[MEDIA] Charleston Post And Courier 7.13.08 'Ring Of Hell' Tells Disturbing Story
Evad Seltzer
'Ring Of Hell' Tells Disturbing Story
By Mike Mooneyham
July 13, 2008
The latest pro wrestling book to hit the shelves, "Ring of Hell: The
Story of Chris Benoit & The Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry," is
one sure to ruffle some feathers. It's an extremely hard-hitting look
at a complex industry in which performers die young, promoters get
rich and broken families are the norm.
Unlike some other books of its genre, however, Matthew Randazzo peels
back the deeper layers of a nearly impenetrable business that the
author describes as its dysfunctional, sadistic underbelly. The book
is compelling and controversial, no doubt, and if you're a devotee, it
probably will make you cringe at the very least and even question your
sanity for being a follower.
Randazzo himself claims to be a longtime fan, but you'll be hard-
pressed to find any remotely sympathetic characters in this book.
"Ring of Hell" is a heavy-handed indictment of the wrestling business,
and the author pulls no punches about it. Then again, he's not trying
to win any popularity contest, and he leaves it up to the reader to
make his own judgment concerning the book's more startling and
scandalous revelations.
Fans of the wrestling business will experience real shock and awe with
this knockdown, drag-out page-turner.
If the title of the book isn't enough to hook you, the ominous opening
quote from the central character surely should do the trick. "The
world (of wrestling) doesn't push you to the depths of darkness. You
do. That drives me nuts ... It's not the world of wrestling that drove
(troubled wrestlers) to alcohol, the world of wrestling that drove
them to drugs. You do that to yourself." - Chris Benoit
The book, appropriately enough, was released on the one-year
anniversary of the biggest and most tragic story to ever hit the
wrestling business. The industry was shaken like never before when
Benoit went on a gruesome weekend killing spree that claimed the lives
of his wife, his 7-year-old son and himself.
Randazzo paints a sick and destructive picture of an industry he
contends turned Benoit, a seemingly normal and kind family man with
unimpeachable character, into what is described as "a brain-damaged,
ogre-faced drug addict." The 5-foot-8 Benoit, a small man in a big
man's world, was willing to sacrifice his health and his life for a
cheap pop. And, if mangling and mutilating his body was the price for
fame, so be it. Life without wrestling, it seemed, was no life at all
for a man like Chris Benoit.
Randazzo describes in great detail Benoit's obsession with childhood
hero "Dynamite Kid" Tom Billington, a performer Bret Hart once called,
"pound for pound, the greatest wrestler that ever lived."
While he may have been one of the greats in the ring, the Dynamite Kid
was anything but outside of it. Racked with pain at an early age,
Billington compensated by abusing his colleagues, becoming a bully who
would make examples out of any weak personality in the locker room.
He was an acrobatic high-flyer who thrilled crowds with his daredevil
style and risky moves, but lacking the size of a big-money star, he
pumped his body with steroids and speed, his weight ballooning from
170 pounds to more than 250.
Benoit was one of the very few wrestlers the roid-raging Billington
showed the slightest bit of kindness to. In tribute to Billington,
Benoit made his pro debut at age 18 as "Dynamite" Chris Benoit in Stu
Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion, and even began using some of the
Kid's trademark moves such as the diving head butt and snap suplex.
It was Billington's influences that helped transform Benoit from an
undersized, shy youngster into a driven performer and backstage
disciplinarian. Like his wrestling idol, Benoit used abundant amounts
of steroids and human growth hormone to enhance his body, embracing a
lifestyle of self-destruction in a desperate attempt to overcome his
size limitations. Billington's posterior was so scarred from his
injections of huge dosages of horse steroids, Randazzo writes, that it
could bend a normal syringe without breaking the skin.
The author relates the story that Billington, cousin of the late
"British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith, was so disliked that Jacques
Rougeau had the Montreal Mafia put out a contract on his life to drive
him out of the World Wrestling Federation.
Years of nasty bumps, drug and steroid abuse eventually crippled
Billington's career and personal life. His ex-wife Michelle, whose
sister Julie was married to Bret Hart, claimed he once held a shotgun
to her head for hours, although Billington later maintained it wasn't
loaded. The abuse became so bad that in 1991, while six months
pregnant with their third child, she gave Billington a one-way ticket
back to his native England.
Abandoned by his family and the business, he returned home a broken
man, later losing the use of one of his legs "after competing in human
cockfights held in the garages of gamblers." At age 49, destitute and
confined to a wheelchair, he is now a footnote in a tragic chapter of
wrestling history.
