Original subtitles

♪

[Narrator] Previously, on Dark Side of the Ring.

If you're a wrestling fan, how could you not be

a fan of Chris Benoit's work?

[Announcer] With a headbutt directly to the heart!

This is my favourite page because this is the love

that Chris and Nancy always had.

Chris was always very much a great father,

very much about his family.

He was my hero, you know. I looked up to him.

I have never, ever seen a closer friendship

as I did between Chris and Eddie.

[match bell chimes]

Eddie Guerrero has passed away.

My next thought was, oh, my god, Chris.

I love you, Eddie.

He didn't handle it well. Let me just say it like that.

Nancy started getting really worried.

She's like, "I'm really worried for Chris."

I just had this really bad feeling.

We have more for you now on a developing story

in Fayette County.

The deaths of a pro wrestler and his family.

In the immediate wake of Chris Benoit's death,

the world is desperately searching for answers.

What comes to light goes beyond anything

anyone could imagine.

People just couldn't believe it, couldn't fathom that

something like that could happen.

It can't be real. Like, where's my nephew?

That can't have happened because the person that

I knew would not do this horrific thing.

But I think this is gonna be gigantic.

It will affect WWE.

Well, the question is, was he on steroids at this time?

Did the blows to the head Benoit received in the

wrestling ring fundamentally change his brain?

It really, really was the darkest time in my life.

♪

♪

Fayette County, Georgia is a laid back community.

It's more a family atmosphere.

Not a whole lot of crime. It's pretty peaceful.

My name is Larry Alden. I was...

with the Fayette County Sheriff's Office.

I was the lieutenant in charge of the shift that was

working the day of the Benoit incident.

I had been a detective for about 15 or 20 years.

I'd probably see Chris Benoit once or twice a week

at the gym, which was right in the middle of Fayetteville.

He didn't talk a lot, and he was pretty

focused on getting his workout in.

I never heard anything about him.

I didn't even know where he lived at until

the call came out on the radio that day.

[phone call] My name is Dennis Fagan.

I run the security for World Wrestling,

and one of our wrestlers that lives down there is missing.

[9-1-1] And what's his name? [Dennis] Chris Benoit.

[9-1-1] Okay. And he's a, a wrestler?

[Dennis] Yes, he's-- What happened--

He's a very religious gentleman and yesterday,

he was supposed to show up at a Pay Per View and

never got on the plane, never showed up.

It's unlike-- it's out of character for him.

[9-1-1] Alright. We'll go ahead and send somebody

out there to check on him.

If you want to call us back in like 45 minutes or so.

If he's there, we'll tell him to give you a call.

[Larry] I was in my patrol car,

just riding around the county and,

was pretty close to the area when the call went out.

I wasn't thinking of anything other than a welfare check,

or maybe he had-- was sick, maybe drunk.

Didn't really know what.

I pulled up on scene about time the neighbor was walking over,

and I walked up to them and I asked if

she had seen Mr. Benoit or anybody.

And she said, "It's been 3 or 4 days

since I've seen anybody over there."

There was two large canines in the yard.

If I remember correctly, they were German Shepherds.

We asked her if there was any place she could put the dogs at

so that we could go up there and do the welfare check.

And she said, "Oh, yeah.

Me and the dogs get along great.

I feed them whenever they're out of town."

And, she jumped the fence. The dogs right there with her.

She walked 'em in there, never had to take a hold to 'em.

It was taking a little longer than I thought it should take,

but then she came running out the door

screaming that, "Daniel's dead. Daniel's dead!"

I went from just being a regular welfare check -

Okay, we got something more serious here.

♪

We crossed the fence at that time,

myself, and Deputy Mundy.

And, we went in through the side door,

which she had left open.

We drew our weapons,

not knowing what we was gonna come upon.

It was daylight and they had plenty of windows in the house,

so you had a lot of light coming in.

There was an odor in the house.

And I looked over at Deputy Mundy and said,

"Something is dead in here.

There was a set of stairs going up to a bedroom so,

we went up those steps and sure enough,

that's where the juvenile child was at,

lying in bed.

I noticed the child was laying on the bed, face down.

Deputy Mundy said, "Do we need to start CPR?"

And I said, "No." He'd passed away.

We started clearing all the different rooms and doors.

We found another room and,

that's where we found Miss Benoit at.

