10 Worst WWE Moments Of 2007

There's no getting around how miserable any deep dive on Chris Benoit's final days will be to read. News filtered out that Benoit had died shortly after 24 June, and the wrestling world was shocked. One of the greatest workhorses of his generation was gone. People just couldn't fathom it. Those shedding tears were simply not prepared for what was coming next. 

WWE worked fast to rejig their plans for Raw the next evening. The promotion ran with a tribute show in the Canadian's memory instead. It was the usual tear-jerking effort complete with emotional promos and video packages galore. That's when things got incredibly awkward. Slowly but surely, further details about exactly what had happened in Chris's home came to light.

Benoit had murdered both his wife Nancy and young son Daniel before hanging himself using his own gym equipment. There was immediate regret on WWE’s side about the tribute. They weren’t to know the grim details, of course, but the memorial flagship sticks out as one episode which can never re-air. In hindsight, even taking into consideration the lack of knowledge and armed with the best of intentions, that tribute edition of Raw memorialised a man who'd just brutalised his own family.

Various reports centred around the effects of CTE surfaced, and WWE later banned steel chair shots to the head. The Benoit saga changed business forever, but it's a crying shame that something so foul had to happen for wrestlers to wise up and stop cracking one another on the skull full force.

When people think of WWE in 2007, they think of Chris Benoit's reprehensible behaviour. It'd be impossible not to.

What other moments from WWE's 2007 deserve to be considered the worst? For more wrestling, check out 10 Worst WWE Moments Of 2006 and 11 MORE WWE Returns That IMMEDIATELY Backfired!