Dark Side of the Ring

My Name is Dennis Fagan, i run security for World Wrestling

and one of our wrestlers that lives down there is missing.

-Okay, what's his name? -Chris Benoit.

Chris Benoit was considered by many of us in Business of being one of the greatest workers in Wrestling.

He was Nicknamed the Rabid Wolverine, the Canadian Crippler

They tried to reach his wife, Nancy. She doesn't answer it. tried to call his house.

I plan on ruling the wrestling world.

She was in love. More in love than I'd ever seen her.

This was during Chris and Nancy wedding.

Daniel was the best man, of course.

alright, We'll go ahead and send somebody out there to check on it.

Well, The wrestling world in shock Today, former champion, Chris Benoit,

found dead in his Atlanta home along with his wife and Young son.

Police now treating the discovery as double murder-suicide.

On June 25, 2007,

Chris Benoit's Brutal murder of his wife and son dominated the news cycle,

leaving the world searching for answers.

Going over it, in my mind like, why did this happen ?

How did it Happen ? Could it have been stopped ?

Authorities say Benoit strangled his wife and suffocated his son

before hanging himself in their home.

The term that's being thrown is "roid rage".

When you look at Christopher Benoit's brain,

it is in fact shocking.

For over a decade,

those closest to the killings have been left traumatized and Desperate for Closure.

For the first time,

friends and family have come together to tell the story in their own words.

Chris was a gentle giant

and I could never have imagined that he could hurt someone.

He was probably the greatest wrestler that's ever Lived.

and To have that same person murder your family,

that's not an easy statement for me to make.

That's not the Chris I knew. There's so many details so crazy to Understand.

I need to talk about this.

If you don't want to hear it, give me shit later

and say I'm glorifying a murder, stop listening.

Alright.

-Alright. You ready? -Let's rock.

-Alright, so First Can you tell us who you are? -David Benoit, son of Chris Benoit.

This is One of the greatest wrestlers of all time, I believe.

Oh, no.

That was just his job.

but as Soon as he got off the road, he was dad, that was it.

No matter what.

My grandfather took him to his very first show in Edmonton.

And he saw the Dynamite Kid.

Against the Dynamite Kid, Also 214, from Liverpool.

And he's like, Yup "That's what I want to do."

My dad, he looked up to him. That was his idol.

He emulated him, his work ethic. Nothing like it.

And then he would do his signature flying head butt.

He would climb up to the top rope, jump off, spread eagle.

Then connect.

Busted his ass in the ring every night.

Gave it a 120 percent, no matter what.

I got my very first Nintendo and I had WCW Mayhem

and I played as him.

Chris Benoit was on the radar as a pro wrestler since the '80s.

I'm Jim Ross. Got into wrestling in 1974.

I'm now the Senior Adviser to AEW.

i'm Wresrtling Fan, so If you're a wrestling fan, how could you not be a fan of Chris Benoit's Work ?

He's always Consider as one of the best workers ever , even when he was young.

He was just a natural.

My name is Chris Jericho. I've been wrestling for longtime almost 30 years.

Watching Chris Benoit was one of the reasons why I Really enjoyed Stampede Wrestling

and why I started really thinking, maybe I could do this.

Benoit is a rookie but he does have the moves.

To watch Stampede Wrestling, you could tell the guys were smaller.

They were not as tall as the giants that you could find in the WWF.

I thought, wow, they're kind of my size.

So, in that aspect someone like Chris Benoit was kind of an early influence on me.

The most intense

and believable performer I've ever been in the ring with.

He could see things before they happened.

His first job was wrestling and his last job was wrestling.

All he ever did was wrestle.

The only thing he ever got a paycheck from was wrestling.

I was a Huge fan of Chris Benoit, off the get go.

He's the ultimate performer.

Dean Malenko. I wrestled for ECW, WCW and of course, WWF/WWE.

Chris was a very quiet, reserved, you know, very serious guy

and kind of like into his own little world at times

but when that red light went on and Bell Ring, Chris Benoit was a whole another person.

Extremely focused.

One of the most focused individuals I've ever seen in any sport for that matter.

Chris took nothing less than being perfect.

I did a Few tours with Benoit over in Japan. And we had a match.

I gave him a spin kick and I didn't hit him, nor should you,

it's Wrestling you work together to put on a show.

He Felt like took it the wrong way. He felt he exposed the business with his ineptitude.

Me, Well, I bet nobody noticed anything Because a quick kick goes by.

he'd take a bump. It's not on TV. Who cares? He cared.

I found him in the back doing Hack squats,

Hindu squats where you go up and down, one, two.

I go, "What's wrong?" He goes, "I messed up that kick.

I have to do squats now."

like why?, "Who told you to? Are you in trouble?"