She was laying on the floor and she was wrapped up

in a blanket or, maybe a rug or something like that.

Went downstairs to the basement area,

which was couple of large, open rooms.

And, the last door we opened was the gym door.

And, that s where Mr. Benoit was at.

Because of the mirrors and at the angle Deputy Mundy was at,

to my right, she saw the reflection at the

far end of the room, which might have been 5 to 7,

10 feet away from where he actually was.

And she started to say, "Show me your hands.

Fayette County Sheriff's Department."

She could not see he had cable from one of his weight

machines around his neck and had some weights on it.

That's when I told her, I said,

"He's sitting right here. He's passed away."

Radio had called us, asked if everything was okay.

And I told them on the radio that it looked like

it might be a homicide and suicide.

It was within 2 or 3 minutes of us walking back outside

that somebody had already strung crime scene tape

across the front of the property.

I was at the gym and I remember,

I was driving home. My son was with me.

And, I got a call from one of the writers from WWE,

who called me and said, "Are you sitting down?"

I'm like, "What's going on here, dude?"

And that's when he said, "Chris is dead."

I said, "What? Chris who?" And he says, "Chris Benoit."

And I pulled over on the side of the road and

I just started bawling.

And I remember my son, he said,

"Daddy, you cry funny."

I was just crying, just bawling.

At this time, no one knew what happened.

So, WWE is just thinking that Chris Benoit has passed away,

along with Nancy and Daniel.

You're not trying to put together that,

okay, did someone break in? Did carbon monoxide happen?

What's going on?

You just know that these two of your friends are gone.

And no one has answers.

Vince McMahon, the Chairman of the Board,

couldn't go on the air and not do anything so,

we go on the air and did what we thought was right.

Tonight, this arena here in Corpus Christi, Texas

was to have been filled to capacity...

with enthusiastic WWE fans.

We tried to honor the guy. We tried to honor his family...

Tried to honor his fans...

But, we didn't have a full, the full story.

Shame on us for that, I guess.

So, tonight will be a three-hour tribute...

to one of the greatest...

WWE superstars of all time.

We just know that Chris Benoit is no longer with us

and neither is his family.

Of course, I'm gonna pay tribute to my friend.

And I would trust you, with, with me,

with my life, with my kids' lives...

'cause I know, I know you, Chris.

I know your heart.

Yeah, they called me and asked me if I wanted to be on it,

and I was like, "Absolutely not."

I remember just sitting there, like,

just watching, like, dead...

with a bottle of vodka, just drinking, like,

you know, 'cause Eddie's was bad, but this was worse.

Chris Benoit was not only one of the greatest wrestlers

I ever saw, but he was one of the best friends

I ever had in this business.

We did not know all the information.

That's our fault.

We were trying to serve the audience.

It was a major story.

It was hitting all the news sources,

and we had a TV show.

We wanted to update people on what the hell was going on,

but we didn't have all the information.

But we didn't know we didn't have all the information.

We were told from the authorities,

"Here's what happened."

"Oh, guess what, we were wrong.

This is not what happened."

Chris was the type of guy you'd want to go to war with.

It was hard because at that time,

some guys were, you know, in their speeches,

you know, praising Chris.

Because Chris Benoit was my hero.

I love you, Chris.

[Chris] It's interesting to me because when I watched the

Raw Tribute, and everybody was talking about Benoit and

how great of a performer he was and,

and how amazing he was, but...

I thought Regal's words on that night were very revealing.

Now, all I'm willing to say...

is that Chris Benoit was undoubtedly the

hardest working man in professional wrestling.

And, when you talked to him afterwards,

you find out he lived in the same city as Chris,

and knew a lot about whatever fights Nancy and him had,

or whatever Chris was going through at the time.

And, I'm not sure if a lot of people would have noticed it,

but knowing what I knew about him,

I started thinking, "Wow, this is not good."

♪

My sister had told me to spoil myself and go to the mall,

and get some makeup, and have some wine with lunch,

and go watch a movie.

And I came out of the theater and I turned my phone on,

and I had like 22 missed calls from my parents.

And, my parents made sure, they wouldn't tell me anything.

They wanted me to be parked in my driveway and

inside my house before they told me,

that's how I found out.

And then, when it finally sunk in,

I just absolutely lost control of myself.

