Wrestling Dark Side of the Ring - Chris Benoit

[Spork3245]

Both parts are free on Vice’s official YouTube:

 

 

This was absolutely incredible. Watching it legitimately brought me to tears more than once. If you know the name “Chris Benoit”... watch these.

[AlwaysDyingX]

I also enjoyed the Montreal screw job and the Macho Man one Vice did 

[IdeaOfEvil]

I've watched them both twice now - once on my own and once with my mother, who isn't a wrestling fan but remembered all the news media when the murders happened. It's done very well, and my mom was captivated by it all. But I was kinda surprised that it glossed over a couple of facts that I've heard in various other interviews:

 

-Nancy's sister (I forget her name atm) did Jericho's podcast a year or so ago and mentioned how she moved in to Benoit's home to help take care of the kids with Nancy while Chris was away. So she had a lot more information about the day to day life of the family than what a typical relative would have.

-The sister also confronted the rumors that Daniel was a slow child, or had some kind of mental issue, which was the cause of a lot of fights between the parents.

-Then there was the idea that Benoit's brain was somehow 80% liquid when they did the autopsy on him.

 

There were jsut a couple things that I remember being talking points that this doc didn't touch on, so it only felt 99% complete to me. But what I was most curious about was the fight between Benoit's father and Nancy's family over Benoit's estate. I remember that was big news at the time, and that must have been why she and David were kept apart. I wonder what the eventual outcome of that fight was?

 

Still, this was excellent, and I think documentary fans would find this extremely thought provoking regardless of if you enjoy wrestling or not.

[Spork3245]

12 minutes ago, BasemntDweller2 said:

I also enjoyed the Montreal screw job and the Macho Man one Vice did 

The Bruiser Brody one is also amazing. That story is so sad.

[SoberChef]

I was a sobbing mess about 20-30 minutes into the first episode when it first dropped. Watched the second half when it aired and immediately went right back there. Then, the other night, I ended up watching all of Mania 20 ... yet again, tears. 

 

I think when this tragedy happened, I lost a piece ... a chunk if you will of my love for wrestling. It hadn't even ever really dawned on me that it did until I started watching this. It all felt just...tainted after all of this. Watching the documentary was a bit of a healing of my own heart and mind, and I could look at it through those eyes of who were closest to all of this and reconcile the man & wrestling enigma he was with the how and why and what of that fateful weekend. Time heals wounds to an extent, but it will always have a rawness to it for sure. 

[IdeaOfEvil]

I just finished the 'After Dark' follow up to this (which had Chavo and Tommy Dreamer and some third wheel podcaster on it - not including the main host guy for this, making it 4 people talking in total) and I would recommend people skip it. It's about 24 minutes long and maybe has 3 minutes worth of info on it, but it doesn't provide much follow up to the main doc. Tommy reveals that Chris lived in Tommy's parents home for four days during some point, and that Chris was learning how to cut promo's from Dreamer before Chris was hired by WCW. There are two deleted scenes from the doc that are shown here, but they're nothing special - David Benoit talks about the harassment he received/receives about his dad from random people, and Jericho talks a bit about Japan worshiping Chris for his work ethic and how if Chris were still alive today that he would probably be NJPW's heavyweight champion right now. And that's it. Tommy talks about some of his own concussion experiences and how he had a complete black out match with Bob Holly after Bob slapped him seriously hard in their match, which was kinda interesting. But Tommy looks melancholy all throughout this who, and the third wheel fanboy is just kinda is happy to be there talking, and he's chipper to be talking to everyone while Chavo and Tommy are very downtrodden.

[Spork3245]

Watching a few more episodes reminded me why I hate Jim Cornette. 

[SoberChef]

You needed a reminder about why he's so awful!?

[Spork3245]

6 hours ago, SoberChef said:

You needed a reminder about why he's so awful!?

I’m just glad he wasn’t on the Benoit episode  

[Spork3245]

I’m not sure if New Jack is insane, in character, or something in between. JFC

[IdeaOfEvil]

Just finished the New Jack episode. It's very engaging, especially since I never got to see any other non-WWF shows until the late 90's when ECW finally got on PPV and Spike tv. But what I don't get is why you guys hate Cornette. Was he saying something wrong in this episode that isn't true?

[Spork3245]

3 hours ago, IdeaOfEvil said:

Just finished the New Jack episode. It's very engaging, especially since I never got to see any other non-WWF shows until the late 90's when ECW finally got on PPV and Spike tv. But what I don't get is why you guys hate Cornette. Was he saying something wrong in this episode that isn't true?

Not this episode. Season 1. He’s a gigantic prick.

[Chairslinger]

21 hours ago, SoberChef said:

You needed a reminder about why he's so awful!?

 

 

Listening to some of these wrestling guy's podcasts, I like J.R. and Cornette. Cornette is opininated and sometimes I disagree with him, but I like them because they come across as mostly genuine.

 

Two guys I don't like is Pritchard and Bischoff. They both come across as guys who are using the medium to rewrite history in their favor. They have an excuse for everything they ever fucked up.

 

 

9 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

I’m not sure if New Jack is insane, in character, or something in between. JFC

 

 

I've always despised New Jack.

 

As true fans of ECW know, it's a shame that so many know it as just a blood and guts promotion because the real greatness of it was the fast paced chain wrestling from the likes of RVD, Jerry Lynn, Super Crazy, Tajiri, etc(while the Cruiserweight division in WCW was revolutionary in it's own right, the vast majority of great indie stuff that is put on to this day looks a hell of a lot like what ECW was doing in the late 90's). And obviously they integrated hardcore elements in there as well as hard hitting matches from real wrestlers like the Dudleys, Mike Awesome and Tanaka.

 

 

I say all that just to say how much I hated guys like Sandman and New Jack. Sabu is known for botches, but at least he showed some athleticism and most of his botches were due to the degree of difficulty of what he was trying to pull off. Guys like Sandman and New Jack were everything people who didn't know ECW were saying about it to put it down. No wrestling skill, no athleticism, just throwing weapons around.

 

New Jack had the added charm of being a total piece of shit. The comments about trying to kill Grimes alone should have gotten him black listed from ever being booked in the wrestling business again.