YMMV / Chris Benoit

• Broken Base:
  • There's a split between fans who agree with WWE's attempt to Un-person him and fans who think they should separate the actions of Chris Benoit the person from Chris Benoit the wrestling character (considering that his brain damage may have been at fault) and be acknowledged as a wrestling legend. Go on any wrestling forum or on Twitter and say you're a fan of Chris Benoit. You're equally as likely to find people telling you you're full of shit as you are to find people who will agree with you.
  • The debate over whether he was a bad man or a tragic figure driven to madness and horrible actions as a result of his mental trauma. People still continue to sympathize with him while others consider his actions inexcusable.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The trio of Benoit, Malenko and Guerrero were referred to as "The Holy Trinity" or "The New Japan 3."
  • The gap in his front teeth is what led to his "Toothless Aggression" nickname. A riff on "ruthless aggression", then Vince McMahon's Catchphrase for what he wanted to see out of everybody.^Explanation One of Benoit's teeth had gotten knocked out years before, leaving a very noticeable gap. It stuck to the point where Benoit would have that phrase on his tights here and there.
  • The Rabid Wolverine. That one was official for at least a good long while.
  • After his Un-Personing, He Who Must Not Be Named, REDACTED, Chris Who?, Results Not Found, GUY WHO NEVER EXISTED, Whiff of air, Chris Benoyt, Crispin Wah, Kris Penwa, etc.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • WWE only learned that Chris Benoit and his family were dead hours before Raw was meant to air, and quickly turned it into a Chris Benoit tribute show, complete with wrestlers paying homage to the man; the truth of what really happened surfaced before the show had even been completed. To make things even more bizarre, the WWE had been running a kayfabe storyline in which Vince McMahon had been "killed" and that very Raw was going to be a fake tribute to the now-"dead" Vince.
  • It's hard to watch his old matches or backstage segments without noticing them; this is especially true of anything involving chairshots to the head and the Diving Headbutt maneuver. Seeing Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit celebrating in the ring at the end of WrestleMania XX is particularly haunting to watch nowadays.
  • CHRIS BENOIT IS HERE AND HE'S REALLY MAD. CHRIS BENOIT IS HERE AND HE'S REALLY ANGRY~!
  • One moment during the Attitude Era had The Rock and Triple H taking turns ramming the heads of Kurt Angle and Benoit respectively into the steel steps. Considering Angle's ongoing neck problems and what happened to Benoit, it's really uncomfortable to watch.
  • His titantron. If you can make it through the entire video (including the parts where he caresses a screaming child), you're very strong indeed.
  • Introducing Face Flippin' Chris Benoit!^note A toy with a flipping head that switches from "good guy" to "ring anger". The delicate balance between good and evil wavers within him.
  • Any fans of the Raven's flock stable from 1997 into 1998 will have a hard time rewatching their storylines. After their initial introduction, a feud begins with Benoit and he fights a different member every week, at the end of every match the entire group rush the ring and start kicking his head, dropping him on chairs, putting him in DDT's and prolonged submission holds. Add to that Raven constantly spouting over the mic about Benoit's 'serious mental issues' and Benoit occasionally saying he would snap all their necks, it's pretty hard to watch.
  • During one promo, a wrestler claimed that if Benoit's mother had remembered to take her birth control pills, Chris Benoit wouldn't be here. Kind of different when that involves preventing multiple murder.
  • In the video game SmackDown vs. Raw 2007, one angle between Benoit and The Undertaker has the former say something along the lines of "Only your family will have yourself to blame when the inevitable occurs." For further irony, this was the last game released before the infamous double murder suicide. Yikes.
    • This clip adds to the creepy factor with Eddie's loading screen coincidentally playing before the scene.
  • Before the above clip there was the Arn Anderson promo talking about Benoit.
  • The comments from the tribute show on Raw describing him as a devoted husband and father are disturbing in hindsight.
  • The "Kevin Sullivan booked his own divorce" meme. Oof…
  • Benoit's Dr. Feelgood, Phil Astin, was found guilty of over-prescribing medications and sent to the slammer for 10 years. According to Dave Meltzer, Astin's "other patient" was likely Sherri Martel, who died shortly before Benoit, which adds a whole new layer of discomfort to the whole thing.
  • During the Eddie Guerrero tribute show, Chris gave a moving, and incredibly heartbreaking, speech about his friendship with Eddie, including this memorable portion: "He was the one friend that I had that I could go to and pour my heart out to if I was going through something, a personal issue, a personal problem. He was the one guy that I could call and talk to, and know that he'd understand and... he would talk me out of it." Knowing what we know now, it's even more depressing.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Jokes related to Benoit killing his family and/or others became numerous just days after his death. Perhaps the most infamous one is the picture of a crying Benoit (from the Eddie Guerrero tribute show) with the caption "They were supposed to tap out!"◊ Black Comedy in a Gallows Humor way.
  • Hey, John Morrison: Who died and made you champion?
  • Tights are synonymous with pro wrestling, yet somehow the PWB turned Benoit's tights into such an outfit.
  • One of the most consistent is replacing Benoit with Hardcore Holly or Stevie Richards for all his accomplishments. Hardcore won the 2004 Royal Rumble, then won the World Heavyweight Champion at WrestleMania XX, then lost it to Randy Orton at SummerSlam etc.^note The Holly one stems from WWE's old "Mystery Partner" graphic used in the match advert graphics on Raw and SmackDown, which was the same photo of Hardcore Holly they used for his graphics, except entirely blacked out. The Richards one seems to stem from how WWF No Mercy removed Big Show from it, and gave the storyline Show had in the game to Richards.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: By far the biggest example in professional wrestling. Benoit was once one of the most respected wrestlers on the planet, but that changed in June 2007, when he was found dead in his home alongside his family. Local police concluded that Benoit strangled his wife and son to death before killing himself afterward. Benoit's reputation was forever tarnished by the incident, with WWE going all-out to avoid ever mentioning him again and, after his brain was revealed to be comparable to an Alzheimer’s patient, speculation running rampant if WWE was culpable in turning a blind eye to his brain damage. To this day, it's impossible to bring him up without the events above hanging over him and fans are still split on how to regard him.
• Vindicated by History: There is no denying that Benoit brought ruin to his reputation by himself, and around the time the murder suicide happened, people were rightfully outraged and agreed with the decision to Un-person him. When it was later revealed just how damaged his brain was into looking like an Alzheimer's patient (regardless of who pushed him to do it), Benoit's reputation... has a minor patch: It was enough to make him at least a cautionary tale for wrestlers to take care of their bodies and heads, especially when doing diving headbutts, so there is something to salvage from the incident that can be useful for future wrestlers. Additionally, after the outrage slowed down by years, fans also noted about his close friendship with Eddie Guerrero and his heartbreak of Eddie's death (all of it were out of Benoit's control) might have fueled his eventual breakdown and made him a little more understandable, even if people obviously still do not condone the murder suicide. The episode about him of Dark Side of the Ring in fact seemed to reach a more or less similar conclusion about him.

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