Edge in 2005, left in a far worse fashion. After winning a tournament to win back the Women’s Championship that Stratus retired, she lost the belt to Mickie James at Survivor Series. Rather than being able to leave with her head held high like Stratus, she was humiliated and booed out of the building. Such is the life of playing on live TV week in and week out.
2007 On the weekend of June 23-25 it was declared that Chris Benoit had murdered his wife, Nancy Benoit, and then later his seven-year-old son Daniel. He then took his own life via hanging. On June 24 he was scheduled to wrestle CM Punk for the vacant ECW Championship at the Vengeance: Night of Champions pay per view, but he no-showed the event due to “personal reasons.” Twenty-four hours later it was determined Benoit and his whole family were dead. That night’s Monday Night RAW was cancelled in favor of a three-hour Benoit retrospective. By the show’s end it was determined that it was a case of double murder-suicide.
As would be expected, World Wrestling Entertainment took a sound thrashing in the media. They quickly distanced themselves from Benoit, pretty much erasing him from history like he was never there. The company was on the defensive and spun their story as well as everyone else was spinning their own stories about the tragedy. They claimed Benoit was a “monster” that wasn’t in the right frame of mind. He was stressed about his family, and he became a different person. According to WWE, they had nothing to do with Benoit’s state of mind or well being. Under the newly intense scrutiny WWE became harsher with their Wellness Policy and ended up suspending ten men in late summer for various drug violations. Meanwhile the mainstream news and entertainment media created a proverbial storm out of the whole mess. The 24-hour news networks devoted their quiet June days to Benoit. Every aspect of the entire ordeal was dissected and redissected. The first hours and days were devoted to just the shock of the case, combined with the unraveling thoughts and news. Then talk shifted to every other thing they could think of. Chris’ son may or may not have had Fragile-X syndrome. Pro wrestling is a brutal industry that can lead to life-altering physical and mental injuries. There were the consequences of a child being killed by a father. Then the fall out of Chris being a role model and hero to millions of people who watched him on television or saw him live in person. There were revelations of Chris’ personal life with his friends, co-workers and his immediate family. He fought with wife constantly, and apparently never got over the untimely death of his best friend Eddie Guerrero. And of course, there was the talk about drugs and steroids. Every talking head had his/her own analysis on the situation. Everyone quickly formed opinions and it soon became a media circus. Pro wrestlers and former pro wrestlers came
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