Randazzo also delves into possible reasons behind Benoit's
catastrophic mental and physical breakdown, and questions why the pro
wrestling lifestyle comes with an occupational mortality rate worse
than that of drug dealers.
Benoit is unflatteringly portrayed as a self-mutilating wrestling
junkie who always put business first, thereby earning the respect and
admiration of his colleagues, and a favorite of wrestling's hardcore
following that struggled to reconcile, in the wake of his grisly
murders, that he had been such a "good worker" but apparently such a
bad person.
The "Canadian Crippler," with his no-nonsense approach to wrestling
and his tunnel-visioned, all-consuming love for the business, is
depicted, perhaps unfairly, as a sadist to young wrestlers and, more
accurately, as a masochist to himself. Stunted both physically and
emotionally, the real Chris Benoit popped pills, shot up steroids and
sacrificed his health to make a living in the ultimate con game,
according to the book.
It was better to risk death than to miss dates, as Benoit proved in
2001, when he wrestled for three weeks with partial paralysis and a
broken neck. What Benoit perceived as a noble calling became an
unbridled and unhealthy passion.
It's no surprise that Benoit's close circle of friends, for the most
part, ultimately met tragic ends in their obsessive attempts to
achieve - and hold on to - success in the business. Benoit watched
colleagues like the talented but out-of-control Brian Pillman and the
good-natured, kind-hearted Eddie Guerrero suffer premature deaths
after attempting to push their bodies harder than physically possible.
Benoit, however, learned no lessons.
And while the book revolves around Benoit and his addiction to a
career that ultimately led to tragedy, it covers a lot more ground
than just his story.
Hilarious at points, depressing at times and shockingly salacious,
"Ring of Hell" ($25.95, Phoenix Books) goes behind the curtain of a
secretive world that is portrayed as a psychotic, bizarre subculture.
The intense, ruthlessly compelling 341-page read is well-written and
well-researched, as Randazzo scoured through volumes of newsletters,
books, transcripts and shoot videos, in addition to conducting
countless interviews with former WWE writers, some of whom obviously
had left the company with bridges burning behind them.
While the narrative provides the reader with some level of backstage
access, that inside look should be tempered for the sake of fairness
and balance, since most of the highly-placed sources seem more than
willing to dish on their former employer.
At points, the book comes across as a true crime story, which
shouldn't be too surprising since Randazzo, the son of two corporate
attorneys, was born to one of New Orleans' oldest and most colorful
Sicilian families and has expertise in organized crime and political
corruption.
It's that background that gives Randazzo a unique perspective on his
revealing take on a mob-run Japanese wrestling industry in which
verbal and sexual abuse run rampant, and where beatings in its "hell
camp" training regimens were so brutal and severe that sometimes they
were fatal.
It was in Japan's dojo system during the '80s, the author theorizes,
that Benoit evolved from tortured trainee to backstage bully. Benoit
was, in fact, the product of warped and twisted training grounds such
as the infamous Hart family Dungeon in Canada and the Japanese dojos.
It was a demeaning, nightmarish system designed to reward the strong
and break the weak.
A virtual outsider with no vested interest in the business he's
writing about, Randazzo plays no favorites, and very few main
characters escape the wrath of his poisonous pen. His vivid
descriptions of characters leave little to the imagination.
He describes old-school wrestling star and former WCW boss Ole
Anderson as a cruel and close-minded ogre who "made Bill Watts look
like Barack Obama." And those were his good points.
"With godlike confidence in his perfect judgment, Ole venomously
ridiculed anyone who disagreed with him or wrestled him in a manner
that didn't fit within his narrow, outdated conception of pro
wrasslin'. Outside of his longtime cronies and his family, few could
spend time in Ole's presence without being told that they were
useless, godforsaken, pieces of ---- that would be better off dead. If
Ole had been king, everyone in his entire kingdom would have been
beheaded within a week."
Even the charismatic Dusty Rhodes, who also once ran the now-defunct
WCW, isn't spared. Rhodes, now part of WWE's creative team, is
described as "morbidly obese, boring in the ring, and ugly as an
inbred pig farmer, but he was one hell of an interview, a lisping,
jive-dropping, yarn-spinning BS artist who convinced the fans that he
was the homely physical embodiment of the American Dream."
The revolutionary ECW is described as a company where drug use was not
only tolerated, but encouraged. "If you pass a drug test in ECW,
you're fired," was the motto of the ECW locker room, a strip-club
atmosphere where booze, marijuana, cocaine and pills were used openly,
according to Randazzo.