It was very difficult. Very difficult.

I had to go to the hospital and be sedated.

♪

I was in Edmonton, and then this number kept calling...

my mum's cellphone -

unknown number, unknown number.

And then, she finally answered it and

it was the police, RCMP.

[sighs]

So, we left, rolled down to the station...

[sighs]

She found out first.

I see her crying there.

She couldn't spit it out, so...

[sighs]

♪

The cop... told me...

that they all passed away over the weekend.

I punched him in the chest.

And then, me and the cop went for a walk.

We talked.

And that, you know...

"Your dad loved you.

They all loved you," and...

I thought it was a joke. I really did.

♪

[Dean] It wasn't until after the show,

and after the fact, that all the details started coming in.

We have more for you now on a developing story

in Fayette County: the deaths of a pro wrestler and his family.

Fayetteville authorities say the bodies of Chris Benoit

and his family were found this afternoon in their home.

Right now, it's being investigated as a

murder-suicide, however, it...

until we get the crime lab reports,

it's undetermined exactly what happened.

That's when all of this, you know,

all of these details started coming out about,

it's not just him that's dead.

It's Nancy and then Daniel's dead as well.

And then, that's when it just started getting out of control.

The father killed his wife and son,

and then committed suicide.

That's what's happened here.

You didn't want to believe it.

Can't believe it. Can't be true.

But it was.

♪

The evidence indicates that it was a particularly

brutal and vicious murder.

It was something that showed some sign of real rage.

I'm Matthew Randazzo V,

and I'm the author of Ring of Hell,

the story of Chris Benoit and the fall of the

pro wrestling industry.

The weekend of the murders, on Friday,

Chris Benoit had a barbecue out by the pool with Daniel.

And then, that Friday evening,

it appears that there was some sort of altercation

between Chris and Nancy...

That Chris restrained Nancy with duct tape,

and then utilized a telephone cord to strangle her...

And then placed a bible next to her body.

♪

There were a number of beer cans and wine bottles around

that indicate Chris may have been drinking.

Next morning, on Saturday, Chris - we assume -

gave his son, Daniel, Xanax,

and then murdered him in his room,

being suffocated by his father.

A bible was then placed next to Daniel as well.

After that, Chris made a phone call and

let friends know that Daniel and Nancy

were both suffering from a bad stomach virus,

and that he had to take them to the hospital.

That night, Chris went to bed with the bodies

of his wife and child in the house.

On Sunday, Benoit makes a couple searches

on the internet that are chilling in retrospect.

One, for a story in the bible about the prophet Elijah and

the resurrection of a dead boy in the old testament.

And then, a search about the quickest and

most painless way of breaking one's own neck.

Chris then went down to his home gym with

a half-drunken bottle of wine.

He went to his lat pull down machine.

He took the bar off.

He wrapped a towel around his neck,

and he took the metal cord from the lat pull down machine

and put it around his neck.

He adjusted the weights to 240 pounds.

And then he released it.

So, it's a very bizarre scenario.

It's a very bizarre weekend.

And it doesn't leave a lot of answers.

He was just a guy, you know, like, my friend.

Nobody expects their friend to kill their family.

Like, what?

When I found what had really happened,

the shock is just-- you can't even believe it.

He had put his knee in her back and,

essentially, broke her back.

I... couldn't fathom how cruel and

how much pain she must have gone through,

and how horrific that must have been for her.

It was just unfathomable.

If Chris did give Daniel that, you know,

medication or prescription pills and suffocate him,

you know, like... shame on him.

Daniel was innocent in all this.

[Julie] We were hearing other things come out about the

circumstances of him putting the bibles by their sides and,

having a knife that he had planted

underneath Daniel's bed or something like that.

[Dean] Still couldn't wrap my head around it.

It just sounded so...

like some bad horror movie.

And now, I'm a part of humanizing a murderer?

Strange.

[Vickie] I mean, to think that Nancy was

dead for 2 days before Chris took his life...

How is that even logical for this man who loved her so much?

[laughs]

Later, it turned out that there was a bible in the house,

similar to the ones left by Nancy and Daniel's body,

that Chris had left something akin to a suicide note.

Something along the lines of,

"I'm preparing to leave this earth."

So, Chris did leave a suicide note.

He did know what he was doing.

