Honor a Murderer?

On Monday, June 25th, I posted an honor to the late Chris Benoit on The Beast's Lair. I do that when people I respect pass away. In the subsequent days after my post, the preliminary police report saying that Benoit murdered both his wife and son before taking his own life has been confirmed. Chris Benoit, the man who I honored, is a double-murderer.

Since the confirmed report I have had a couple of people ask me what I thought about keeping my honor on the Lair. Should I take it down? The WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) canceled their Monday Night Raw program and presented a 3 hour tribute to Chris Benoit after the news of his death. This was before the reports of the murder and suicide. After the confirmation of the report, the WWE removed all tributes of Benoit from WWE.com and owner Vince McMahon issued this statement before the Tuesday night wrestling program:

"other than my comments, there will be no mention of Mr. Benoit tonight. On the contrary, tonight's show will be dedicated to everyone who has been affected by this terrible incident."

I do not blame the WWE for their actions. But what about the rest of us? Should the name Chris Benoit from this point forth only be uttered with an inflection of shame? There can be no doubt that whatever legacy he has left has been in some way tarnished. Perhaps more for some than others. We will be asking the question, why? Why would a reported loving father and husband, a man respected above all others in the industry he loved, all of sudden snap and do something so horrific? My friend James Aaron called to tell me the news. If he would have said to me, "Phil, guess which WWE superstar killed his wife and son and then committed suicide?" I would have put the name Chris Benoit at the very bottom of the list. I don't understand his actions and he, of course, has lost much of why I respected him.

Nevertheless, should his last days of complete tragedy and confusion wipe away all the good he did as a wrestler? Even if we want it to, it can't. We can from this day forth frown on the name Chris Benoit and strip him of the respect and pride he used to hold with dignity. We can tear his pictures out of the WWE catalogs and burn his merchandise. We can fast forward his matches on the WWE DVD collection. But we can't erase the fact that he was one of, and arguably the best wrestler in the world. We can't erase the fact that many wrestlers struggling to break into the business are sweating and bleeding at night because of Chris Benoit. We can't erase the fact that he was the World Heavyweight Champion, holding the title high above his head at Wrestlemania 20. And we can't erase the fact that for all those years, day in and day out, he treated people with respect and love.

So, my honor to Chris Benoit remains. Not because of his life choices in the end and certainly not because of the evil, unnecessary tragedy for which he is guilty. But because I would be a hypocrite if I failed to recognize that this was one of a very select few people who made me stand up, lift my hands in the air, and scream at the top of my lungs for the flying head butt and crippler crossface.

I think, finally, the best words to sum up this post on the Lair comes from my very favorite police detective, Lieutenant Columbo. This is what he said to a gathering of ladies in honor of "Abigail Mitchell" who was a world-famous mystery writer and a real life murderer:

"And I'll tell ya something else. . .even with some of the murderers I meet, I even like them too. Sometimes I like them, and even respect them. Not for what they did, certainly not for that. But for that part of them that is intelligent, or funny, or just nice. Because there is niceness in everyone, a little bit anyhow. You can take a cop's word for it."