Nancy and Chris Benoit - Part 1

0:00 Hi, I'm Tina, and I'm rich. And if there's one thing we've learned in over twenty years of marriage. It's that some days you'll feel like killing your. Wife, and some days you'll feel like killing your husband. Welcome to love, Mary Kill. Hello, darling husband. How are you today? I'm doing great. You. I've been very enthusiastic. I was just going to say Happy Friday, and then I realized, wait a minute, it's Thursday, not quite Thursday, January ninth. Before we get started, I just wanted to tell our friends in California that our hearts are with few, our hearts are broken. The images that we're seeing are just devastating.

0:48 That's so horrific. If you've been displaced or affected by the fires, we're thinking of you and we're hoping for the best. I know. It's just such a horrible time. Yeah, it really is. People message us a lot if they're going through our heart time, telling us that our podcast gives them a little bit. Of joy or or at least a distraction. A distraction, and so if we can provide that for you today, that would make us very happy. Yeah, this doesn't compare at all to what California is going through. But it was I think twelve years ago that we went through a tornado in our community and it was it was really hard and that you know, only maybe a thousand homes were affected or whatever. But yeah, it's still it's devastating. It's devastating to lose your home and your belonging whole, your.

1:30 Whole world is just turned upside down. Yeah, So we're thinking about you and sending you love and strength. Today we're going to talk about wrestling. Oh boy, are you a big wrestling fan? You know, when I was a little kid, I was pretty into wrestling without it like our This was before all of the big you know, before wrestling was really big. Yeah, and it was all local and I was I was kind of into like our local stuff when I was probably ten years old. But then, did you have a favorite? I really liked Dick the bruiser and the chic. He was like the wasn't he like a super bad guy? He was a heel rich he was. A heel terrible, terrible person. But you're going to break it down a little bit.

2:11 We're gonna go pretty pretty deep. And that's good because I've been out of touch with the Wrestling World for many years now. My siblings and I we also watched wrestling I think on Saturday mornings and old Cogan he was even he was around back then a little bit. Yeah. My only brush with wrestling recently is I watched the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling TV show, which was really good. Pat, Yeah, you talk about it all I think you talked about it like two weeks ago. I think you did. Yeah, I can't get enough of those gorgeous ladies. I think it was a really good show. All right, Well, before we get started, I'm going to give you a snack, but I also wanted to give a content warning. Today's episode contains domestic violence, discussions of drug and steroid abuse, suicide, and the death of a child.

2:55 Please listen with care. It is kind of a tough episode. Earlier this week, we got a comment on Spotify. One of our international listeners called us out for our unhealthy snacks. He's probably a salad, didn't you? And I thought it was funny. I really I just thought like, and I really do think her intent was like, what's up with the unhealthy snacks? Guys? Is that an American thing? And I posted it on our Instagram stories and you guys, you're so kind and you love us so much. We don't deserve you. But so many people were like mad about that, and so many people said, well, you know what you need to do is you need to bring rich a healthy snack.

3:35 So here's your raw broccoli, some. Raw Brocxliane the orange. I'll take the orange. I know I should have. I was supposed to cook it and put like cheese sauce on it, but waste it. So yeah, all right, well I will have the orange. Well, I just want to say that we do eat vegetables once in a while. And recording day we only record once a week, so we and we had like to have fun. We're in here for several hours often and we do kind of indulge on recording day. Yeah, for sure, it's good to have a good, good snack when we record. Yeah, but we eat broccoli once in a while. Of course I did bring you some cookies though, of course I did, and you know because actually I made them yesterday, and in a moment of weakness, I said, hey, if you pretend on the podcast that you didn't eat these cookies, I'll let you have fun.

4:25 I didn't eat those cookies? What are you talking about? And you're like, Okay, I have no idea what you mean. I made just because I have been feeling great. I really just wanted a homemade cookie for myself. So I made Levon Bakery double chocolate chip cookies and I we will post the recipe in our show notes, and I added like half a bag of caramel bits that aren't in the recipe. Oh, nice touch. You want to try one? Of course I did. So what did you think of the cookie? I love the cookie. I think they're amazing, and I like the caramel bits. Touch. It's a nice touch. Well, we went to Levon Bakery when we were in Boston last time and whatever. I can't remember what cookie I had, but it had caramel bits in it, and I thought that it was a nice touch.

5:15 Yeah, it's a nice touch. And the orange was good too. I love those oranges. It's one of these days I wouldn't have to send everyone like a picture of our pantry of all of the baking chips we have. We have hundreds of bags of chocolate chips, so which is kind of nice because if I'm ever like, oh, I'll just throw in some heath bar or some we always have it on hand. Yeah, you're a good improviser. So what would you rate the cookie? Ten out of ten? Easy? I'm not sure. If you're the most discerning judge. You've just been making things that are really good. I would give them eight out of ten. Actually, there's some other copycat recipes Lavon Bakery, copycat recipes that I think I liked better. But the recipe calls for cake flour.

6:00 I didn't have any cake flower, but you can make your own. You just take out like a tablespoon. Do you look really bored? No? Fascinated? I know. Sometimes I started talking about baking and I'm like, I think I'm boring everyone. Anyway, if you ever need to make cake flower, you can just take out a tablespoon or to a flower. Then you put in corn starch and it's just a lighter flower. Good to know. Chris Benois, known as the Canadian Crippler or the Rabid Wolverine, was a WWE star in the twenty second year of a storied career. He was known to be a wrestlers wrestler, one of the most technically proficient athletes among the core of actors and performers. Chris Jericho once said Chris Benoit was quote the most intense and believable performer I've ever been in the ring with. He could see things that were going to happen before they happened. Chris Benoit won many heavyweight and tag team championships, and he'd made a lot of money doing it. He was doing exactly what he'd wanted to do for his entire life since he was three years old. Friends and colleagues all knew him to be a respectful, reserved, and polite family man. So it came as quite as shock to everybody when he and his family were found dead under suspicious circumstances in their sprawling Fayetteville, Georgia home. This is the story of a woman, her child, and to some extent, a man, who were failed by the very institution that should have protected them. The question on everyone's mind could the tragedy have been prevented? On Monday, June twenty fifth, two thousand and seven, Holly Shrupford, the next door neighbor of Chris

7:32 and Nancy Benois, opened her door to two Fayette County Police officers, Deputy Donna Munday and Lieutenant Larry Alden. They quickly explained why they were there. A concerned party had called them to request a welfare check on the Benois family. Nobody had seen them in days, and Chris, a famous w w E wrestler, had missed several shows he'd been scheduled to appear in, which was most unlike him. Now that Holly thought about it, her recent interactions with the family had been under a usual She had received three calls from the Benois in rapid succession at nine thirty pm on Friday, June twenty second, but she didn't answer the phone because of the late hour. On Saturday morning, Chris called again to say that Nancy and their son Daniel were both suffering from terrible food poisoning. Chris was calling to let Holly know that Daniel wouldn't be able to attend the horse riding camp that she owned and operated that morning. The police had run into a problem during their wellness check. Their path under the Benoi home, a beautiful new custom built home with a formidable security system and multiple surveillance cameras, was blocked by a locked, tall iron gate with two foreboding German shepherds. They needed to know if Holly knew the gatecode, or if she was familiar with the dogs, they were in luck. While Holly didn't know the gatecode, the fence was easily scalable and the dogs were more friendly. In Holly's presence. She watched the dogs Carnee in high Spot, both named after wrestling inside jokes. Whenever Chris and Nancy were away, Holly, at the request of the police, called Nancy's cell phone.