He was at least enough in his right mind to understand

exactly what was happening, and was still considering

whether he would go make a flight to go wrestle

that night on international television.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen...

We came up on air with Vince talking,

and kind of letting everybody know what happened.

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.

It was understood that we were not to speak of Chris,

speak of Benoit, speak of anyone of that incident.

And, by that next week, Chris' name was erased

from everything that was involved with WWE.

I mean, when we did interviews,

we were not to mention Chris Benoit.

So, that s something that was really hard for us to do,

but because we all wanted our jobs,

it was understood.

[Dean] I know WWE has kind of, like,

erased his history of being in the business and I can

understand and totally agree with what they did.

We're not gonna praise a guy who murdered his wife or son.

Don't give him any accolades for that.

I went to the funeral of Nancy and Daniel.

You can't even believe how sad it was.

I was the WWE representative there, just me.

It was the shits.

You go to a funeral, and people crying,

and a kid being buried and a woman being buried

for no reason. No reason to die.

[Sandra] The WWE sent JR,

and I lost my cool with him and told him to his face that

he wasn't welcome at the wake afterward.

It was all a work, just fake garbage, nonsense.

I can see a work coming a mile away,

and that's what I saw, and I knew that that was the truth.

I felt like I was the most unwanted person in

the building because I was a WWE guy,

and I probably loved him as much as anybody there.

[Vickie] Everybody was just a mess.

It's shitty, and it's sad, and it's unfair because

there's two people that could still be with us today.

And, if Chris wanted to take his life then,

then so be it. But, to take all of them...

I didn't go to Chris' funeral.

I was angry at that point.

I was pretty angry at Chris, you know, for what he did.

His funeral was very private.

We didn't tell anyone about it.

That's when it all hit me, right there, all at once.

I was crying my eyes out.

[off-screen] Who in the wrestling business provided care

for you and your family in the aftermath of this?

Is that a serious question?

Not a single person... No one.

[off-screen] Did anyone from the WWE ever

reach out to you and your family?

Chris Jericho and Chavo Guerrero.

That's it. Nobody else, you know.

Screw them.

They weren't there for me, you know...

they backed off like I didn't even exist.

♪

It was so hard after the funeral 'cause the media

was just nonstop, 24/7.

Tonight, we are talking about the strange and

very sad case of Chris Benoit.

I didn't even watch the news anymore.

I didn't even watch TV for months.

I couldn't even watch wrestling anymore.

We're also told by the police here that there were

instruments of death found, not instruments of murder.

There's gonna be an autopsy report,

but there's an awful lot of confusion about

how this happened.

It really, really was the darkest time in my life.

Benoit had an intense onstage persona.

He was nicknamed the Rabid Wolverine,

the Canadian Crippler.

The couple actually met when her former husband drew up

a script that had put the two of them in a relationship.

It made everything extremely difficult.

It made everything under a magnifying glass 'cause CNN,

and Fox, and all the news channels were at the gates,

you know, a double murder-suicide with a

7-year-old kid is news.

But, I think that there's a point where you really just

need to let the family grieve.

All I really wanted to do was to be with my niece and nephew.

The mainstream media's reaction was typical because,

A, they love a tragedy.

And, it gives them another reason to

take a shot at wrestling. It was a field day for them.

Professional wrestlers are 20 times more likely to die

before age 45 than professional football players.

I think a lot of the mainstream media looks down at wrestling

as it is, and then, suddenly, it was

public enemy number one.

Chris Benoit's diary is revealing new information

about his state of mind.

The wrestler wrote a series of letters to his best friend.

At one point, Benoit wrote, "I'll be with you soon."

Mike Benoit believes it's the diary of his son going mad.

We just didn't understand this was going on

at that time in Chris' life.

I got a call from Chris' dad, Mike Benoit,

'cause he knew my relationship with Chris.

And the first thing he asked me was, "Why?"

Which, from a father's standpoint,

I can understand how upset he was.

Unfortunately, and I felt bad,

I didn't have any answers for him.

People need to understand that,

that was not him.

Not the person we knew, the person I loved

with all my heart, my hero.

The term that's being thrown around everywhere is roid rage.

Some say steroid abuse is rampant at the organization

and everyone just turns a blind eye to this.

The media's initial response to the Benoit tragedy was

that this was a roid rage incident.

