fault apparently:
Nancy really shouldn’t have forced her husband to murder her and their son in a premeditated plot. What a bitch.
Any respect I had for Hulk Hogan is gone. Sexist Fucker.
To illustrate that a “patriarchal sense of ownership” makes men more likely to murder their families (um, I’m guessing men are more likely than women to murder male strangers, as well, and coworkers and housepets for that matter) you quote Hulk Hogan?
I mean, what he says is reprehensible beyond belief, but I’m not sure the male psyche is best encapsulated by a man who goes by Hulk Hogan.
The “he was a quiet guy who kept to himself” comment, of course, has long been a cliche about pyscho killers.
The Scribe wrote:
I think you’ve missed something: even if the acts are scripted, the wrestlers have to be in amazing physical condition to be able to perform the stunts required. These guys go flying through the air, take amazing falls, and need tremendous strength, quickness and coordination.
The elevated blood alcohol can also be a byproduct of decomposition; remember tat he killed her on a Friday afternoon/evening, and the bodies weren’t discovered until Monday.
I also believe that hydromorphone is a byproduct of vicodin breaking down in the system.
FWIW, they were probably both addicted to painkillers. Nancy Benoit had back and neck surgery in 2005 according to Wikipedia, I’m guessing for wrestling injuries. So, what was in her system probably was not enough to sedate her, if she had had time to build up a tolerance. It may have just been what she needed to get through the day. So I am not sure if painkiller levels in either of them means anything.
Steroids are so prevalent because in the US, one company (WWE) has a virtual monopoly on the business, and its owner (Vince McMahon) has a long history of preferring workers with massive, chiseled (and shaved and oiled) bodies.
Wrestlers from the 70’s and 80’s in other companies, as well as wrestlers in Japan and Mexico do not feel the same pressure to look like comic book figures (in terms of physique, if not costume). Workers who joined WWE from other companies almost invariably beef up, as Benoit did.
They have to be athletic to do what they do, but the use of steroids among WWE wrestlers is not related to that. Wrestlers with some of the most prized (by McMahon) physiques have been some of the least athletic/most quickly tired (Hogan, Scott Steiner, Lex Luger, The Ultimate Warrior).
So you basically have a single company that forces its employees to use steroids, puts them on the road 50 weeks a year, employs them as “independent contractors,” and has them beat themselves up three times a week.
Is it any wonder painkiller and steroid abuse, recreational drug use, and self-destructive behavior is so damn common?
I just read through the comments and wanted to add my two cents.
LC, the number of deaths for wrestlers is 65 before the age of 45 (or 50). Most of them were wrestlers in the 80s who lived like rock stars. They did hard drugs like coke, partied all night, and took pain killers. Some of those 65 (I think it is 5-10) died in car accidents, plane crashes, suicides so not all are a perfectly fair comparison.
BadKitty’s scenario was the one I thought (or rather hoped) was the case since I was a big fan of Benoit’s. It really made more sense if Daniel had some disease and Chris thought that he’d be better off dead than in foster care with an expensive disease. Since there are conflicting reports is Daniel had any disease, I don’t know what happened.
Bitter Scribe is right that pro wrestlers don’t need steroids to get over with the fans. Two of the most popular wrestlers are Jeff and Matt Hardy. Neither have a body that you would look at and say “yep, he’s on the gas” and both are popular since they are very entertaining. If the fans wanted giant comic book characters come to life, then Chris “The Masterpiece” Masters would be the most over guy in the company. Instead, since he can’t wrestle, can’t move, and can’t talk on the mic, no one cares about him. Plus, wrestlers on steroids are more likely to get injured as they have too much muscle and can’t roll with the falls as easily.
Godmonkey, I was surprised by that BA too. I wouldn’t jump to Chris drugged her yet as she was in the generation of the partying hard wrestlers and may have built up resistances to alcohol. Or Crabby may be right as well. But your theory does fit with her being found tied up.