9:01 When the call went unanswered, Holly started to worry. She climbed over the fence and lured the dogs into the Benois mud room, where she locked them into their respective kennels. The police remained outside waiting for the all clear. Holly poked around the home, shouting Nancy Daniel. She heard nothing. The house was completely still, completely silent. An unpleasant odor hung heavily through the house. Holly walked up the stairs to seven year old Daniel's bedroom. The room was practically a shrine to Daniel's father, covered with posters of Crisp and Nois w w E branded action figures and plastic replica championship belts. Daniel was laying face down in his bed, wearing pajamas. Next to him laid an illustrated children's Bible, my first bible. It was clear from the color of his face, the unnatural angle of his body, and the dried foam coating his lips that little Daniel was dead.

9:50 Holly rushed out of the room, shocked and terrified. She scampered down the stairs and searched for Nancy. Afraid of what she might find. Holly burst into the home office, hoping to find her friend at her desk as usual, watching her favorite shows on her computer. But forty three year old Nancy was lying on the floor, her body wrapped in a towel. Her hands, feet, and neck were bound with electrical cables and duct tape. Her face was bruised black, the stench of death apparent, as deccomposition was already well underway. A bible lay next to Nancy as well. Holly was devastated. Two people she knew well and cared about, one, a little boy of just seven, were both dead. She stumbled towards the door. She knew she should look in the basement. She knew there was one more member of the Benoi family unaccounted for, but she'd seen enough. She knew there were only terrible things to discover down there.

10:37 Holly opened the front door, grateful for the fresh air and sunlight. She screamed to the police and hysterics. Daniel and Nancy have been murdered. They've killed the family. I can't imagine how horrible that would be to discover that. Yeah, very sad. It's important we first talk about the role that the WWE played in the downfall of Chris Benoir and the tragedy that befell his family. That's first examine the controversial world of professional wrestling and the WWE is a workplace, business, and cultural phenomenon. WWE or World Wrestling Entertainment used to be called WWF or World Wrestling Federation before they were sued by the World Wildlife Fund in the year two thousand. To simplify things, we will only refer to the organization as WWE. There's nothing else quite like the world of professional wrestling and amalgamation of theater, improv sport, carnival acrobatics, and Mortal Kombat style fighting games, all wearing the skin of a macho eighties action movie, Rippling pecks, scantily clad women, men breaking out in melodramatic fits of madness, and screaming at the sky, spandex leather, retrograde racial stereotyping, long feathery flowing hair. Although the world of pro wrestling is often regarded as a quirky and niche form of entertainment, wrestling delights audiences from all walks of life, from every socioeconomic status and education level. With its unique blend of athleticism and theatrics. Professional wrestling has also birthed many enduring icons of American pop culture and

12:10 even politics. Andre the Giant Hulkogan originally called Stirling Golden, did Not Know That, Dewayne the Rock, Johnson Rowdy, Roddy Piper, John Cena, David Battista, and Jesse Ventura, the thirty eighth Governor of Minnesota. What we know is the WWE was originally known as Capital Wrestling Corporation or CWC. The CWC, owned and operated by Vincent J. McMahon, staged its first show in January nineteen fifty three. It has since undergone several evolutions, changed names and ownership, and has effectively monopolized the world of theatrical wrestling and now controls over roughly ninety five percent of all professional wrestling in North America.

12:54 Prior to this monopolization, wrestling operated under the territory system. There were many much smaller regional wrestling organizations with their own enthusiastic fan bases. I think you were saying, yeah, like. Detroit Area Detroit Areas Wrestlers. Yeah. Yeah. I had no idea that this organization was around since nineteen fifty three, though, that's wild well. Vincent J. McMahon's son, Vincent Kennedy McMahon, was born in August nineteen forty five. He grew up dirt poor in a trailer park with his mother and a string of abusive stepfathers. He has implied that he was sexually abused by his mother. Vince met his father for the first time when he was twelve. After getting in trouble for stealing cars, Vince was sent to military school in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Soon after, he began working for his father.

13:39 He started as an announcer. In nineteen sixty six, Vince, twenty one, married Linda, who was only seventeen at the time. They've been married ever since. They have two children, Shane and Stephanie. Vince strived for one thing to make his father proud, but Vince Senior was cold and withheld praise from his fledgling son, which made him work even harder. In nineteen eighty two, Vince McMahon bought the business from his father. He began to systematically demolish the territory system and encroach on other territories by stealing their talent. Almost sounds like a drug turf war type of. Thing, yeah, kind of. Soon, the WWE dominated the world of wrestling, in large part due to the rise of hul Cogan. You can't talk about the WWE without Hule Cogan, and he played a huge part in the rise of the WWE in its success, Vince talked about the one time his father told him he loved him and he was proud of him, and how it was a great day.

14:33 There is a point and my dad told me he was proud of me. He saitting on with Vinnie. All these friends of mine, they're not really friends of mine. All these promoters have worked with all these years in their territories. You know what, Fuck them, You're beating all of them. I'm proud of you for what you've done. Fuck them all. And I thought, Wow, the first time my dad ever said anything like dead that he was on my side. Of course, he waited until I was a success, and maybe he felt that way all along, but he never told me. That was one of the biggest moments of my life. Until you always in a moment of silence for mister Vincent.

15:20 Say. The day before he died, it was the oldly time that he told me that he loved me. But he told me before he died, because that felt so good. Well, Vince's voice is a little raspy, isn't it just bananas? Though, Yeah, it is bananas. I chose that clue because it seems to summarize Vince so well in a nutshell, like he's not a good guy, but his whole life he just needed the love of his father and he didn't get it until his dad was essentially out of stuff. Like there's like so many like famous, well known people whose lives are defined by something like that, you know, just something that happened in their past.

16:02 That we're way too loving to our children for them to be billionaires. That's the takeaway. Well, I think billionaires tend to have I guess they shouldn't stereotype all billionaires, but you know what I mean, Like. Yeah, yeah, there's something to that. I think. In the late nineteen eighties, Ted Turner gave the WWE a run for its money with his own wrestling promotion WCW or World Championship Wrestling. Turner, along with promoter Eric Bischoff, offered better pay and flexible schedules. Many big name wrestlers fled to Turner's network, including Hull Cogan. Vince McMahon was furious he had created Hulk Hogan for eighty three weeks. The WCW topped the WWE in the ratings by creating more live events, better storylines, and cooler wrestlers in an attempt to win back viewers. Vince became the ultimate heel character.

16:50 In wrestling, you have heels and you have baby faces or faces, So like Hull Cogan is, he's a face, and like Vince was a heel, so kind of like a good guy versus a bad guy. Okay, I've never heard that terminology before. Yeah, it's pretty It's very common in wrestling, and you can't be well. Sometimes characters turn like hul Kogan has turned, I think, and. They have a character arc, just like you might in a TV series or a movie or something like that. Yeah, Vince became the ultimate heel character. Mister McMahon a caricature of himself, and some people would argue that he just played himself. Audiences couldn't get enough of this over the top character that they loved to bo. McMahon's kids, Shane and Stephanie, even became part of the act. Vince allowed a crowd to chant slut at Stephanie for a storyline.

17:41 I don't like that he fought his son Shane in the ring. Even camera shy Linda played along. Linda once appeared to be in a drug state while Trish, Vince's girlfriend, quote unquote, pushed her out to the ring in a wheelchair as they kissed in front of her. In short, Vince did whatever it took to put on a good show. He even sacrificed his most intimate relationships and dignity. He allowed Donald Trump to shave his head in the ring after he lost to him. I don't think they had a real match. I think that Donald Trump just pushed it. Out, gotcha. The most important thing to Vince is the WWE's bottom line and his legacy. His entire life has revolved around the world of wrestling, and he expected the same commitment from his performers. In two thousand and one, Time Warner merged with AOL. Turner's networks were no longer interested in wrestling. The WCW was losing money and could no longer keep up with the WWE. Time Warner purchased the WCW for a mere two and a half million dollars.

