I don’t know if this can be the thread for Season 2 or we’ll just make different ones for each episode. That has to be one most difficult things to watch, I heard when John said he couldn’t watch the whole thing and I understand. Don’t get it wrong the production and show was fantastic but the subject matter my god. With the exception of Review and Rewind A Wai I haven’t had to think about Benoit for more than 15 minutes at a time max so this really pushed you in seeing photos of him and poor Nancy and Daniel, I could see some objecting to using Eddie’s death as a crutch for Benoit’s action but they could only use what they had in terms of people willing to speak on camera
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I did watch Part 1 on YouTube, and it went right up into just before getting into the details of the double murder-suicide. I don’t know if I can stomach Part 2, especially in these current times where life can be depressing enough as is. If there is one thing that comes out of this, I hope Meltzer removes him from the Wrestling Observer Hall Of Fame because what he did was absolutely appaling no matter how good of a performer he was.
Watched both.
Fantastic, and hopefully shuts the door on the “Benoit should be in the hall of fame because wrestling reasons” comments that still float around there.
The Eddie stuff I didnt think of so much as a crutch, but as to show the emotional imbalance that was going on with him as a result.
The 2nd episode makes no apologies for what he did, or try to mask the incident in anyway, but it does show every angle for why this could have happened. If you’ve followed along all these years it won’t be anything new, but to see it all at once and done so well made for an amazing documentary.
A slight observation which doesn’t give anything away story telling wise… but… is Malenko ok? Theres a scene where hes shaking pretty bad. Dont remember reading about him having health issues at all 
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Malenko revealed last summer that he is dealing with Parkinson’s disease.
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I must say: I was prepared for something heavy and this still hit me like a freight train. The stories of Vickie and David and especially David there at the end - brr. I don’t want to know what to say to all the people that turned their back on him. What the hell did this kid did apart for loving in no particular order his father, his (step)mother and little (half)brother, so so many people to scratch him from existence like he was his father?
Huge props to Chavo and Jericho, who turned out to be the only two real humans out there.
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Man, I don’t know if this was known before, but I never knew he put his knee in Nancys back and broke it.
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The parts with the crime scene photos creeped me out. Thankfully they did not show the bodies.
It was well done, quality work by people who actually care about the subject. But I don’t think I can watch it again. I don’t think they made an attempt at explaining why things happened, outside of the accepted theories (CTE, roid rage), but did an outstanding job of explaining what happened.
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I think they pretty much did: that Eddie Guerrero story that they inserted, with the tell of Vickie and how HARD actually Chris took it, laying on Eddie’s side of the bed, crying… combine this SEVERE depression with the state of his brain and the steroids and alcohol abuse, all that lead to the disturbed and worried Nancy, which tried to leave him with their son because of the state of his mind, spiraling down… It is really, really sad and non the less horrifying. Also, let us not forget how he was pushed down the card in WWE too, something that he took really personal as well. Yes, he was supposed to win the top title on… the… third brand. But it was pushing him deep down the card, no question about it.
From what I could get from the narrative - the family had next to zero problems before Eddie’s dead - he loved his family and they loved him back. Than the dead of his best friend (combined with everything else) just broke him and turned into a trigger.
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I dont really ever post in forums but I wanted to speak about the interview with Jeff Marek. He brought up something that I’d never heard being mentioned regarding the state of Benoit’s brain at the time and how mentally aware he was when he carried out the murders/suicide. I’m not making excuses or saying it was ok “because…”
But look, putting myself out there, I’ve had about 5 instances in my life where I blacked out for long periods of time, as in hours. I’ve been told i functioned like there was nothing wrong. One of those times i attempted suicide. wasnt aware of it until I woke up. I’ve had scans done on my brain and there are some things there. If I did anything that would hurt anyone I love, I’d want to be held accountable.
Just another way of looking at things. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
Just another angle to look at. Be well, be safe.
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I thought Darkside of the ring was really good: I watched it with my Gf who has no idea about this story or wrestling for that matter. She thought it was so good and gripping, she went through every emotion watching it, she was so fascinated by Nancy and said she’s an incredible women for everything she went through. Her final thoughts tho, we’re that he clearly was far to messed up about the death of Eddie and thought WWE should have done a lot more to help him cope with this issue and that mixed with his head trauma was the main cause’ and he wasn’t himself. As he looked to be the most loving and amazing father & husband. Thanks for the podcasts as always Jamie
There’s a big difference between blacking out for hours and committing murders over a 2 day period. He clearly planned to kill at least himself. They figured that out in the suicide note he left in the bible. If he planned on doing that, you have to think he probably at least planned to kill just Nancy and then maybe it was then that he blacked out or just snapped and killed his son.
There was some thought behind what he did.
