The best outcome to a series of events...

This is my first attempt at blogging and it is not the typical initial effort. My decision to write a blog has come from a desire to share my thoughts and writing with whoever will read them. I have no real purpose other than to write some funny things, pose thoughts, or reflect on daily events. It is with a reflection on an event and the effect it initially has had on my life that I start my effort.

Today I learned that Chris Benoit, a professional wrestler, was found dead in his Fayetteville home. Along with Chris, his wife Nancy and his 7-yr old son Daniel were also found dead. Chris was supposed to have wrestled at a pay-per-view event on Sunday but had to cancel due to a “family emergency”. It is now apparent that the “family emergency” was the murder of his wife and child. The tragedy ended with Benoit’s suicide which was probably the best outcome of the series of events.

As many other boys and young men, I enjoyed and to a degree still enjoy, watching professional wrestling. As a kid I can remember waking up on Saturdays to watch Sgt. Slaughter and Hulk Hogan. This progressed into my teenage years and became more of a social event with my friends. I’ve always likened wrestling to “soap-operas for boys”, and it gave me and my friends that watched something to talk about. Through high school I went to several events and watched even more on television.

It was during these years that I first started watching Chris Benoit. I’ve always known wrestling was more of a dramatic event than that of a sporting one. This is not to take away from the acrobatics and athletic things that wrestlers do, but more to illustrate that there is a show side and a talent side to wrestling. I liked Chris Benoit because he didn’t really “do” the show side of wrestling. He didn’t do interviews, he didn’t take the mike in the ring and launch into a diatribe about his opponent, and his matches were never really over the top. With Benoit, there was some validity to the sport. When he came out it, was to wrestle not to blow smoke, the crowd cheered him for what he did, not how he acted. It is because of how he acted in the ring that this tragic event seems harder to take. Benoit seemed so straight edge, its surprising to think his personal life was not like his wrestling career; straight forward and to the point with no complicated story lines.

It has only been in recent years that I can honestly say that a famous person’s death has affected me. To children death just means someone is gone, your emotional ties really aren’t that strong unless the person was close to you. As a child when a celebrity passed away it was hard to understand why my parents wanted to watch the news report or comment on memories of the person. As an adult I now realize what my parents were feeling. It is not grief, at least in the way we grieve for a family member, but rather a grief for ourselves, the realization that the people that we idolize and put on a pedestal are really no different from us when it comes down to it. With Chris Benoit it is even more disturbing to think that he allegedly committed a heinous criminal act, an act that we believe can only be carried out by the lowest in our society. It is on this that this celebrity death may affect me even more in that I looked up to this person in a way, and now I feel let down to a point. It takes the idolization out of fame and heroes and is a truly sobering thought. I guess this is part of becoming an adult, realizing that our heroes are no different from everyone else, that they are subject to the same tragedies as the rest of society.

I apologize for the disorganization of this initial effort and I promise get better. I also promise that this somber posting will not be the typical post that I will put forth going forward. Please feel free to comment, criticize or whatever else.

husk