others speak out...
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Road Warrior Animal made an appearance on Scarborough Country earlier this evening. Animal informed everyone that his brother, John Laurinaitis (Talent Relations commander under Stephanie McMahon), was one of several WWE officials to receive a text from Chris Benoit Sunday morning.
-Matt Hardy posted the following on his MySpace.com blog
I haven't always agreed with every decision Vince McMahon has made, but I do agree with everything he's done dealing with this situation thus far. Out of respect for the sudden death of Benoit's family and his contributions to the business, I think Vince did the right thing by canceling the scheduled Raw. When the decision was made to make Raw a Chris Benoit tribute show, the WWE was only doing what seemed respectful and right at that time. When more information was discovered, the WWE took a different and appropriate stance towards their programming. The ECW and Smackdown shows this week were dedicated to our great fans. Wrestling fans who were grieving and confused over this tragedy needed us, including me, to entertain them. I feel it is my responsibility, as well as my pleasure, to put smiles on people's faces and give them an escape from reality. I know Vince feels that way as well.
Chris Benoit was always kind, considerate, and professional when I interacted with him. Like everyone else, I was shocked when everything came out. I can't believe Chris Benoit and his wife and child are dead as I type this. As of now, all of the strange pieces of this puzzle haven't been put together yet. My thoughts and prayers go out to Benoit's other two children as well as the immediate family and friends of the deceased. More than anything, I feel terrible for little Daniel--he was as innocent as any human being could possibly be. This is a terrible and sad tragedy.
I am very disappointed with how many media outlets are lapping the entire population of professional wrestlers into this situation. There are many outstanding, wonderful people that do so many great things for the world that I work and wrestle with. It's not fair or accurate.
Tell the people you love that you love them, and never lose sight of what's really important in life. We may not ever understand why this tragedy happened, but we have to learn from it. Stay strong--life is too precious and too short. I have much more I want to say about the activities of the last few days. If it's appropriate, I definitely will. Be well my friends, I'll talk to you soon...
-Eric Bischoff Comments On Benoit Tragedy
Former WCW President Eric Bischoff commented on the Benoit tragedy on his official website
www.EricBischoff.com.
Bischoff posted the following
How Can This Be?
I can not begin to articulate my feelings about the tragedy in the Benoit family. It is something I am really struggling to comprehend.
I heard the news late Monday afternoon just as I was sitting down in a business meeting in Pittsburgh, I sat stunned as I listned to
DDP on the other end of the phone, trying to tell me what happened. My meeting went very late into the evening and there was little new information when I went to bed.
My phone rang at 7am on Tues and the caller ID revealed a 404 area code. Assuming it was someone that I used to work with in the area, I answered the phone. It was a local sports/talk show in the Atlanta area and they wanted to get my comments. I hesitated, but since the radio personality was a friend of a friend, I decided to go ahead.
The questions started out ok...what one would normally expect in a situation like this. However they quickly turned into a "who's to blame" line of questioning and went down hill from there.
It's really impossible anymore to be honest about something as tragic and emotionally charged as this issue without sounding like I have some kind of "hidden agenda". Its clear that the media wants to blame steroids, professional wrestling, Vince McMahon, or anyone or anything else that further sensationalizes this family tragedy.
I refuse to join the choir.
I don't have enough information. I wasn't there. I am not a psychiatrist. I just can't imagine how or why this could have happened.
The wiki poster confesses to coincidence....
(for those that don't like to link jump)
The anonymous individual responsible for suggesting, 14 hours before police discovered the body, that WWE wrestler Chris Benoit's wife was dead is confessing, saying his/her comment was a "terrible coincidence."
In a post made at 12:26 AM EDT Friday morning to the talk page of a Wikinews article headlined as the "Death of Nancy Benoit rumour posted on Wikipedia hours prior to body being found", the user admitted to writing that Nancy Benoit was dead at the Wikipedia article page for Benoit came from information that was garnered from "rumors and speculation online." Freakishly, the post turned out to be true.
The IP Address of the individual making the apology was identical to that of the one who posted the Nancy Benoit rumor, a strong confirmation of the admission's authenticity. The lengthy apology was not signed, with the individual claiming, "I am just an everyday individual who posted a wrongful remark at the time that received so much attention because it turned out to actually happen."
Wikinews originally broke the story about the suspicious edit after receiving a tip from Wikipedia administrators. The fact the edit originated from a computer in Stamford, CT (the site of WWE headquarters) appears to be another coincidence.
The anonymous editor left a lengthy apology to the Wikimedia community, explaining, "I hope this puts an end to this speculation that someone knew about the tragedy before it was discovered."
Wikinews is continuing to follow the story, but the anonymous user has declined an interview.
Below is the full, unedited apology:
... Hey everyone. I am here to talk about the wikipedia comment that was left by myself. I just want to say that it was an incredible coincidence. Last weekend, I had heard about Chris Benoit no showing Vengeance because of a family emergency, and I had heard rumors about why that was. I was reading rumors and speculation about this matter online, and one of them included that his wife may have passed away, and I did the wrong thing by posting it on wikipedia to spite there being no evidence. I posted my speculation on the situation at the time and I am deeply sorry about this, and I was just as shocked as everyone when I heard that this actually would happen in real life. It is one of those things that just turned into a huge coincidence. That night I found out that what I posted, ended up actually happening, a 1 in 10,000 chance of happening, or so I thought. I was beyond wrong for posting wrongful information, and I am sorry to everyone for this. I just want everyone to know it was stupid of me, and I will never do anything like this again. I just posted something that was at that time a piece of wrong unsourced information that is typical on wikipedia, as it is done all the time.
Nonetheless, I feel incredibly bad for all the attention this got because of the fact that what I said turned out to be the truth. Like I said it was just a major coincidence, and I will never vandalize anything on wikipedia or post wrongful information. I've learned from this experience. I just can't believe what I wrote was actually the case, I've remained stunned and saddened over it.
I wish not to reveal my identity so I can keep me and my family out of this since they have nothing to do with anything. I am not connected to WWE or Benoit at all in anyway. I am from Stamford as the IP address shows, and I am just an everyday individual who posted a wrongful remark at the time that received so much attention because it turned out to actually happen. I will say again I didn't know anything about the Benoit tragedy, it was a terrible coincidence that I never saw coming.
I hope this puts an end to this speculation that someone knew about the tragedy before it was discovered. It was just a rumor that I had heard about from other people online who were speculating what the family emergency Chris was attending to. I made a big mistake by posting this comment on his page, since all we had were what we thought was going on and nothing about what actually was going on yet, and sadly what happened turned out to be my speculation at the time. I assumed wiki would edit out my information, which they did, so thats why I didn't go back to edit it out myself.
I know I keep repeating it but I feel terrible about the mainstream coverage this has received, since it was only a huge coincidence and a terrible event that should of never happened. I am not sure how to react, as hearing about my message becoming a huge part of the Benoit slayings made me feel terrible as everyone believes that it is connected to the tragedy, but it was just an awful coincidence. That is all I have to say, I will never post anything here again unless it is pure fact, no spam nothing like that. Thank you, and let this end this chapter of the Benoit story, and hopefully one day we will find out why this tragedy ever actually happened.
I am still not sure I believe this as frankly I was on multiple wrestling sites durring the day and the ONLY thing that was posted rumor or not was that benoit missed the show for a family emergancy...and possible it was due to his waife and kid being very sick (throwing up blood) from food poisioning. That was all that was being reported or rumored...NO WHERE was there anything about her possibly being dead.