If I seem defensive, I’m not trying to be. My Great Uncle (my mom’s uncle) was a pro wrestler in the late 70s though 1992. He was never signed by any of the bigger companies and had a day job until the last 4 or 5 years of his career where he made enough wrestling to live on. The last time I saw him was in 2001 at Christmas where he could barely stand up on his own and stairs were terrible for him. Wrestlers put their bodies through a car wreck each night they wrestle and for years I’ve heard how “fake” it is. Not that it is coming from anyone here, but this double-murder-suicide involving on my favorites and my personal connection to the business in general makes this case hard for me. Add in that we may never know what happened in the household and I feel like there will no closure on this for wrestling fans at all.
I think Benoit had a lot of problems aside from the drugs in his body. I think focusing on the drugs too much can let people avoid the hideous reality of what Benoit did.
history_mom makes some great points. I wouldn’t take anything “Hulk Hogan” says seriously except that his mindset reflects the mindset of a lot of really stupid and hateful people. “Hogan” is an ugly window that shows us an ugly side to our society.
History Mom makes excellent points. As soon as I saw the typical “man kills wife and son” stories coming out about the Benoit family, the drugs angle was included in the early reports. My cynical take on that was -here goes the defense already - they’re going to blame this all-too-common type of murder on drugs and therefore try to diminish Mr. Benoit’s responsibility. I fear that the drug controversy is going to provide one more useful smokescreen for the murders. And Hulk Hogan added to it in his victim blaming statement… Poor Mr. Benoit - at the total mercy of his addictions was forced to murder his wife and son…
They did hard drugs like coke, partied all night, and took pain killers.
For what it’s worth, I know a lot of non-wrestlers who did this stuff, and most of them are not dead by 45, or at least not because they stayed out all night, did the occasional bump, and popped a vicodin they weren’t prescribed every once in a while. That kind of thing might lead to later health problems, but unless it becomes a big issue, it’s not going to kill you.
Opoponax,
Your point is taken but what you described is not what my uncle has described to me. In the early 80s when the then WWF was going national, they booked in whatever buildings they could at whatever day they could. So you’d have wrestlers fly or drive to New York City, wrestle that night, do coke and drink after the show, fly or drive to Chicago, sleep for two hours, do pain killers and uppers to wrestle that night, party with coke and drinks again, drive to St. Louis, take a sedative, sleep, take uppers, wrestle, party, fly to Denver, take a sedative, sleep, take uppers, wrestle, party, drive to Dallas, take a sedative, sleep, take uppers, wrestle, party, fly to Portland, take a sedative, sleep, take uppers, wrestle, party, fly home, sleep at home for one night, fly to the next city. That was one week. That is how many of the wrestlers in the 80s would behave.
As wrestling was just going national then, the big stars like Ric Flair, Hogan, or Sgt. Slaughter were treated as a “big deal” in places they didn’t visit before. After the shows, they would ask the local talent (people like my uncle) where the good party spots were and bring some of them out as a thank you to the boys that made them look good in the ring. Since the locals didn’t have to go anywhere, the parties would run long, and the wrestlers would have occasional problems getting to the next show.
There are famous stories of wrestlers like Andre the Giant drinking a case of alcohol at bars. Reading books like Mick Foley, or Ric Flair, or Super Billy Graham biographies and you can see the stories of drug abuse, road hardships, etc.
Not of that is an excuse to me. Just trying to point out that wrestlers in the 80s (the group most of early deaths have occurred with) didn’t just do coke or a vicodin once a week or so. Some took them everyday because that is the lifestyle they chose.
What Hulk Hogan said was a perfect example of Hogan being Hogan…he had to volunteer his (increasingly worthless) two cents to get his name mentioned among the firestorm of publicity on the wrestling industry…If his TV show on VH1 wasn’t a nauseating example of what a jackpipe he can be, then i don’t know what would do it.
An analysis of Benoit’s Brain reveals severe Brain Damage. Comparable to the Brain of a 85 year old Alzheimer’s patient. Apparently he had repeated concussions that did accumulated and increasing brain damage. Coupled with Steroid use can cause dementia, and Mental Illness. Too many Wrestlers have died in their Forties Benoit and his Buddy are just two more casualties.
Something must be done about the WWE and other Entertainment to take care of their people. Instead of exploiting them.