18:38 Vince McMahon finally beat ted Turner. Linda McMahon held a behind the scenes business role. She served as president and CEO of the WWE from nineteen eighty to two thousand and nine. She left to pursue a Senate seat in Connecticut in two thousand and nine after she lost. She ran again in twenty twelve and lost again. She served as head of the Small Business Administration under Donald WI. Trump's first term in office, and is set to serve as Secretary of Education in his second term. Vince served as the public face of the company for the past fifty years until recently. In twenty twenty two, he stepped back from his role as CEO, but remained on the board of directors after it was found that he had paid a former employee three million dollars in hush money after engaging in an affair. Vince seventy seven resigned completely in twenty twenty four from the WWE after additional allegations of sexual misconduct, assault, and trafficking. Further investigations found that he had paid four women twelve million dollars over a sixteen year period. The most serious allegation was from a former female wrestler, who he paid seven point five million dollars.

19:42 She accused Vince of firing her after she refused to perform oral sex. Stephanie McMahon took over as CEO until WWE was sold to the Endeavor Group in twenty twenty four. I think at this point the McMahons are not affiliated with WWE at all. Ok Vince Linda are still together despite all these allegations against him. Oh yeah, They're one of those couples that will be together forever. Yeah. I don't think Vince is doing well health wise. Okay, how old is he? Seventy seven or seventy eight. He's kind of lived the life of a wrestler, and as you'll come to see wrestlers struggle with their health. In what way do you mean he's lived the life of a wrestler. I mean, I don't want to give too much away, but he's taken a lot of steroids and he has wrestled a fair amount too.

20:27 Oh interesting, Yeah, did not realize that Vince revolutionized the world of wrestling. He is the WWE, and the WWE is him. To adequately summarize his tenure at the WWE, there would need to be several hundred podcast episodes devoted to him. There were allegations that he was an abusive boss, that he encouraged his wrestlers to use steroids, and then he kept doctors around to prescribe steroids at will. McMahon was even indicted on steroid related charges in nineteen ninety three, though never officially convicted. He has leveraged his money and influence to get his wrestle out of criminal charges. Jimmy Superfly Snooka killed his girlfriend, for example, and got off scott free for decades due to the interference of McMahon.

21:09 He has been accused of human trafficking and sexual abuse. He is large, both figuratively and literally. He's a fanatic Jim Rat and on record as having himself used steroids. While Vince McMahon may not be a good guy. It's hard to deny the empire that he built. His success came at a steep cost, paid by hundreds of men who sacrificed their health and safety, all for the fleeting chance to win a championship belt that hinged on Vince's whims. Despite Vince's explosive personality, many wrestlers say they love him like a father and would take a bullet for him. As far as pro wrestling itself goes, the first question everybody always asks is well, it's fake, right, to which the answer is mostly it is all performance. The flow and outcome of the fight is known before anybody gets in the ring, though the wrestlers may improvise a little bit.

21:57 These guys are often friends off stage, the same way the cast of a Broadway show may pretend to hate each other during their performance, but then grab drinks with each other afterwards. There's a special word for this constructed fantasy, k fabe. K Fabe is defined as the fiction perpetrated by a con artist, and everyone involved in the con protects this fiction. It was a term that was first used among carnival people. K Fabe is a term used in professional wrestling to refer to the portrayal of staged events, rivalries, and personas as if they are real. It represents the commitment to maintaining the illusion that everything in the wrestling storyline is genuine, both in and out of the ring. Basically, it means everyone stays in character. The og wrestlers never let their masks slip, but in recent years k Fabe has softened a bit, much to the annoyance of the Old Guard. But while their personas may be fiction, the screams of pain exaggerated and the crazy acrobatic throws require the participation of both wrestlers. These wrestlers are still destroying their bodies in these shows. They hit each other, jump on each other, bang their heads, and take metal chairs to the face. They're actually composed of a lighter metal to soften the blow, but it all still hurts and causes long term damage. The wrestlers work together to put on a show in the ring. They use each other's energy to propel their bodies into the moves. To sell a punch to the audience, a wrestler flings their body aggressively across the ring, landing face first. They may hide a razor in a boot or under a cuff and covertly slice their forehead with it in order to draw blood.

23:28 So often it's not each other these wrestlers end up wounding, but rather themselves. So when the wrestlers are doing this moves, they're more likely to hurt themselves than their opponents. Yeah, yeah, I totally get it, and I've watched enough videos of wrestling that you can tell. I mean, it is a very physically demanding and punishing activity. Whether it's fake or not, they are definitely potentially hurting each other well. And the razorblade thing, I don't know if I knew that, but they cut themselves and that made me realize why hul Cogan always wears a bandana over his forehead because he has so many, you know, scars from using a razor blade. No idea k fabe. The constructed fantasy does not stop when the performers get off stage. The wrestlers used to be encouraged, even incentivized, to behave antagonistically towards their supposed enemies.

24:18 Whenever others were around. They were to play the parts of their characters at all times. While Hulk Hogan's friends may know him by his legal name Terry Bolea. If he was out and about in public, he would have been expected to answer only to Hulk or mister Hogan. As this story unfolds, you'll see when it comes to wrestling, the boundaries between reality and fiction are often porous, and while k fabe isn't taken as seriously as it used to be, McMahon effectively killed it when he went before the New Jersey State Senate and admitted it was all fake in an effort to escape stricter sports regulation. It is still a tradition that wrestler's practice. It's still baked into the sport. Deny what is plain to see. Deny, for example, that you've ever taken performance enhancing drugs, even though you maintain a physique that is literally impossible to obtain naturally. Deny, for example, that you're in pain and need help, even though you've made a living off of abusing your body. The lifestyle of a wrestler is grueling.

25:15 They travel the world for events and often work seven days a week fifty two weeks a year, with little time off to spend time with their families or to properly heal from their frequent injuries. And what makes injuries heal faster? Ah, steroids. Okay, much of the world of professional wrestling is fake, but the aches, pains, and wear and tear on the wrestler's bodies is very real. Hulk Hogan has endured twenty three surgeries. And to make matters worse, the WWE does not provide health insurance to their wrestlers. Wow, they don't provide health insurance. Nope, that is shocking. Wrestlers are considered independent contractors and they need to find their own insurance. Can you imagine how expensive that is?

25:55 Oh? Yeah, wrestlers are paid well, but to find your own health insurance. When that's your job as a professional wrestler, beating getting beat up every day. Yeah. And Vince McMahon is worth over three billion dollars, so surely, oh, he could afford to pay his wrestler's insurance. Yeah. Absolutely. That was a lot of background information about wrestling. Did you know most of that? No? I didn't know a whole lot of that. I mean, I kind of knew about the wrestling being like performative and the outcomes of the match being kind of pre predestined, But I didn't know a lot of the other information, so I thought it was interesting. It's all pertinent to the story that we're about to tell about Chris Benoah, we'll be back after a break.

26:46 Christopher Michael Benoa was born on May twenty first, nineteen sixty seven, in Montreal, Quebec. He was one of two children born to parents Michael and Margaret Benoit. Raised in Edmonton, Alberta. Chris was a tiny kid, the last kid you'd expect to pursue a career in professional wrestling, But in spite of his size, he was always attracted to athletics and he excelled at them. Chris was just three years old when his father introduced him to the world of wrestling by taking him to see Andre the Giant at the Montreal Forum. When he was six, Chris was involved in a major car accident. His head was slammed against the windshield, which resulted in a three day hospital stay. No permanent damage was reported. As a young child, he regularly watched broadcast of Stampede Wrestling, a Canadian pro wrestling company based out of Calgary. He became single mindedly obsessed with becoming a professional wrestler. When he was eleven, Chris showed up to a Stampede wrestling show in Edmonton. Stampede was owned by the Hart family or the Hart Dynasty. Stuhart, the patriarch of the family, was himself a former wrestler. He was also a promoter and a well regarded trainer. His eight sons were among the many who he trained. Two of Stu's sons and Owen became major w w E stars.

