PopSyndicate.com

A deep and disturbing look at an entertainment hero-turned-ultimate monster, and the world he lived in.

In this day and age, most people regard the “sport” of professional wrestling as a garish theatrical performance art, or in other words, Shakespeare for idiots. It’s a fake sport that still manages to rake in millions upon millions of dollars every year, and continues to find ways to weed itself into virtually every aspect of pop culture in one way or another. Even though most people these days are educated enough to know the truth about the “fake” sport (all pre-planned with pulled punches, but still taking a major toll on the athletes’ bodies due to the bumps and falls), there’s still a grey area in determining what aspects of it are real or not. Those aspects became all too clear in the summer of 2007, a little over a year ago, when one of wrestling’s top stars made national and worldwide headlines by murdering his wife and young son before committing suicide.

Ring of Hell as written by Matthew Randazzo V is the story of Chris Benoit, the much-beloved Canadian grappler who would forever tarnish his legacy by his final monstrous acts. It is not, however, a true crime book, as the murders/suicide don’t even occur until page 335 of a story that only runs 341 pages. What it is, though, is the story of how Benoit came to become the individual who would one day murder his seven-year-old son with his own wrestling “finishing maneuver.”

To understand Benoit, one must know where he had been. To understand where he had been, one must know the history of those places. And so this tome goes into disturbing detail about Benoit’s path to fame and the lurid settings and histories of those places he called home. From his training by the Hart family, perhaps wrestling’s most dysfunctional family to his day’s working in the Yakuza-controlled Japanese wrestling promotions, Randazzo spares no detail in describing the cesspool the industry was and is.

While many of the stories contained herein are not particularly earth-shattering or new (Randazzo has been accused of using “shoot tapes” - interviews in which wrestlers discuss the business out-of-character – as one of his main research subjects), to see them put together and fitted like a vicious jigsaw puzzle in which the frayed edges fit perfectly together, is unnerving. Benoit’s shyness and general good-naturedness hid a very nasty streak which allowed him to haze other workers in ways that were cruel and disgusting, but seem to be par for the course behind the scenes of such an business. From his days working for and with the abusive Harts to the criminal Japanese feds to the anything-goes-better-with-drugs lockerroom in ECW, we see Benoit emerge as someone both trying to fit in and yet stay as apart from the anarchy surrounding him at the same time.

A doting father, a loving husband, Benoit earned every ounce of the respect he had from his peers, even those that feared him. But as the years went by, as the steroid use and the injuries contributed to his decaying state of mind, he did what no anti-wrestling activist ever hoped to do; he almost destroyed the industry single-handedly.

Randazzo’s writing style is both stark and lurid at the same time. He makes good use of the road stories and backstage politics to put together a cohesive timeline of this spiral of destruction. Many of the tales he presents seem too bizarre to even be believable, and while some of them may indeed be exaggerations by performers who can’t live without “working” those not in the know, far too many of the excesses have been documented time and again. Once you understand the true nature of the “sport” and the history behind it, it’s not hard at all to understand how grown men could live the life-styles they did. Sex, drugs and rock and roll, just with in-ring athletics replacing the guitar shredding.

One of the flaws of Randazzo’s book, as has been pointed out time and again, is the use of some questionable sources. A few of the sources he uses for quotes in the book he also takes aim at in other parts of the story for being unreliable. And as previously stated, a good deal of his research seems to be lifted from previous interviews and works.

But what Ring of Hell does is put it all together, in a context in which the average, even casual, reader can come away from the book with an understanding of what drove this performer and what caused him to eventually snap. Even the most cynic of disbelievers and haters of professional wrestling can gain an insight into what makes the business and its employees destroy their bodies and minds on a daily basis.

The story of Chris Benoit is indeed a tragic one, and ultimately, one that may never make total sense. One can blame everything in the world – steroid use, a harsh working schedule, brain damage, a manipulative and exploitative industry – and still not truly get what caused him to do what he did. But if there’s a place to start that understanding process, Ring of Hell is certainly a beginning point. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.

3