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Hm, my train of thought was always reversed to yours: I think that he “snapped” during whatever argument he had with Nancy. Maybe it was something that (not so) slowly escalated during the evening, he (or both of them) had alcohol, he had his problems, so he “snapped”, did what he did and… went to bed. Which is a sort of a common reaction in a familiar state of mind, and especially if you did something really physically demanding - you get REALLY TIRED (as I felt when finished watching this). Upon waking up he might’ve not remember what happened the night before, but he knew something bad did happened, so than he sees with a clear mind what actually happened and his mind started to running in a 10 000 different directions… on top of the 10 000 that it was running on already.
Now, I remember reading that they gave their son growing hormones, cause he was so tiny, something in the lines that he had some health issue, I don’t remember exactly. I can imagine Chris’ mind going into the direction “How can this kid live a normal life with his mother dead and me in prison” and in his damaged mind he committed a “mercy” killing, that he ultimately considered a mistake. The fact that he went and searched on the internet information about child resurrection specifically, brings me to the belief that what he did to Daniel was not something that he was thinking about initially. Whatever happened the night before just became a snowball effect and the worse, WORSE possible scenario ensued.
Now I read that Daniel was drugged and might’ve been unconscious when he died. This is where things are getting scary cause when was he drugged initially: the evening before Nancy was killed, directly after the killing or in the morning, when Chris realized what he did… we’ll never know.
But there’s also the fact with the bibles, which can mean that he was on the believe that they will all be together on the other side and his friend Eddie will be there too. It is sick, but can you imagine what his brain was going through with all the booze and drugs still running through his system? Still this can be something that happened post factum.
I was actually thinking about this last night and I think about it often when this scenario happens. If people believe in the afterlife and that they will be with their loved ones, who they just killed…are they expecting that these people wont remember that they were just killed? Or that the loved one will forgive them, for murdering them?
Who knows… maybe other way of thought is “Let them be with God (while I burn in Hell)”. I guess this can be the case for someone with, err… conscience. The human mind can be a really weird thing, especially when put into extreme situations.
That was…a very difficult watch. I haven’t really thought about Chris Benoit in years. I can’t say I’ve avoided it, but I’ve avoided it because others have. John and Wai purposely don’t go deep into it, they don’t shy away if he has a match on a show they’re reviewing but you know what I mean. Obviously WWE doesn’t address it in any way. And so it’s just kinda always fallen to the wayside for me.
I don’t think I learned anything new watching the DSOTW episodes, but it really did kinda bring it all back.
I can honestly say I briefly cried a couple of times at least for various reasons. I’m old enough to Chris wasn’t a “hero” or someone I looked up to. But I’m Canadian…we have a certain, connection with those guys who make it. Doesn’t matter the sport. People in Canada know who Mike Weir is…the guy won the Masters, he’s a legend. It doesn’t ring as true in hockey because it’s full of Canadians. But I’ll never forget the day I met Steve Nash. So a guys like Bret, Edge, Benoit, Jericho all at the pinnacle of something I enjoy, heel or face it never mattered. When they said Christian was from Tampa, I boo Tampa, not Christian, because I know he’s one of ours. So this whole thing while disgusting, obviously, it’s almost surreal, like how could this have happened.
As far as the show goes, I think it was quite well produced. I just binged watched all of season 1 prior to the Benoit episode having never seen DSOTW before, found it on Crave and covid keeping us all on lockdown, I just ran through them all tonight. The only thing I disliked was the odd “in-ring” cutaways to the performers acting like the subjects. Seemed a little odd. It’s filler, I get why it’s there, it was just a little odd in the way that the cartoons were odd in the Ric Flair 30 for 30.
I think the moment that hit me the hardest though, was right at the end. When Nancy’s sister talks about not being in contact with David, then reconnecting. I just imagined myself in her position. Seeing that face. You can’t see that guy and NOT see Chris in his face. I don’t blame him at all, and when he talked about people bullying him and whatnot, of course, fuck those people. He had no culpability here, I don’t even begrudge him for worshipping his dad, we all do that, we all see a side of our families that other people don’t. But for her, no matter how empathetic she might be, I just can’t imagine, seeing THAT face after 10+ years and not…i dunno, being angry, or hateful. She’s a bigger person than me I can tell you that much.
Tough watch for sure.
I will absolutely be tuning in at some point to the rest of season 2. The next 3 interest me a lot, I don’t know much about Dino Bravo, but I knew nothing about Gino Hernandez so I’m sure it’ll be interesting. Owen is episode 9 and that’s gonna be really hard to watch too. I would’ve hoped to see an Eddie one, but between the Benoit episodes and previous Eddie doc’s I’m not sure there’s a lot else. I’ll probably have to go back and watch the Eddie doc from WWE again.
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You make a good point with the face, but did it occur to you that for her she might’ve been seeing more if little David than his dad all along, as he resembled his father as a kid as well?