28:03 Chris begged too hard to become part of the show in any way, no matter how small. Stu acquiesced and let the determined kid set up and break down the folding chairs where the audience sat. Chris continued to show up, and eventually his fanatic devotion to wrestling caught the attention of the Stampede's higher ups. When he was about thirteen, Chris attended a Stampede show in which two of his favorites performed. He sat on the front row looking on as Brett the Hitman Heart played Face and Tom Billington, the Dynamite Kid played Heel. Do you remember Heel, which was the good guy? Yeah? I think the Face is the good guy. He is the bad guy. Yeah. Well. He was impressed by the athleticism of both. He found the performance of the Dynamite Kid especially impressive. Like Chris, the Dynamite Kid was of smaller stature but incredibly pumped.

28:52 Later that night, Chris fanessed his way into the locker room to meet the hit Man and the Dynamite Kid face to face. I remember my dad in my mind, my grandfather brought me to my very first match, and after that, I just you know, started you know, pestering them as much as they can to bring me every weekend. Then as I got older, started going on my own, and I met some friends there and started hanging out with them and kind of, you know, we had a little you know group that I went every weekend. Eventually, we just started hanging out, hanging out around the locker room and trying to get to the building. Early started send up chairs with the guys that set up the ring, and eventually they invited us to help us set up the ring, be set up the ring, and you know, one days we'll get get in a ring. You know, it's my first time in the ring.

29:32 I'm hitting the ropes and you know, falling backwards like real you know, camid like, and it just you know, snowballs from there. Eventually, got introduced to some of the wrestlers and started talking to them. And the one wrestler though, but that you know, would never have me introduce to him, was down to my kid. It was like I was constant, you know, got to meet him, got to meet him, got to meet him, and you know, finally I just had to, you know, go up to the dressmen door and bang and you know, and he opened the door. I want to said, you know, when Chris Ben want to show him my muscles, I'm like, hell, I'm training. Were you just like you? Someday Matt Heart said quote. I distinctly remember him shaking the Dynamite Kid's hand, and Dynamite was really nice to him, which was strange. He was playing the role of nasty punk rock kind of heel and he wouldn't normally break character to be nice to any kids. But he knew this kid really loved him and he saw something in him.

30:24 Dynamite was a hard guy, it was tough to get his respect, and he always respected Chris. This moment changed the rest of Chris's life. He decided at that moment he was going to emulate the Dynamite Kid. Quote. I looked up to him so much, Chris would later tell a reporter he was my Superman, my Batman, my spider Man, my comic book superhero. His style was so aggressive and believable, so technically sound. Everything he did looked so snug. There was no wasted movement. Soon after this meeting, Chris pestered his father into buying him weightlifting gear. He embarked on a rigorous and incredibly disciplined routine, especially considering his young age.

31:05 He hit the weights hard, desperately, trying to grow as much muscle as he could as fast as he could. He began taking steroids for the first time, and soon broke his high school's weightlifting records. While it's never a good idea to take steroids, it's particularly harmful to take them during one's formative years. Steroids not only accelerate growth on the maturation process, but cause growth plates to fuse prematurely, stunting size and limiting one's growth potential. Chris played football for five years in his youth, a sport that lent itself well to him, as he was rapidly ballooning in size and strength. His position was offensive end. He already knew by this point that he wanted to pursue wrestling as a career, so this felt like a good gateway, teaching him to take a bump or two and keep moving.

31:51 Although he now looked the part, Chris was certainly not a stereotypical jock. Everybody knew him to be soft spoken and exceptionally well mannered. In nineteen eighty five, at age eighteen, Benoi made his first trip to the basement of Stuhart's Calgary mansion, better known as the Heart Dungeon. This was the school, or more aptly, the Crucible, where Stu forged pro wrestlers out of mere mortals. Football players trained there as well. If you thought somebody was worth the trouble of his training, he'd pound his craft into them. Established in nineteen forty eight, the Dungeon was not just a cute nickname. It was an accurate description. Unlike most pro wrestlers, Stuhart had been an actual wrestler. In nineteen forty he was set to represent Canada and the Olympics before they were canceled due to World War Two. During the war, Stu wrestled for the Royal Canadian Army as a trainer.

32:42 He knew how to dole out pain. Years later, Chris described his time in the Dungeon quote, it was barbaric. I'm glad when I came in. Stu wasn't in his prime, but he could still take you down and make you scream. Stu would often put his students through hell, crazy, painful twisting, suffocating holds day after day, and Chris kept showing up. Still living at Edmonton, he took the three hour Greyhound bus trip each Friday after school to stay with the Hearts for the weekend. They thought of him as family. Chris wanted to be a wrestler badly, and he would do anything if it meant getting better at it. Yes, it's a good way to weed out people who really aren't serious enough that those are. Really dedicated from such a young age, definitely. Chris officially started his wrestling career in nineteen eighty five. Wrestling was not only his first job, but his last two. He never earned a paycheck doing anything other than wrestling. He performed in Stampede Wrestling, in the same promotion he'd seen the Dynamite Kid in all those years ago. In fact, Chris would often find himself compared to the Dynamite Kid he had the same impeccable form, not wasting any movement, He also possessed the same reckless disregard for his own safety.

33:53 He would often launch himself headfirst onto the floor of the ring. Benoir often played face or the good guy the match, but he stretched that good guy persona every time he executed a crazy, hardest nails slam. Chris was known for his diving head butt. Depending on the match, Benoi would climb to the top of the ring steel cage or sometimes the top of a ten foot ladder and soar through the air until he landed on his opponent. He was incredibly powerful, and his moves looked like they genuinely inflicted pain upon his opponents. However, any wrestler will tell you those moves often take a bigger toll on the performer than on their opponent. Chris's actual height remains unclear.

34:36 The WWE would eventually bill him as five foot eleven, but they are notorious for lying about that sort of thing, and he may have been closer to five foot eight. His weight fluctuated between two hundred and twenty and two hundred and thirty five pounds of pure muscle. If you look at pictures of Chris, you'll see he was built like a brick wall. His traps were so big it didn't look like he even had a neck. He was known for his worth dy and being a perfectionist in the ring. Yeah, just from seeing I've seen pictures of him before, so I'm a little bit familiar with him. But his neck is the thing that really strikes me is he just has a very wide neck. This is going to sound dumb, but it looks so uncomfortable. Yeah, it looks like you wouldn't really be able to move your head very right. It's like so thick, and I think sometimes your muscles it's hard to hold all those muscles up. Yeah, I think he was. I think he was in quite a bit of pain.

35:25 Actually, pro wrestlers are a wild, unpredictable bunch. Drug and alcohol abuse is common. Tempers flare easily, and they're not shy about physically settling scores if they feel disrespected. Chris was level headed by comparison. He worked hard, stayed quiet, and did his best not to anger anybody. When he worked with somebody who had been in the business longer than he had, Chris always respectfully followed their lead. He didn't partake in recreational drugs or alcohol, at least not early in his career. His only real vice steroids, sometimes legal, sometimes not. At one point during his four year run in Stampede, Benoa paired up with Shane Bauer, who took the stage name Biff Wellington. Benoa and Wellington became so infamous for their absurd steroid consumption that they earned the nickname the Megadoses. In December of nineteen eighty nine, Stampede officially closed down due to conflicts between promoters and broadcasters.