Former ECW puppet master Paul Heyman is described as a Jim Jones-type
motivator who delivered hallucinatory pep talks that inspired blind
devotion from a loyal cast of misfits.
"Heyman looked like he had just been plunged out of a toilet. Greasy
faced, stubbly, red-eyed permanently distracted and disheveled, Heyman
bolted through the locker room ranting encouragement and hype with
Waffle House napkins with booking notes scribbled over the falling out
his pocket," the author writes.
Randazzo's investigative expose is an engaging read that's bound to
create controversy in wrestling circles. There are tales of sordid
behavior, sexual improprieties, and "dysfunctional and exploitative"
work environments. The language is coarse and colorful, and the author
takes no prisoners as he shines a glaring light on the culture of the
wrestling industry and uncovers some hidden - and inconvenient -
truths along the way.
Some of the narrative, however, comes across as exaggerated and
sensationalized, sprinkled with supposition and speculation, prompting
some critics to unfairly give the book a Jerry Springer-type label.
And some of the accounts, quite naturally, have been contradicted by
others. But, being it's the wrestling business, that shouldn't come as
too much of a surprise since it's an industry built on constantly
working everyone else at all times, even when there is nothing to be
gained from it. To Randazzo's credit, he occasionally questions his
own sources' credibility, knowing full well the working nature of the
business.
One source tells the author that Triple H, upon joining WWE in the
mid-'90s, confided that "I don't care what I have to do, but I'm going
to run this place," which seems highly unlikely since the wrestler was
at best a mid-carder at the time, and his path to the top was hardly a
slam dunk. Conspiracy theorists, however, would likely disagree,
arguing that Triple H employed a long-range plan to manipulate his way
into marrying the boss's daughter.
The subtitle of the book also is a little misleading, since it's
fairly obvious that the pro wrestling industry - or at least the Vince
McMahon version of it - isn't going anywhere soon, coming off the
highest-grossing year in company history.
And, to the company's credit, significant strides have been made in
its wellness program, a development that undoubtedly will save lives.
Unfortunately, though, the company's drug-testing policy at the time
failed to catch Benoit's rampant steroid usage. The policy contained
one seeming loophole - permitting steroid use with a valid
prescription from a doctor.
At odds with Benoit's portrayal as being sadistic are many
professional colleagues who claim they had never seen a cruel side of
Benoit. Unlike his childhood idol, The Dynamite Kid, Benoit was well-
liked and respected across the board. Yes, he was a ruthless
perfectionist who made seemingly foolish sacrifices, and he did expect
rookies in the business to take their craft seriously, but mostly he
was demanding of himself, always striving to live up to extremely
lofty standards in a business he embraced with a child's enthusiasm.
And those qualities are hardly limited to professional wrestling
stars. That insatiable desire and drive to succeed, as well as a fear
of failure, can be found throughout the spectrum of professional
sports.
Did the unrelenting schedule and pressures of working for a corporate
monolith push Benoit to snap and commit such a heinous crime? In
fairness, it should be noted that the company had given extended time
off several months prior to the murders, to deal with "personal
issues."
Was it Benoit's reckless, high-risk style that resulted in massive
spinal damage and brain decay consistent with an 85-year-old
Alzheimer's patient that caused his extremely abnormal behavior before
and during his homicidal meltdown? It certainly could have been a
factor.
Should the company have seen it coming? It's doubtful anyone really
did, and it's unlikely there will ever be any real answers. None of
this, however, should detract from the overall impact of the book.
There are lessons to be learned.
Randazzo contends that there were plenty of signs that pointed to
Benoit's methodical meltdown. Despite being wealthy enough to leave
the pain and misery behind him, he pushed himself harder and harder.
Life without wrestling to Chris Benoit wasn't life at all.
In the end, says Randazzo, it was apparent that Benoit was falling
apart. One ex-WWE writer commented that there no longer was any
"bravado or bluster" in Benoit. One of the most respected and admired
workers in the business, he was beloved by fans but never able to love
himself.
"He seemed like a gentle guy in a rough business, and the business was
eating him up," the writer said. "He seemed broken, insecure, like
maybe he had just lost something. I remember talking to Paul Heyman
about how great Benoit was, and Paul said to me, 'Don't tell me, tell
him.' As if the poor guy needed to hear it." And, when the writer did
approach Benoit and told him how in awe he was of the wrestler, Benoit
insecurely responded, "Really?"