Where do steroids stand in the bizarre Benoit deaths?

Pro wrestling, when Chris Benoit entered it in the 1980s,

was extremely discriminatory against people

who were not 6-foot-plus tall,

who were not 250 pounds or more, and very, very muscular.

My understanding is that Chris Benoit was using steroids

from when he was in high school.

In the months before the murders,

Chris received a number of text messages from Nancy

in which she made it very clear she was sick and tired

of his steroid abuse.

Nancy definitely directly accused him of abusing steroids

to the point that it led him to be an angry,

and violent, and unhappy husband.

And, she said that the WWE's drug enforcement policy and

testing regime was obviously nonsense.

Something called the Wellness Program that

alleged that it was testing every WWE wrestler to

make sure they weren't using recreational drugs,

performance enhancing drugs - or steroids.

I think at that time, you know,

instituting a wellness program like that,

I think everybody was happy that finally some of these guys

that needed the help were gonna get help.

I thought it was a great idea. Anything to...

help talent, save guys from, from themselves.

[Chris] After Eddie died,

the WWE's drug testing was super strict.

It went through the roof. Like, you couldn't even take

a fricking Aspirin... like, a high powered Aspirin,

unless you had, like, a prescription.

And, I'm not kidding.

The drug testing is so strict that this,

"rampant steroid use," dude, you can't.

You can't go snort cocaine, or smoke weed, or... anything.

In practice, it was seen that this initial version of

the Wellness Program had large loop holes in it,

and large blind spots that allowed wrestlers to

continue to use drugs at a really large scale

without tripping the tests.

Speculation is running wild: Did steroids play a role or

is there another explanation?

We have an exclusive interview with

WWE Chairman Vince McMahon.

WWE did everything they could to combat any coverage

in the news media that indicated that drug abuse or

steroid abuse was the cause of the homicides.

And, obviously, this is not an act of rage.

It's an act of deliberation when you do something

like this over 3 days.

It's not an act of rage, be it steroid rage,

or roid rage, whatever it's called,

or any other rage.

WWE strongly suggests that it is entirely wrong,

for speculators to suggest that steroids had anything

to do with these senseless acts.

It's all speculation until the toxicology reports come back.

In his autopsy, Chris Benoit was shown to have

enormous amounts of testosterone in his body,

and testosterone is still a steroid that's banned

in all major sports.

So, some people might say he had 10 times

the normal amount of testosterone.

Some folks have said he had 57 times the amount of

testosterone in his body as a normal human.

[off-screen] And, did Benoit pass the Wellness Program

check leading up to the murders?

Yes, preposterously, Chris Benoit passed

the wellness checks leading up to the murder,

despite the irrefutable fact that he was taking

enormous amounts of steroids.

♪

Well, after it initially happened,

I actually had nightmares.

It was very traumatic because,

as a female, I tend to really get angry with him,

the one person she thought was there to protect her

is the one that really took her life.

[Chris] There was a lot of stuff going on behind closed doors

that no one knew about.

I think there was a lot of volatile fights.

One thing I'd always heard about Nancy and

the fact that she didn't take shit.

So, I just know there was a lot of volatility there.

That s the word I think was used, volatile.

There was a few times that Nancy would call me and

she would say that her and Chris were fighting.

There was an incident when they were in Tampa,

and Chris was upset when they were driving

on the way to our house, and Chris went and

busted the windshield of their car.

[off-screen] Did you ever witness any abuse

that was going on in that relationship?

My sister called me to the house,

and she called Mike Durham, known as Johnny Grunge,

who was also a professional wrestler that lived in the area.

[Mike] Hey, cool.

[Sandra] And, Mike said, "I'll go. I'll go wrangle Chris.

I'll go wrangle Chris. Don't do anything rash."

But, it was already kind of done: he hurt her.

I don't know whether it was intentional or accidental,

but he hurt her.

Out of respect for the kids that he still has here,

I won't go further into that.

♪

She got a restraining order against him and

I went down there and stayed at the house.

Mike had him at a hotel there in, in the area.

Chris contacted me directly because Nancy wasn't

answering any of his calls and,

asked me to talk to my sister on his behalf.

And please, please, please let him come to the house

and talk to her personally.

She called him and he came over the next day,

and they were back together a couple of days later.