36:20 There have been several failed attempts through the years to resurrect Stampede Wrestling, but its history remained significant, especially among Canadian wrestlers. Benoa moved to Japan once again, following in the footsteps of the Dynamite Kid. Ten years earlier, the Dynamite Kid had toured with New Japan Pro Wrestling. It was in Japan that the Kid had first cemented his legend, having gone toe to toe with Setoru Sayama, the premier star of New Japan Pro Wrestling, who wrestled under the name Tiger Mask. He was called this because, as you may expect, he wore a tiger mask I would never have guessed. While wrestling in Japan, Chris met Eddie Guerrero, who became his best friend. Eddie was black Tiger. A friend recalled that they quote used to beat the shit out of each other, almost like they owed each other money.

37:06 Chris was quiet, serious and reserved. Eddie was one of the few people that Chris let in. Eddie said, quote, I liked Chris from the moment we first shook hands. He was totally cool, one of the nicest guys I've ever met. But when the time came to get into the ring with him, I was nervous as shit, even a bit intimidated. I'd seen him work, I knew how good he was. New Japan pro wrestling was brutal, but an important part in Benoi's education. To participate, one had to first relearn the art of wrestling within the strict hierarchical dojo system. Jay White, a wrestler from New Zealand, said about his time in the dojo, quote, the training is horrible, especially at the start, is just such a shock compared to anything you've done before. Five hundred squats every morning, sometimes a thousand, same the normal squats that is, and then you'll have jumping squats on top of that, hundreds of press ups, just grinding you into the ground on After the intense workout, trainees were expected to do menial labor for the wrestlers with more seniority, doing their laundry, cleaning their dishes, mopping the floors. Chris recalled a terrifying hazing ritual in which multiple wrestlers would jab him in the ears again and again until he started to bleed.

38:17 It was a gauntlet, to be sure, but if you could withstand this treatment, you could withstand just about anything, including a career in professional wrestling. Chris spent around a year refining his pain tolerance in the dojo before it was decided that he was ready to compete professionally. He was first billed as Dynamite Chris, then later took the stage name Pegasus Kid. This on stage persona would see him wear a bright blue luchador mask with a silver Pegasus emblazoned on the forehead. He hated the mask initially, but grew to understand the importance it played in honing his character. Chris excelled once he was led into the ring and won the International Wrestling Grand Prix in nineteen ninety. He would go on to tour through Mexico, Austria, and Germany in the early nineties. Germany was an especially important place for Chris's development. It was here he is thought to have picked up one of his signature moves, the belly to back wastelock suplex, informally known as the Germans suplex. Basically, the wrestler grabs his opponent from behind, lifts them and falls backwards, slamming their opponent into the ground head first.

39:21 Let's try that later, Okay. Who's going to be the Who's gonna be which party? I'm going to be the aggressor? Okay. Germany is also where Chris met his first wife, Martina. Martina and Chris relocated to Canada. They had two children together, a son named David in nineteen ninety three and a daughter named Megan in nineteen ninety seven. Upon moving back to North America, Chris participated in ECW Extreme Champion Wrestling based in Philadelphia. This was not regular pro wrestling, but hardcore pro wrestling. There are a few differences between standard pro wrestling and hardcore. In hardcore, there's a much larger emphasis on shock value and crazy stunts. Props are used a lot more in hardcore staple guns, barbed wire, broken glass, fire hikes, and occasionally even explosives. While neither wrestlers actually trying to seriously wound the other. The introduction of potentially lethal props made hardcore significantly more dangerous than your average wrestling match. That sounds terrifying, does It was in Philadelphia where Benoit thought Terry Brunk, who went by the innring moniker Sabu. During their fight, Sabu landed the wrong way and broke his neck. Oh he was rushed to the hospital.

40:34 Chris was freaked out, terrified he might have permanently paralyzed a man. He cried in the locker room after the show was finished. Paul Hayman, the man in charge of ECW, didn't share Chris's concerns. He called and said, according to Chris, quote it's great. You're going to be called the Crippler. This is awesome. We're going to make so much money. Unquote that is horrible. The nickname stuck for the rest of his days. His most famin misbuilled title would be the Canadian Crippler. Unfortunately, this incorporation of real trauma into the show is par for the course in professional wrestling. Soon after, Chris signed with World Championship Wrestling. He was smaller than the larger than life main event wrestlers. Because of his smaller stature, Chris was in the cruiserweight division.

41:19 He'd never be a main event wrestler in the WCW, which frustrated him. He left the WCW in two thousand for the WWE, where he saw more opportunity and never looked back. This is where another crucial character enters the picture. Nancy Elizabeth Tofaloni was born on May seventeenth, nineteen sixty four, almost exactly three years before Chris, in Boston, Massachusetts, to parents Paul and Marine Tofaloni, which has one sister, Sandro Tofaloni, who has frequently spoken out since her sister's deaths to ensure that she will be remembered as more than just a victim. Nancy grew up in Florida, where she attended DeLand High School. Before she'd even graduated, Nancy married her high school boyfriend, Jim DAWs. She took his last name.

42:05 She worked as a secretary at State Farm Insurance upon receiving her diploma. Jim and Nancy were both bands of pro wrestling, and frequently drove to Orlando or Tampa on the weekends to attend shows put on by a Florida bas promotion called Championship Wrestling. Nancy picked up a side hustle selling programs at Championship Wrestling shows. She caught the eye of a photographer named Bill Atten, who regularly worked for Florida's wrestling leagues. He recommended Nancy for modeling work, and she began appearing in wrestling magazines in nineteen eighty three. These were low budget, pulpy publications filled with hazy, overly sexualized shots intended to part men with a bit more of their hard earned cash. During one modeling shoot, Nancy met Kevin Sullivan, a wrestler fifteen years her senior who used the inn ring name the Prince of Darkness, capitalizing on the Satanic panic, which was on the rise in American culture at the time. He dressed in a black, hooded robe and drew vaguely occult looking symbols on his forehead and shaved them into his chest, hair, and matches.

43:12 He would make a big show of summoning dark spirits to assist him in combat. Kevin wanted Nancy to be a part of his entourage, which he called the Army of Darkness. Nancy, a genuine wrestling obsessive like Crisp and Wi, was happy to join the gang. Nancy didn't wrestle, but she became a ringside performer called Fallen Angel. Welcome to Polynesian Pro Wrestling. I'm Angel, your co host, and here's my master, Kevin Fullavian. You know, Angel, you've done a bying job. Nancy could be found at the feet of Kevin Sullivan in chains, clad in a bikini and studded leather fetish gear while he operatically shouted scary sounding gibberish. She would look up at him, seemingly in awe. They entered into a k fab relationship, pretending to be romantic. Partners were so convinced by Nancy's Fallen Angel persona when people saw her in public, they would tell her they were praying for her. Soon, their crafted personas bled into their real lives.

44:10 They fell in love both in and out of the ring. Nancy quickly divorced her high school sweetheart Jim, while Kevin divorced his wife Nancy and Kevin were married in nineteen eighty five. Nancy helped Kevin refine his persona. She styled his hair, applied his makeup, helped him with staging, picked his outfits, and helped develop his in ring storylines. Kevin worshiped her. After w c W bought Florida's Championship Wrestling, Kevin got a promotion of sorts in the acquisition. He still wrestled, but he also took on a more substantial role behind the scenes as a booker writing storylines. Kevin used his new power to give Nancy a more prominent position in the show. Dropping the fallen angel gimmick, Nancy instead took on the simple moniker woman, I am.

