I didn’t know Chris Benoit although many of my friends did.

Mark Rocco tells of Benoit being his boot boy in Japan when Mark was Black Tiger. It’s clear that Steve Regal, Dave Finley and Dave Taylor all held him in very high regard, as did almost everyone he ever worked with.
I know that he went out of his way to be friends with Letitia & Dean Allmark, when Finley introduced them at WWE events in this country and was genuinely helpful and encouraging to Dean.
He was one of the few WWE wrestlers I would have liked to worked with, had we have been around at the same time.
I think there can never be any doubt that here was a man who had dedicated his life to wrestling, and always gave 110% in every match he took part in. A man who in the past 20 years has endured career threatening injuries, and fought his way back to the very highest level of the business for our entertainment.

He was with out a doubt a true professional who not only had the respect of all his colleagues and peers, but had the utmost respect himself for the integrity and the history of professional wrestling.

I doubt if anyone outside that very elite circle of wrestlers can have the faintest idea of the pressure both physically and mentally all the roster has to deal with. Their schedule of work & travel is enormous. You only have to look at the number of drug related deaths and the amount of time many have spent in rehab to see how hard many find it to deal with those pressures.

I don’t say any of this to defend Chris Benoit or the tragic events of last weekend, there can be no defense for such an awful act of violence and such a tragic waste of life.

But to remind us all that we will never know what sickness caused him to act in this horrific way and that mental illness is as awful a sickness as any life threatening disease.

Calling names and stating facts about someone you never knew or whose shoes you could have never walked in wont bring back those lost lives and although everyone has a right to their opinion perhaps we should all just say a prayer for the families, friends and loved ones.

May Nancy and Daniel rest in peace, and may Chris have finally found peace.

Neil