Hostility on the Set: In addition to being a notorious locker room bully, Benoit had a Real Life feud with Kevin Sullivan after Sullivan's wife Nancy left him for Benoit. Despite Sullivan's adamant denials, several wrestlers that were in WCW during that time have openly stated that the two more-or-less hated each other and had a lot of tension between them. It's generally agreed upon that one of the biggest reasons why Benoit jumped ship to the then-WWF when he did is because Sullivan had been brought back in to be head booker of WCW again. For what it’s worth, Benoit himself was quoted on his WWE documentary as saying that Sullivan was completely professional in the ring with Benoit and never “took liberties,” despite whatever animosity existed between the two.
The physical similarities between Benoit and his childhood idol, Dynamite Kid, are eerie. Benoit even performed moves like him, most infamously his snap suplex and diving headbutt. One of his names in Japan was even Dynamite Chris.
He would briefly seem to be on both ends of this trope, as soon afterward Davey Richards wore tights instead of trunks, cut his hair and adopted a more technical style, complete with similar moves. However, apparently it was actually Dynamite Kid (thus bypassing Benoit) that Richards was modeled after.
Romance on the Set: While it's true that Perry Saturn, Dean Malenko and the fourth member of The Radicalz Eddie Guerrero were unhappy in WCW, Benoit had his own reasons for leaving: WCW booker Kevin Sullivan. To this day, Sullivan maintains he never had any hard feelings for Chris stealing his wife from him, and that he had immense respect for his talents. Sullivan putting Benoit over was just him doing what any fair booker would do. Sullivan later said that burying anyone (including Benoit) would not be smart for business. He specifically said "Why would I shit where I eat?" Meaning he wouldn't bury Benoit because it would cost him (Sullivan) money. Note that most people do not believe Sullivan — according to many who worked with both him and Benoit in WCW after the affair, things were extremely tense between the two backstage and that they had a lot of bad blood between them. And, most notably, if it really had been all water under the bridge between them, then why didn't Benoit stick around long enough to lose the title officially rather than vacating it as soon as possible to jump to the then-WWF?
Benoit was strongly considered to be Owen Hart's "Mystery Partner" at WrestleMania XI. Benoit, at that time, was ECW Tag Team champion with Dean Malenko working on a pay per appearance basis. Benoit had caught WWF's attention as a solid technical wrestler and solid tag team worker. Owen and Benoit also knew one another from the Dungeon. Ultimately, the role went to a returning Yokozuna.
Before becoming Brock Lesnar's manager, Paul Heyman was set to become Benoit's when he returned in 2002.
One has to wonder if WWE would be willing to exploit his death ala Eddie Guerrero had he died under other circumstances.
Speaking of Eddie's death, there's a significant portion of people that wonder if the tragedy would've still happened had Eddie never died.
At Vengeance: Night of Champions 2007, Chris Benoit was slated to win the ECW Championship and later work a program with CM Punk. When he no-showed, John Morrison (then called Johnny Nitro) took his place. Had he not no-showed Night of Champions, he would have wrestled Punk for the first time.
Even worse, reports have shown that Chris even tried to go to the PPV ready to compete, but decided against it. This was after he has already murdered his wife and child, imagine the horrible consequences of WWE giving a murderer a championship.
At the time of Benoit's death, WWE was trying to clear out Bob Sapp's previous contract in order to have him wrestle for them - and Benoit of all people was going to be in Sapp's first planned storyline. However, the thing went nowhere, as Sapp was ultimately unable to sign up with WWE and later joined Fighting Opera HUSTLE when he became free. Bob still believes the legal affair probably saved his subsequent acting career, as becoming entangled with Benoit at the time of his murder-suicide might have been too much for a wrestler and fighter like Sapp who was already disliked in United States to begin with.
Chris Benoit in general is the biggest "what if" in wrestling history — his death, and more importantly, the circumstances surrounding it, changed the industry forever. If it hadn't been for that fateful weekend in Atlanta, who knows where wrestling would be today. To be specific, the fallout following the Benoit murder-suicide played a huge part in the WWE switching to PG in order to put on a better public image and avoid blame. Had the incident never happened, there might never have been a PG-era.
On a more positive note, how many more young wrestlers would have died early deaths hastened by physical trauma and drug abuse if the Benoit Tragedy hadn't shone a light on how little care the wrestling industry was taking of its workers and forced a clean-up? Wrestlers had been dying young for years before the incident garnered massive public attention, and Benoit's death probably did more to raise public awareness of the devastating effects of concussions than any other event in history.
Miscellaneous Trivia
Eerily, four hours before the bodies of Benoit and his family were discovered by police, Benoit's Wikipedia page was updated by an anonymous editor to say that he'd been having difficulties because of "personal issues … stemming from the death of his wife Nancy." The edit was reversed within the hour because there was no sourcing information, but the claim was reposted by another anonymous editor with sourcing attributed to "several pro wrestling websites", the first of which happened to be WWE headquarters. Atlanta police were informed about the edits and ultimately investigated the Benoit home after the WWE received some unsettling text messages. The first editor, a student from the University of Connecticut, would later say it was a "terrible coincidence" based on rumors read online without evidence. The editor’s address was found to have vandalized six additional articles, including Stacy Keibler and the article for African wild donkeys, reverted vandalism for Chavo Guerrero’s page, and recorded the end of the 2005 season for the Golden State Warriors.
The editor’s address was found to have vandalized six additional articles, including Stacy Keibler and the article for African wild donkeys, reverted vandalism for Chavo Guerrero’s page, and recorded the end of the 2005 season for the Golden State Warriors.