Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

Not that this is the most recent news, but I'm inclined to ponder on the whole incident with Chris Benoit's murder/suicide, especially with the revelation of the diary.  At first, people were pointing to the steroids as inducing roid rage, but evidentally that's not the entire story and the media are sensationalizing the incident to investigate the WWE.  Part of his usage might've contributed a percentage to his erratic behavior, but it's dead obvious that it's not the sole contributing factor.  Then the autopsy revealing the damaged brain and reports about concussions and his paranoia, etc. later signified that abuse to his body led him to this mental state.  Again, while certainly having concussions never would've helped, I don't think that this tells the entire story. 

The diary does reveal what I think is the key piece, which is his depression over the death of his best friend, Eddy Guerrero.  More than anything, I think this is the key factor in Benoit's murder-suicide situation.  One question that anyone can be inclined to ask is why on that particular day did Benoit decide to revoke his life and his family's?  Hard to say, but like anything else it could've been any day and at that moment he just had enough with life.  I think it's hard for a lot of us to fathom that extreme type of behavior.  But the way I look at it is losing someone extremely close to you that just understood you, no matter what.  For some people, they have a hard time coping with such a situation and may never recover.  I think Benoit was one of those people that fell into this category.

My only guess as to why he tooks his family's life was that he cared too much for them in his own way.  To some it might seem strange and perhaps perverse to take away the lives of those you loved.  He probably wanted to be with them in whatever form exists on the other side.  People say he wasn't religious, but I'm certain that a part of him had doubts about things and wanted to believe in something.  Something this ritualistic isn't an unusual thing either.  The whole problem is that the media has villainized Benoit for being a murder by focusing on his child.  I think the media's portrayal of Benoit is misunderstood and that their only goal is to stir up controversy to get ratings.  Whatever Benoit did was his own affair.  Unfortunately, because he's a public figure and was a role model, his image had been vandalized.

I don't know Benoit nor his family at all.  But I'm just speculating and figuring out what happened as if I were him.  I think a lot of people only view the situation from their own values, but don't attempt to understand it through the perpetrator's mind.  That's all I'm doing here. 

On the other hand, I've read a lot of people overreacting and  blaming wrestling, the lifestyle, drugs, etc. on the situation.  If you were to go back and pinpoint the situation at Eddy's death as being a catalyst leading towards this situation, then, yes, the lifestyle did add into it.  However, now people are trying to put the blame on the type of wrestling these guys were doing to say that Benoit's mental state leading to the death of his kids were a result of his style of wrestling.  This type of statement is just as bad as the stupid parents in Reno Nevada blaming Judas Priest for their sons' deaths.  It is true that the stiff style leads towards more injuries, but wrestlers are at risk regardless just by the nature of their  industry.  That's just a fact.  A simple bodyslam, which has been performed since god knows when still is painful because the mat isn't really cushioned that much.  A person can simply slip and injure themselves getting to the ring (see Yumi Fukawa and Vince McMahon).

The bottom line is that a public figure had some issues and chose to resolve it in his own manner.  That's reality.  Trying to analyze each little fact and reactively point the finger at something new as evidence is brought in really to me says nothing.