[sighs]

Do I look back on that moment and say,

you probably shouldn't have gotten involved and,

why did I take his call 'cause maybe that

would have been the end of it?

Almost every day I think about that.

♪

When police found steroids on the scene,

many assumed that explained it:

the killer had flipped out because of drug use.

Or, might there be another explanation?

The initial media coverage all focused on steroid use

and I said, there s no way.

I'm Chris Nowinski.

I'm a former WWE superstar, and now, I am a neuroscientist

and run the Concussion Legacy Foundation.

My wrestling career came to an end because

I had a series of concussions that

I didn't quite appreciate were concussions.

[Announcer] Oh!

[indistinct shouting]

[Nowinski] I never stopped performing until

the damage was sort of too much.

So, I decided I would start digging into

what else was known, and it became a book.

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE,

is a progressive, degenerative brain disease

that appears to be started by hits to the head.

[Announcer] Oh!

Oh, my god! Oh, man!

Anything goes. My god.

What I knew about CTE at that time,

was that there were 4 cases of NFL players.

Two had died by suicide, and one had started

hearing voices and led the police on a chase through

upstate New York and died in fiery crash

going on the wrong side of the highway.

When I heard about what happened with Chris Benoit,

I immediately remembered a conversation I'd had with him,

maybe 6 months prior.

I remember that he had sat next to me in the locker room

and, he said,

"I heard you're writing a book about concussions."

I was like, "Yeah." And he goes,

"I'm interested in what you re learning."

He's like, "How many concussions have you had,

you know, before you had to retire?"

And I said, "Well, I can remember at least 6,

but I probably had more."

And I said, "How many have you had?"

And he said, "I've had more than I can count."

And then he said, "I'm gonna give you my phone number and

I want you to call me next week."

The next week, I called him.

It sounded like he was in the middle of an argument.

He was clearly agitated.

It sounded like someone else was there.

And he just said, "Hey, I can't talk right now.

Can I call you back?" And I said, "Sure."

I wonder if the reason he was asking me to call him

was that he knew that something was going on,

but he didn't quite appreciate what that was.

And so, I decided that I really needed to know

if Chris had CTE.

There was so much media attention,

I really couldn't imagine his family answering the phone,

but I said, I'll, I'll give it a try.

And, Chris' father answered on the second ring.

He was in a state of mind, you can imagine,

when you've just lost your son and learned what happened.

I told him my theory. And, he, he immediately said,

"Yeah, I want to see this done."

We have the brain in early July and,

I think within about a month we knew that it was positive

for CTE, and it was a pretty severe case of CTE.

So, we held a press conference in New York.

When you look at Christopher Benoit's brain,

it is in fact, shocking.

Our findings showed extensive areas of

Tau protein deposition throughout his brain.

Tau protein is a marker for brain damage.

With Chris, he actually had a,

what would be defined as a severe case of CTE at

40 years old, which is early to have it.

So, it wouldn't just be areas of his cortex or areas

of his brain stem, but there was damage in areas that

you would think could influence emotional behaviors.

And I believe the degeneration of his brain

changed who he was and what he was capable of.

If you get hit in the head thousands of times,

your brain, essentially, can start to rot.

You get this damage in your brain that,

even after you stop getting hit in the head,

will continue to spread and changes who you are and

how you behave, and...

what you become.

♪

I think about, you know, when me and Chris would be

talking and he would just be crying so much that,

you know, I wonder why he couldn't control his crying.

Does that, does that go with the concussions?

Does that go with his brain?

You know, Eddie and Chris took a lot of chair shots.

[Announcer] Oh!

And these chair shots from, like, years ago,

were hard and they were mean.

[Audience] Oh!

In the 90s, we used to take chair shots to the head.

That was a badge of honor.

And what I mean by that is, someone would swing

a steel chair at your head...

[Announcer] Oh! Chris' Jericho's helpless!

[Chris] And I literally remember, you would

grit your teeth and you, you'd...

you know, tense yourself and tense your neck...

And just take it.

They hit you on the head with it,

and you just take it, "Ah!"

[Audience] Oh!

That was what you did. That was expected.

If you had a concussion in wrestling...

you just shake it off.

Shake it off, go in there and do it.

And, all of us did it.

[Chavo] I wrestled for 20 plus years...

It makes me wonder... how much CTE do I have?