44:57 Woman, men look at it, wish you had it, and eats your heart. Nancy. Nancy wasn't a wrestler, but instead a manager, which is basically wrestling code for a supporting character who would participate in the drama and the story, but not much of the fighting. Sassy and sultry woman marched out to her strut by Bob Seeger gives Great Detroit's own Bob Bob speaker Really Yeah, crazy Wow. Nancy occasionally popped up in storylines over the next decade. By nineteen ninety five, Nancy and Kevin were having relationship problem and a move both shrewd and reckless. Kevin wrote a new storyline which wove these real life relationship troubles into the on stage k fabe. Kevin's next scripted feud was with crisp and Wa.

46:13 As part of the ongoing feud, Kevin devised a plan where Nancy would pretend to leave him for Chris. While their real relationship drama may have made for more convincing performances in the ring, this decision backfired big time. But you can see the writing on the way, I can see where this is going. Chris and Nancy would film the occasional scout where they fold around for the camera or shared a romantic dinner. What's it feel like losing the most important thing that you ever had? I'll tell you what. It sure feels great. Game so dramatic. To keep up KA appearances, they shared a hotel room while traveling At home, Nancy and Kevin's fights intensified. Kevin became physically abusive to Nancy, and she began to lean heavily on Chris for safety and comfort. Soon, history repeated itself and Nancy fell for her cave partner once again, and Nancy and Chris began an actual affair. You shocked, I'm shocked. Real life animosities spilled into the wrestling ring.

47:16 Chris and Kevin had to carry on their professional relationship, fighting each other in the ring with all of their actual marital drama incorporated into their stage storyline. Their fights no longer longer had to be faked. Chris delivered one fearce hit to Kevin that busted his ear drama. Furious, Kevin continued to fight backstage that night, Nancy left Kevin for good. As you might imagine, that made for an awkward and emotionally confusing working environment. The Sullivans divorced in nineteen ninety seven, as did Chris and Martina Benoit. The joke around the office was that Kevin had quote booked his own divorce. Despite the drama, Nancy's sister, Sandra said that she had never seen her so happy and in love as she was with Chris.

47:58 Chris and Nancy had a child, child, Daniel Christopher Benoit, on February twenty fifth, two thousand. They were married later that same year. On November twenty third, nine month old Daniel was the best man at their wedding. The couple moved to a home in Peachtree City, Georgia, forty five minutes outside of Atlanta. Nancy bowed out of the world of wrestling to focus on parenting Daniel. Chris's older children, David and Megan, remained in Canada with their mother, but visited Georgia when schedules allowed. David said that Nancy treated him like her own son. There was no step in their family. Daniel looked up to his older brother. They wanted to become tag team Champions of the World. Chris moved from WCW to the WWE in two thousand and one.

48:39 During a tables, Ladders and Chairs match, where wrestlers perform inside of a ring packed full of tables, ladders, and chairs. That sounds safe, Yeah, that doesn't sound great, which they then climb on top of and hit each other with, Chris sustained a neck injury. After sixteen years of wrestling, his body was starting to deteriorate. Doctors told him that he had broke and two discs in his neck. He missed the rest of the year while recovering from neck fusion surgery. In two thousand and four, during WrestleMania twenty at Madison Square Garden, Benoi reached the pinnacle of his hard fought career using his signature move, the crippler crossface. In the move, Chris mounted his opponent and yanked his neck backwards, stretching his neck in such a way that cut off blood circulation, forcing the opponent to tap out.

49:25 We're going to try that later too. Chris. Chris beat wrestler Triple H, son in law of Vince McMahon, to become the World heavyweight Champion. It was an unforgettable moment when Chris held the new belt over his head in victory. When Chris turned to face the roaring crowd, his best friend Eddie Guerrero surprised him and entered the ring. Eddie had defended his title that night. The two men, sometimes called vanilla midgets for their modest size, never thought they would reach this level of success, let alone achieve it together. They had a long emotional embrace, sobbing in each other's arms. The moment became even more poignant eighteen months later, after Eddie's untimely death. People have called it one of the greatest moments in wrestling history.

50:07 David Benoi, Chris's oldest son, said he wished they had both retired after that night, But what a. Good boooooo brute that so I'm proud of not a square card that's here. Loved him, Preston Wall hate your honesty, that's tolmidated by learning the world my titn't wrestle media twenty.

50:47 Been lost so many times. You have that somethus year after. Your ear mile not a mile after. But the Bob never game, Bob game, their law has got a good lays Let the history. Finally, finally, my god, finally christophin Wah has become by anyweight champion. I'm this world. But look there, look it because. In the ring. Eddie Guerrero, the w W champion.

51:29 Well, let's not forget the history of these two men. Eddie Guarreral with our heart go in grace on his friend Chris bin Wald. He's been a travel the world. Over so many times, and they're no sitting tears of joy the cross chrispin Walk can't say. H one by heavyweight championship on the. World in Madison spirit, Nancy Holding Daniel in her arms entered the ring next to congratulate her husband. So I don't want to throw cold water on this accomplishment, but I mean, this is sort of preordained right that he was going to win. So why is this such a pinnacle for his career?

52:18 Because he wasn't like a Whole Cogan or a John Cena or someone like that. He was just kind of, you know, he was a smaller guy, and he really never thought that he would get that recognition. So it's more about the recognition that he was like a he was a star, right, because you wouldn't win that title unless you were really popular. I think I believe so, and I should have said this at the beginning. But I don't know much about the world of wrestling, and it's possible that some of these nuanced things I'm getting wrong, But that's my understanding. It's like everyone like and really watching it. You can tell how emotional Eddie and Chris were in the ring, and I'm going to get emotional talking about it. They were just they were really good friends. They really loved each other.

52:59 Yeah, I get that. While many friends described Chris and Nancy's relationship as normal, it doesn't take much investigation to come up with evidence to the contrary. They fought a lot, and the fights often got messy. Chris was away from home often and this put a strain on their marriage. Nancy was a strong woman, and having worked inside a famously misogynistic industry, knew how to fight back. She would tell Chris exactly how she felt, and Chris, like many wrestlers, was not good at regulating his emotions or apparently his fists. In June two thousand and three, Nancy filed for divorce and requested a restraining order, citing cruel treatment. There had been an altercation of some kind in which Chris lost his temper, threatened her, and began breaking the furniture. The two spent some time apart, tempers cooled, and by August they reconciled and Nancy dropped the restraining order. It was around this time when Nancy began to bring Chris to the Peachtree City Christian Church for marriage counseling. Chris had become increasingly paranoid and anxious. He hated their home in Peachtree City. It was too small and located in an area too densely populated for his liking, he always ran the risk of being recognized, of being pestered for autograss, or worse, being followed home. Chris and Nancy decided to build a house in nearby Fayetteville. It was close to the Atlanta Airport, but the location was a little bit more remote on several acres of land. The custom nature of their house allowed for Chris to add as many security features as he deemed fit. In the summer of two thousand and six, Holly Shrepford, the same woman who would eventually find Nancy and Daniel's bodies, saw Nancy walking

54:33 along the side of the road on the outskirts of her brand new home. She looked rough. Something was obviously wrong. Holly stopped her car and called out the window to Nancy and asked if she was okay. Nancy told Holly that she'd had another fight with her husband. It got physical, badly physical. He had picked her up and thrown her against the dry wall. She wasn't sure what to do. She definitely knew she didn't want to go back inside. Holly told Nancy to. She drove Nancy to a hotel where she stayed for a few days. There were a lot of hotels around the Benoi home, as they lived a short drive away from the Atlanta airport. It's so scary thinking about getting into a physical altercation when your husband is a professional wrestler and built like he was.

