Rebuilding Rob

As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today

Who is someone you admire for their talent or work, but dislike as a person?

If I really gave this, a thought, I could probably name any actor or actress and TV or film star, or any musician under the sun.

We live in a society that worships its entertainers and celebrities. What’s worse, as we act like we know celebrities because we listen to their music or we see them play characters in TV shows and movies. The truth is, we know nothing of what most of these people are like in real life.

Over the last few years, I have had a very difficult time separating real life person from an entertainers professional work. But I guess one “celebrity“ whose work I really liked, but I could not stand them as a human being was late, WWE wrestler Chris Benoit.

Let me make one thing very clear when I’m talking about Benoit: I don’t really sit around “celebrate his body of work as a wrestler” but at the time leading up to his death, he was one of my favorite wrestlers. Even though wrestling is scripted, he was in the eyes of a lot of wrestling fans, a legitimately, tough guy. One really big selling point for Benoit as a wrestler was the fact that he did not fit into the stereotypical “WWE superstar” mold north of 65, north of 275 pounds, suntan, jet, full of PEDs and sculpted like someone cut him out of granite. when I was the average size guy who weighed in the neighborhood of 220 pounds. But he defied the stereotypical mold of what a professional wrestling superstar should be.

Of course, he pissed all of that away with the murder suicide, and when she took the lives of both his son, his wife, and himself back in 2007. After his autopsy, it was discovered that his brain resembled out of an 85 year-old person with advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease. CTE is said to be the cause for his psychotic break that resulted in him, murdering both his wife and his son.

It’s hard because in a way I do feel a lot of sympathy for wrestlers of his era. These guys were literally breaking their backs in a wrestling ring too, sometimes even 300 nights a year. They were pumping themselves full of alcohol and prescription drugs. just to numb the pain.

In a vacuum, his suicide would’ve been a shocking condemnation of the professional wrestling industry, and what these performers put themselves through day in and day out. But that all went out the window at the moment he murdered his son and his wife.

I’m happy to say that since Benoit’s death, WWE, and other professional person and promotions as well as the sports world in general seem to take concussions much more seriously. Whether it’s related or not, WWE wrestlers have a significantly lighter schedule than they had at the time of Benoit’s death. So maybe there was some positive that came out of the Benoit murder suicide. This is not to say that pro wrestling is a safe business, but it is safer now than it was before 2007

Wow, I feel yucky just having written that.

I can go on and on about the murder suicide of Cris Benoit, about CTE, about the way the professional wrestlers are treated, and a complicated legacy Benoit has left behind, but I think that I’ve made my point 

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, 👍 comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related (and perhaps, not-so-related) posts:

• Rob’s Retro Movie Review: This is Spinal Tap (1984) – The Movie That Scaled to Eleven
• A Death in the Family (And My Disposable Income): My Life in Comics
• The Supporting Cast: Navigating the Eras of Male Friendship
• Life is What Happens: A Look Back at My Non-Existent 2025 Vision
• The Moment I Walked Inside a Hallmark Movie

The article “the complicated legacy of Chris Benoit“ first appeared on Rebuilding Rob