How much CTE do these other wrestlers have 'cause

we all got it, to some extent, you know.

Is this gonna be my end?

It's one of the most incredible things to me is you have

Harley Race invents the Flying Headbutt and

tells everyone after, "Don't do this move.

It fucks your spine up horribly.

It ruins your ability to have an old age."

Dynamite Kid hears that from Harley Race,

does it his whole career, ends up in a wheelchair.

Dynamite Kid tells Chris Benoit.

Chris Benoit does it his whole career and then loses his mind.

[Audience] Oh!

I mean, there is a clear history of people repeating

the most self-destructive story imaginable,

over and over again.

I think the Benoit tragedy led to some institutional changes.

The awareness of what CTE is,

was never before even a conversation point.

Now it is.

And finally, unprotected chair shots and subsequent

concussions are now being addressed because the

one thing we've gotta do is protect the athlete.

I think when you look at what Chris Benoit did as

a symptom as some sort of medical problem,

whether it's drug use or brain damage,

I think that misses the point.

Ultimately, this thing that is the core reason this

happened was Chris Benoit made a decision when he was

a very young person to do absolutely whatever it took

to succeed at his childhood dream of

becoming a pro wrestling star.

No matter what happened that weekend,

Chris Benoit's story was going to have a tragic end.

I think his fate was sealed the day that Eddie died,

whether he knew it or not.

I don't think anybody could save him after that:

not his kids, not his family, not his other friends.

I just think that was the one guy that he said,

"I can't do it if Eddie's not with me."

♪

Whatever it was that he was going through,

you know, I think he just continued to shrink his

whole world until all that was left was just whatever

was in his head that caused him to snap,

and he fucking snapped.

It's not one thing.

I think that it's a factor of alcohol,

and drugs, and yes, possibly CTE,

and stress, and grief.

And all of those things rolled together put him on

a path that weekend that he couldn't get off.

Chris is always gonna be my friend and my brother.

I just know that there was something going on

with him that wasn't him.

And, it's something that, you know,

I'm still very much torn with because you love Chris...

you just hate what he did.

The act of what he did is unthinkable.

Unforgivable.

But it's still hard for me to separate a friendship

that I had with him, matches that I had with him -

moments, times, car rides.

I think I can always look at Chris as one of the

best performers our business has ever seen,

and just kind of leave it at that.

♪

[Jim] I get questioned all the time,

"Does Chris Benoit deserve to be in the Hall of Fame,"

and I say, absolutely not. No.

The issue is, is that if Chris were here and we could

talk to him, he would say, "Putting me in the Hall of Fame

is gonna be one of the great distractions of the

entire event 'cause all it's gonna do is bring up Nancy,

and Daniel, and Chris and their last 24 hours."

So, therefore, I say, Chris Benoit does not belong

in the WWE Hall of Fame, now or ever.

If two guys that were the same basically their whole life,

and had the same reputation of just being

immaculate professionals, immaculate human beings,

the nicest guys, and they both die very young,

and one's legacy is acclaimed,

and one's is buried so that you almost can't say his name.

If you would have told Chris, you know,

when you die, your name and your body of work

is gonna be erased from existence forever,

it would have broke his heart because I think,

if nothing else, I remember he told me once,

like, "Listen, the critics are the critics,

but if you have the respect of your peers,

then nothing else matters."

So, to find out that he would have lost the respect,

not only of his peers, but his friends,

his family, I don't think he ever wanted that.

It almost took down the whole business.

What Chris did almost-- And that's another thing:

What Chris did almost destroyed the only thing that

he ever loved, from a professional standpoint.

The only thing he ever loved,

pro wrestling, Chris Benoit almost destroyed it.

That would have torn him apart as well.

So, it leads us around to, like,

why did he do it?

And I don't think anyone's ever gonna be able to...

answer that question.

You know, people look at me different now...

because of what he did.

People talking shit behind my back.

Looking at me different. Getting bullied.

Screw it. I'm defending my family...

And what I believe in, you know.

He loved them. That definitely was not him.

He's still my hero.

I think about him all the time.

I want them to recognize Nancy though.

She definitely deserves

the recognition that she doesn't get.

That's the unfortunate and the sad part about the story

is that she needs to be remembered for a strong woman,

pioneering in this business, and her talent.

And, focus on that instead of what happened to her.