55:17 Yeah, he knew how to hurt someone. Yeah, let's talk for a minute about how being a professional wrestler affects the mind and body of the athlete. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy CTE for short, is an irreversible neurogenerative disease. Neurogenerative meaning that your brain literally degenerates. It sheds neurons. The healthy flow of blood and cerebral spinal fluid is interrupted as the brain is shaken around the inside of the skull, and as it bangs around the inside of the skull, the tissue is damaged. Long term, CTE causes the brain to shrink and shrivel up like a raisin. Brain scans of patients with CTE and elderly patients with Alzheimer's are nearly identical. It's usually caused by, to put it in Layman's terms, getting hit in the head really hard frequently.

56:06 CTE is common among the following sports football, mma, boxing, soccer, hockey, rugby, and wrestling, pretty much all sports that are high contact sports. Right, CTE worsens with time, and its symptoms don't present until years after the trauma is endured. In the beginning, CTE causes confusion and memory loss. As it worsens, it can result in aggressive and impulsive behavior, paranoia, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Basically, anything that can go wrong in your brain will go wrong. All of those news stories you hear about NFL players either becoming explosively violent like Aaron Hernandez or taking their own life like Vincent Jackson is because of CTE. To cope with the pain of being smashed and bashed in the head repeatedly with a steel chair, scraping against the heavy ring, flying from the top ring ropes and landing on an opponent, or being thrown out of the squared circle and landing on their neck at the wrong angle.

57:08 Professional wrestlers often turn to drugs. Sometimes these drugs are recreational, like alcohol and cocaine, and sometimes they are prescribed, like opioids and sedatives. Either way, their habit forming and extended use is a bad mix with brain damage. Anabolic steroids, which are commonly used in combat sports and bodybuilding are regularly abused by professional wrestlers as well. While anabolic steroids have a multitude of medical uses, in the context of wrestling, they're only used for one reason to grow muscle unnaturally fast. Pro wrestlers are appearance obsessed to showmen. Part of the brand is an unrealistic action hero physique, which is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to sustain without chemical assistance. Due to the seasonal nature of bodybuilding, bodybuilders generally exercise a degree of discipline and their steroid use. A method called cycling, in which they start slow, take the steroid over a brief period, and then taper off does not savee per se, but it is a much less dangerous way to consume steroids.

58:12 Wrestling isn't seasonal. It's at least three hundred days a year. Wrestlers are on the road all of the time, and they need to rapidly recover from their hard workouts so they can adequately perform in their next show with no time to taper off. Pro wrestlers overload themselves with steroids so much that their muscles actually get too big, to the point where their tendons are not strong enough to hold their muscles together. The side effects of steroid use are well documented. Testicular shrinkage, irregular hair loss, and liver damage are side effects of note, but relatively minor. The two most dangerous are cardiovascular and neurological effects. Steroids elevate blood pressure can cause the heart, which is also a muscle, to swell to a dangerously large size. Cardiac muscle is one type of muscle that you don't want to be big.

59:00 Heart of a disproportionate size will make for an irregular beat and will often lead to heart attacks. This is a leading cause of death for professional wrestlers. One report from USA Today says that from nineteen eighty seven to nineteen ninety four, sixty five wrestlers under the age of forty five died twenty five. Of those sixty five, thirty eight percent were from heart attacks. The neurological side effects of steroid use bear a remarkable similarity to the effects of CTE. Emotional regulation becomes harder, extreme mood swings, increased level of aggression and paranoia, depression and anxiety, a notable decrease in intelligence and learning capability.

59:42 So I would imagine then that steroid us combined with the punishment that they take in the ring, like headbutting and landing on their heads and stuff. It's just a multiplier effect that those problems. So many aspects of being a wrestler contribute to your cognitive and physical Declas Tom Billington The Dynamite Kid, Chris's role model is a good case study of what all this damage to the body and mind can lead to. He overdosed multiple times on multiple different drugs, which he turned to in order to manage the physical and mental pain of the profession. Right after his final match, at the age of thirty eight, he had a seizure which took him out of the game for good. He would soon lose the use of his left leg due to the frequent and severe back and leg injuries he suffered during wrestling. He would never walk again. He spent the next twenty two years of his life in a wheelchair.

1:00:33 He also regularly dealt with heart problems and suffered a stroke in twenty thirteen. He died in twenty eighteen at sixty years old. But he actually fared much better than a lot of wrestlers. That's so sad. On November thirteenth, two thousand and five, when Chris's best friend, Eddie Guerrero didn't answer his wake up call. The hotel staff went to his room with his nephew, Chavo, and found him face down on the tiled bathroom floor, his tooth brush in his hand, with a weak pulse. He died minutes later in his cousin's arm. Eddie Guerrera was only thirty eight years old. There is a rumor that Chris went to Eddie's room and flushed all his drugs and steroids down the toilet after his death. The autopsy confirmed that Eddie had died of a heart attack. His heart had swollen to an abnormal size and his arteries were severely inflamed. Steroids were clearly in play, but the WWE insisted on an alternate explanation, whether or not the facts actually corroborated. That alternate explanation was entirely beside the point.

1:01:33 They insisted that all of Eddie's previously well documented abuse of alcohol and GHB was to blame for his death, not the steroids that he was currently pumping into his body, and muddled the waters enough to keep the heat off. The WWE and the police without any physical steroids in the room were left shrugging their shoulders. Eddie was frequently injured, but didn't take time off to properly heal and turned to drugs and alcohol to deal with the pain. He had overdosed three times in his own home and received multiple DUIs. He was fired after coming to work high one too many times. He went to rehab and returned with renewed vigor and was even rehired by the WWE.

1:02:14 I think he was clean at the time of his death. Eddie was a great guy and he was a favorite of both wrestlers and fans. Eddie's death wrecked Chris. To give you an idea of how close Chris and Eddie were, they treated each other like a married couple. They never ended a conversation without telling each other I love you, I love you too. Eddie was very religious. When he and Chris were driving to an event together, they would read Bible passages to each other along the way. Eddie had gifted Chris with the Bible, and after Eddie's death, Chris took the Bible with him wherever he traveled. It was painful for everyone to see Chris, a man who rarely displayed emotions so broken. Here's Chris in a WWE tribute to Eddie and Eddie.

1:03:00 I know that that you you're in a better place, and I know that you're looking down at me right now. I only know that I love you if I miss you. How you made. You made such a great impression all my life, and I want to thank you for everything you've ever given me. I want to thank you for my heart.

1:03:41 To tell you that I love you and I'll never forget you, and that will see each other again. I love you, Eddie. Brutal Chris lut year up right after the funeral and continue to work, taking no time off to properly grieve his best friend and support system. Chris withdrew from family and friends and became more reckless in the ring. Nancy moved in with Vicky, Eddie's widow, after his death, to help take care of their daughters. Vicky said that Nancy was an angel to her in many ways. When he wasn't traveling for work, Chris came over and lay in Eddie in Vicki's bed, clutching his pillow and sobbing into it. Nancy, concerned over her husband's extreme depression, bottom a journal where he wrote letters to Eddie. Ken Kennedy, a fellow wrestler, talked about how much Eddie's death affected Chris quote, I think everyone handles stressed differently, and Chris was one of those guys that internalized everything. You could see it, especially after the death of Eddie. You could tell I could definitely see a difference in Chris. And I used to ask him, are you all right?

1:04:43 Man? Because I used to see him and he had that thousand yards stare. He just looked like he wasn't happy. And I remember I used to call him Cyboard because the pain that man would endure in a workout or in the ring was amazing. It was like no human being could do that. That's where we're going to end Part one. Sad story so far, and I have a feeling. And Eddie's death, it's just really so sad. Yeah, it's really heartbreaking. You can tell how much it affected Chris. I think it's important we talk about Chris as a person. He was known to be like a really good guy, like everyone only had good things to say about him. He was a hard worker, he'd only ever wanted to be a wrestler, and because he was a smaller guy, he had to work twice as hard as everyone else.