Like, "No, I'm doing them on my own. I screwed up. I'm doing 500 squats."

That was him. He had to purge and punish himself

for making this minor mistake that, to him, was everything.

And Eddie was like that too.

Wrestling fans of Course all know who Eddie Guerrero is.

To many in the wrestling world,

he is considered as one of the absolute best wrestlers of all time.

I'm Chavo Guerrero Jr.,

third generation professional wrestler from the legendary Guerrero family.

When Eddie was about 18, he started training for wrestling,

Started wrestling all over Mexico and then transitioned it to Japan

and became one of their top stars and was called Black Tiger.

He was a tall Mexican with long hair and cowboy boots and tight pants.

And I loved his ass and I thought he was the most gorgeous guy.

My name is Vickie Guerrero. I am a former WWE superstar.

And I fell in love with Eddie.

He loved wrestling. He ate it. He dreamt it.

He was always doing promos in the bathroom mirror.

He was always showing me, "Can I try this move? Tell me if it hurts."

Those were fun days in the bed, I'm not gonna lie. They were good times.

Super nice. Very friendly.

Would give you the shirt off his back, literally,

you could tell sweetness exuded from this guy.

A little bit crazy,

as any wrestler can be, especially from that generation.

Very small though.

When we were in Japan, the referee called him Mexican Flamingo.

"Big upper body. Small leg."

i think Chris and Eddie first met in Japan, if I'm not mistaken.

They beat the shit out of each other, almost like they owed each other a lot of money.

Eddie would call me and be like, "Man, I can't stand this asshole.

He's such a prick. i Can't believe I have to work with him for a week or two."

I think even in today's world of wrestling

every company out there, they go and watch those matches.

Those guys were like way ahead of the time.

I Really wanted to be like those guys.

like That's why my name was Lion Heart for so long.

Lion Heart.

'Cause I wanted to be an animal, like those guys.

Eddie was Black Tiger.

Chris was the Pegasus Kid, Wild Pegasus.

Those two saw things differently

and that was part of what made them so fucking great.

The more they fought, the more they started respecting each other.

They hit it off and they ended up being the best of friends.

These particular earrings are a pair my sister wore as Woman on WCW.

I decided I'd wear what she thought would look good on camera.

My name is Sandra Toffoloni and the only sibling of Nancy Benoit.

My sister Nancy just married right out of high school.

Her first husband was a wrestling fan

and got her going to the matches and she really liked it.

There was a moment where, i don't know if it was a promoter or another manager

that picked her out of the crowd, you know, she's a beautiful woman.

The first time it was a weekend thing.

And then it turned into something else.

She met Kevin Sullivan in Florida Championship Wrestling.

Humba-hunda. Hoobla-hach. Hey. Let me tell you something.

He's probably one of the greatest promoters ever in wrestling.

Kevin Sullivan, who was this satanic character

and he was satanic because he shaved an X into his chest hair

and put makeup on.

That was the extent of his Satanism, you know, he wore a hood.

And they had an instant connection as friends

and then shortly after were falling in love.

She was already in the process of divorcing her first husband.

So, Kevin had this idea to grow this gimmick of the prince of darkness

and he has this army of darkness behind him.

And Nancy by his side as the Fallen Angel.

Welcome to Polynesian pro wrestling. I'm Angel, Your Co-Host

and here is my master, Kevin Sullivan.

you know Angel, you've done a fine job.

The name Fallen Angel came from a Uriah Heep album.

And the cover it had this beautiful woman

in a leather-ish bikini with feathers and a sword

and she looked at that cover and said, "Man, that's the gimmick."

She was good at what she did.

Probably one of the first that really understood the art of being a valet

or a second, so to speak.

She's an instrumental part in getting heat, as we like to say.

People would stop her. They recognized her,

believed she was possessed.

She would be getting gas and they'd come over,

like, "We're gonna lay hands on you and pray for your soul."

And she loved it 'cause she knew,

if they hate me, I'm absolutely doing my job.

She wasn't a wrestler but she was valuable as a ringside performer.

And that's a lost art. Now there's no such thing.

Right ?, Every girl has to be a wrestler.

She wasn't that but she Probably knew the business better than most.

She did Kevin's makeup, she did her own makeup.

She did everything, the hair, the staging, the clothes.

Guys would break their tights, Nancy would be there with Threads and needle.

We had duffel bags of boa constrictors around the house.

In the beginning, how would you describe their dynamic?

-Nancy and Kevin's? -Yeah.

Oh, man. He worshiped her

and she was all in with him. She was in love.

And their dynamic was awesome. So they moved to WCW.

It was a big step up obviously than what they were doing.

WCW. Where the big boys play.

Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero were the three Amigos.

All three of them came to WCW together.