She's a Hall of Fame'r all across the board,

in my opinion.

She was a pioneer and one of the best at

a role that doesn't exist anymore.

As a pro wrestling manager, she created the role,

she perfected the role, and then,

when stopped doing it, the role basically disappeared.

I would like nothing better than to see Nancy...

You know, Nancy Benoit.

Once again, you can't even say that name, right.

Woman.

I would like nothing better than to see Woman

be put into the WWE Hall of Fame.

♪

She was a great mom. She was a beautiful friend.

And, Nancy will always be the superstar that

she was meant to be, in my, in my mind.

Can I blow a kiss?

[indistinct chatter]

[off-screen] What do you remember the most about Nancy?

I remember everything about her.

I remember how her hair smells.

She used to tuck me in with both hands,

real hard, like, on both sides of the blanket,

to tuck me in.

Almost like she was putting a lock on me to keep me safe.

And to this day, when I get sad, or upset,

or stressed out, I will tuck myself in on the sides

so that I feel more secure.

[off-screen] What do you remember the most about Daniel?

[sighs] Everything.

I close my eyes and I can see him doing everything.

He was our whole lives, all of us.

He was very, very, very, very loved...

By our family, by his siblings.

He and his brother were just thick as thieves.

[off-screen] Did you go on to have any relationship with

the Benoit family afterward?

I tried... Unsuccessfully.

♪

I was told - I won't say by who -

that the children didn't want anything to do with us.

And, apparently the children were told that

we didn't want to have anything to do with them

'cause of what their dad did...

Which was absolutely not the truth.

[David] My last trip with my family

was for WrestleMania XXIII, in Detroit.

And then after the match, we flew back to Atlanta.

Me, Nancy... and Daniel.

My dad went to Mexico for a tour.

And then, me, Nancy, and Daniel were just

hanging around the house, taking pictures,

you know, out by the trees with the dogs.

And then... You know...

You're doing it, brother. Keep going.

It's all good. Just let it out.

That's what this is all about, brother.

♪

[sniffles]

David is absolutely a victim.

He's a great kid that was just dealt a bad hand.

And it's just not fair. It's not right.

He didn't do anything wrong. He was just--

He's an innocent bystander in all of this.

[sighs] Fuck.

[sighs]

[sighs]

[Chris] I felt that because Chris killed his family,

that the family he left behind was automatically

black balled from the world.

Like, they're gonna be blamed for what Chris did.

To me, those two needed to be reconnected because,

talking with David, and meeting Sandra and

knowing she was having the same issues,

and pain, and hurt that David had,

and nobody will ever really understand what they

went through with the exception of each other.

So, I thought if I, if I could connect them,

if they had a chance to talk,

that maybe they could move on and still realize that

they have family in each other.

Chris Jericho, wrestling angel come to life,

he gave my number to my nephew,

and gave my nephew's number to me.

We hadn't talked since before everything happened.

[David] So, 13 years the last time we saw each other.

It's been a very long.

She finally called me. I answered.

We talked on the phone for...

probably a good 2 hours.

And now, going to watch wrestling...

'cause I still love it. It's in my blood.

Feels like we never were apart.

Felt like we just reconnected.

Left off where we started. Nothing has changed.

She's still my Auntie Sza-Sza.

[Chris] Chris lives on in David every day.

And Nancy lives on in Sandra every day.

And I think they were both lost when Chris and Nancy died.

So, hopefully, this will help them get found.

- You feel better. - Light.

A weight's been lifted.

Well, 'cause you guys have the same perspective, you know.

I think more than anyone else.

It's important for you guys to stick together on this, right.

'Cause you know, yeah, like we can be friends and supportive,

but it's not the same as for you guys.

No, it's not the same. It's family.

Yeah, exactly.

I've never been-- [clears throat]

I've never been more grateful and happy

to see someone that I love as I was when I saw my nephew.

[off-screen] Do you think you will ever be able to,

or want to give forgiveness towards Chris?

Yes, I think I do, some day, want to be able to forgive him.

I do. Because, carrying around...

the burden of hate... gets exhausting.

Everyone deserves forgiveness.

And, everyone deserves mercy.

So, I think that within time,

there'll be a day when I get on my knees and

I finally say it, that I forgive him.

You never know, it might be tomorrow.

But, I do know it's not today.

♪