1:05:29 He took probably twice as many steroids as everyone else too, Because he really, naturally, I think, was a smaller person, and because he worked so much harder, I think the wear and tear on his body was greater and which led him to you know, not recover from his I think this is something we can't say enough about all of these men. They work really hard. It's a brutal industry, and they aren't given much time off, and if they take time off, they don't get paid. And yeah, it almost seems like there's probably a culture too of just you know, being toughing it out and just getting back in the ring even if you're hurting or yeah. So yeah, I think it's maybe probably even worse than like football, but I think it's like the same in fun.

1:06:11 It's definitely worse than football. Yeah, there's like a pride in like playing through injury and you know, just being a tough guy. Well, how many games to football players play every year? Well, yeah, seventeen, unless you're like the Lions and you'll play like twenty or twenty one. So okay, mister optimist. No, they probably will this year. But my point is that Chris probably worked harder than anyone else because he wanted to succeed more than anyone else to his detriment physically and yeah, and you know he definitely had. Yeah, he was so driven. And then it seems like when Eddie died, he became even more like maybe more reckless or just didn't care as much about or didn't take as much care for himself. Right, Well, I think at this point, I think Chris was probably about thirty eight, and you know, he'd been wrestling for twenty years at that point.

1:06:57 Yeah, I can't imagine what the body lasting that long. Even before we go, I want to talk about something that I've been thinking about since these California fires have come up, that we all need better safety plans. We all need to be prepared for disasters. That's probably a good idea. And we have some we have some stuff, but it's not all in the same spot. And today I actually ordered like a fire We have a box, but I don't think it's really fireproof. So everyone should make sure that you have your papers and a fireproof waterproof box, like your birth certificates and you know those important your insurance information and your.

1:07:45 Will and your passport and all that kind. Of all that stuff because I've heard like a lot of people in California didn't have time to prepare. Oh yeah, that's a really good point. And you know, we should all you should all we should all have a box of where those important papers, Like that's one of the most important. Yeah, if you have to evacuate, you could just grab it quick, right. But not just that, but you're you know, your prescriptions and those things, like everyone's safety kid is going to look a little different, like if you have little kids or if you you know, if anyone in your house is on medication, Like those are the things that you need to pack. But a lot of people said that they really just got out with the clothes on their back. Yeah, so scary. Yeah, and you and your kids should have a safe word, do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, like just something if there's an emergency.

1:08:26 There's an emergency, or someone else needs to pick up your kid, like they should know the safe word, or like. If you're on the if your kid is calling you on the phone, they could slip in a safe word if they're in some kind of trouble. That they don't want the other person to know. Yeah, do you know what our safe word is? See? I embarrassing. I remember we talked about it a while ago, but I kind of forgot. Yeah, I'll tell you later, Okay, Yeah, Yeah, you should have a word with your kids. I don't know what are other things I think every I don't I'm not telling anyone what to do with your family, but I'm just saying like everyone should really take a look at, you know, your house. I think having like a water supply, like having emergency things on hand, like if you were to lose power for a week or two weeks or something like that. There's been so many natural disasters in recent years and you just never know what's going to come your way.

1:09:10 So we should all if you go to if you go to ready dot gov, there's a lot of lists there. But I think everyone just needs to be aware that things happen and we need to be prepared for them. Yea good advice. And everyone in your family should know where your safety kit is and all the things should be together because we have flashlights here and there, but we need to work on that and can everything in a central location so everyone knows where it is and where they can grab it. All right, let's do that this weekend. Okay. I love you guys, and I want everyone to be safe. I've been worried about so many people this week. Stay safe. One last thing before we go. What would your wrestler name be? What would your outfit look like?

1:09:51 Gosh, I don't know. I think I know you've spent a lot of time thinking about it. No, I really, I really haven't. I think it would be much more fun to be a heel than a face, right faces face is the good guy. Heel is the bad guy. Yeah, but wouldn't it be a lot more fun to be the bad guy? Probably? I just the other day I saw a I think I shared it with you and the kids, But there was a wrestler who his theme is like grunge music, uh huh, and his name is Stephen Flow. You know the song There's a song by Pearl Jam called even Flow, and he comes out onto the stage to the song even Flow, but all the words are changed to Steve Flow. Oh you did? I just cracked me up.

1:10:32 But anyway, Oh, we're talking about hould Cogan the other day, and I guess the w W E is on Netflix. Now he got booed like pretty bad. Really well he's the heel. Now, well, well I think he said some really horrible recist things. People are like nope, yeah, no, that's not cool. So so I've ducked your question though. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I see you in like some like red with some lightning bolts and some yeah use yeah, what would your name be? Oh, because your name is rich and I don't think you want me to see your last name. It would be something about like Richie Rich and you'd be like you probably maybe you would have like green and you'd beat dollars.

1:11:14 Rich the poor little rich kid. Yeah, maybe that would be you. I wouldn't want to do that though. People used to say that to me when I was a little kid. I hated it. I just hated that. Like nickname Richie Rich. It's pretty good. Yeah all right, Well I would not be a wrestler. I'm a lover, not a fighter. So so how would you have to have some persona in the wrestling world? Would be whatever you are. I guess I'd be your your ring. Yeah. I would just fluff your hair for you and things like that. I appreciate that. What's wrong, honey, you never ate your broccoli. You know. I was so full after that cookie that I was going to BROCOLI. I know, I messed up.

1:11:54 There aren't any foods that I like less than rab broccoli. Yeah. Whenever you go to a party and you see, like, you know, a veggie trade with Rob Rockley and rock call Off, I'm like, I don't. I don't know how you people. If you dip it into something with enough sauce, I can tolerate it, but it's really not good. Yeah, cauliflower is worse. How are your New Year's resolutions going? You're okay? Are my? Okay? Ours? One of them's going well so far. The other one I haven't really started on yet. But I've got six months? Six months? Oh the house? Well, yeah, they gave you a six month lead. No, their first half of the year, okayrs I decided, so I set goals for half of the year. But no, I still haven't. I've been, as you know, I've been pretty busy with work and stuff.

1:12:36 Oh there's always going to be an excuse. I know there's always going to be. But how are your New Year's resolutions? I mean, I'm still recovering, so I really haven't. I'm still kind of in this weird like. Yeah, bog, Yeah, it's taken you a while. Yeah getting there. Well, if you are at the gym right now, dear listener, I hope you're having a great workout and keep pushing, keep working. Get it five going to be your year? You know? They say, what is the date? Friday? The second Friday, which is tomorrow for us as we're recording on Thursday. It's called what is it called fil fail Friday? Or ever heard that before? It's the date that most people have abandoned their resolutions by, like to the second Friday in January.

1:13:19 So I didn't know that. Yeah, so if you've done that, just get back in there. I feel like me and you've never started. Yeah, well now you can get started. Before we sign off, I wanted to mention that today's episode was written by our friend Owen. Owen is a recent graduate from Boston University screenwriting program, and he's done a great job for us. We are still writing almost all of our episodes, but occasionally we are hiring a writer. We just wanted to make that transparent. I did a contribute to the episode as well, and if you would like to hire Owen. His information is in our show notes, and he is a fine young man and would appreciate any business that you sent his way. If you would like to listen to the conclusion of this episode right now, you can join us on patreon dot com slash Love Mary Kill for five dollars a month. You get early ad free access, and a monthly bonus episode. We thank you all so much for listening and for all of your support and friendship. Please rate, review, follow and subscribe, find us on social media, or send us an email at lovemrykillat gmail dot com. Until next time, don't kill your wife and don't kill your husband. Prior to this monopolization,

1:15:11 got it, nieled it.