Undisputed_ How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps - Chris Jericho [169]
After the tragedy I spoke to Chris’s father a few times and he encouraged me to call Chris’s other son, David. I’d known David since he was four years old and always got a kick out of how much he loved wrestling. Chris and I enjoyed watching him get completely immersed in a match, dutifully cheering the good guys and booing the bad guys. I felt that I owed him a call, and after a few days I finally got up the nerve to phone him. Before he answered, I thought, “What do you say to a fourteen-year-old kid whose father had just murdered his half brother and stepmother and then killed himself?”
When David picked up the phone, it was obvious he was still in shock. He didn’t have much to say and I did the majority of the talking. I asked him how and what he was doing, but his answers were one-word and stoic.
I eventually broached the subject of his father, telling him, “I just wanted you to know that no matter what happened at the end of his life, for the majority of it your dad was a good man. Please don’t let this horrible tragedy dictate the rest of your life. You could let this take you down a very dark path. You have to rise above it.”
I was trying my hardest to be comforting, but my words felt hollow. I sounded just like the cop who talked me out of killing Danny after my mom’s accident seventeen years earlier, and I wonder if that guy felt as much of an asshole as I did right then.
When I was finished David responded with one question.
“Can I still go to the wrestling matches?”
It completely broke my heart to think that David’s whole life was his father and wrestling and in one night he lost them both. Quite honestly, that’s the reason that I’ll never be able to forgive Chris for what he did. As horrible as it was that he killed Daniel, it’s even worse that he forced David and his daughter, Megan, to deal with his unexplained crimes for the rest of their lives.
Benoit never defended anything he did and lived with a real “don’t ask, don’t tell” mindset. Whenever I asked him a question that he didn’t want to answer he would always say, “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.” That was him. He felt that he didn’t need to explain himself to anyone for the choices he made. But it’s a shame he felt the same way towards the two children he left behind.
Here it is years later and still nobody knows what exactly happened on June 23, 2007. If you’re looking for more details of that unspeakable night (or day), you need to read another book, because they’re irrelevant to my story and you’re not going to find them here.
What is relevant is that I’ll always remember the man who was my biggest influence in wrestling and who I strived to be like. I’ll always love the kind, funny, excitable, supportive, levelheaded, polite, and humble man whom I trusted more than anyone I’ve ever met in this business. But I’ll always despise the man who murdered his family and ruined his entire legacy in the last days of his life.
Only God knows why Chris did what he did. My pastor Chris Bonham told me, “If someone is possessed by a demon God doesn’t judge them or hold them accountable for the horrible acts they commit.” I hope that’s true, because a Chris Benoit possessed by evil spirits causing him to commit such hideous acts makes about as much sense as any of the other theories I’ve heard, and that’s the one I’m going with. Nothing else can explain how such a pure-hearted person could do what he did.
Like everything else in life, as soon as the next tragedy occurred (a mineshaft collapsed in Virginia) the media forgot about Chris Benoit, and the government inquests into the wrestling business quickly went away. Not long after that, the WWE erased Chris Benoit from their memory forever, and I don’t blame them—he almost brought the entire company down.
But I’ll never be able to erase Chris Benoit from my memory, and his actions still haunt me every single day.
CHAPTER 47
The Paul Is Dead of Wrestling
Before Chris died, I was gung-ho (Anthrax) to return to the WWE. After writing A Lion’s Tale (which debuted at number