Perhaps those insecurities could be explained by the lack of respect
shown to Benoit by an inept management in WCW, where politically
untouchable performers such as Kevin Nash and Scott Hall accorded him
respect more befitting a mid-card cruiserweight, privately calling him
names such as "vanilla midget."
Randazzo relates one backstage incident in which a condescending Hall,
talking to Benoit in a "casual, chummy manner," urinated on Benoit's
cowboy boots while the unsuspecting wrestler thought he was being
complimented. An earlier, more probable version of the same incident
is much more unflattering to Hall. That account placed the two at a
urinal where Hall was so off balance he accidentally peed on Benoit's
boot, hardly an act of bullying, and more of a case of being drunk.
Randazzo quoted one insider, explaining the fall of WCW, as saying,
"Those guys (Nash and Hulk Hogan) knew burying Bret Hart and Ric Flair
and Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho was bad for WCW's business, but
they knew it would raise their own value come contract negotiations.
And the hilarious thing about WCW's downfall is guys like Hogan and
Nash really, truly did not give a ---- at all. They seemed to think it
was funny."
"There would be times when Hall literally couldn't put sentences
together," recalled former WWE writer Chad Damiani. "His skin would be
bloated. You'd see him in the lobby of a hotel, trying to talk to a
fan, and he couldn't seem to tell their faces were registering with
horror."
Despite being given a world heavyweight title, Benoit finally stood up
to the power-brokers at WCW, leaving behind a lucrative salary for a
chance to shine and be his own man in WWE. While New York was a much
more tightly run ship, the company still reflected a culture that
encouraged comic book-hero bodies that all too often came with a steep
price tag.
Benoit and best friend Eddie Guerrero, who both fled WCW at the same
time, did what it took to reach their professional pinnacles in 2004.
Benoit had overcome the odds by defeating two opponents in the main
event of Wrestlemania XX at Madison Square Garden to win the WWE world
title. After the match, members of his family, including a teary-eyed
Nancy and Daniel, celebrated with him in the ring amid a shower of
confetti.
Guerrero successfully defended the WWE heavyweight title on the same
show. Side by side, at the mecca of professional arenas, their dreams
had been realized. But there was to be no storybook ending.
Two tortured souls, two world titles, two small men in the land of
giants. Within a little more than three years, both would be dead.
"You always rooted for him, because he was a good guy and he overcame
the odds," Dave Meltzer, editor of The Wrestling Observer newsletter,
later said of Benoit. "It's like you watched Rocky, and in the end it
comes out that Rocky killed his wife."
Soft-spoken and quite backstage, and somewhat of a loner, Benoit
seemed troubled and lost, particularly in the final years of his life.
His wife, Nancy, had threatened to divorce him, claiming that Benoit
threatened her, broke furniture in fits of rage and was guilty of
"cruel treatment." She got a judge to sign a legal order of
protection, barring him from the family home. And in three months, she
went back into court and dismissed everything. Some speculated that
she took him back for son Daniel's sake, since Benoit had always been
an ideal father.
Perhaps, contends the author, it shouldn't have been that great a
surprise when Benoit, in a final fit of madness in June 2007,
strangled his 43-year-old wife with a television cord, choked his son
to death and then hung himself from his own weight machine. In doing
so, he also ripped the heart out of the wrestling industry, destroying
the image that so many fans - and friends - had of a man who had come
to personify the profession.
Adding an even stranger twist to the horrific crime was Benoit leaving
Bibles next to the bodies of his victims. Guerrero, an admitted drug
and alcohol abuser, had encouraged the heretofore irreligious Benoit
to try Christianity, and the two sometimes read Scripture together in
locker rooms and on the road. The 38-year-old Guerrero would die alone
of heart-related complications in a Minneapolis hotel room in November
2005. Benoit's own demise would come 19 months later, a month after
his 40th birthday, at his own hands, through slow suffocation with no
signs of resistance.
The two had shared the Word as well as Wrestling; now the final common
denominator was death.
"He truly lived for the business," fellow WWE superstar John Cena
would say after learning of Benoit's fate.
Randazzo, however, concludes that "Chris Benoit truly died for the
business."
- Old School Championship Wrestling will present a show Sunday night
at Weekend's Pub, 428 Redbank Road, Goose Creek. Main event is Al Snow
vs. Malachi plus a tag-team tournament. Bell time is 6 p.m. Adult
admission is $8; kids 12 and under $5. For more information, visit
www.oscwonline.com or call 743-4800.
Reach Mike Mooneyham at (843) 937-5517 or
moon...@postandcourier.com. For wrestling updates during the week,
call The Post and Courier Info Line at (843) 937-6000, ext. 3090.