8 Most EVIL People In Wrestling History
4. Chris Benoit
When WrestleMania XX ended with the sight of Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero holding their respective World Championship belts aloft, there was the feeling in the air that both had forever changed everything we thought we knew about the industry.
Within a little over three years, this proved prophetic, but not for any of the reasons lifelong fans of the pair had summoned. Eddie Guerrero died in November 2005; another tragic story of a wrestler passing away too young in a time where such things had become tragically normalised. Drugs had been a big factor in Guerrero's life, and WWE's Wellness Policy launched several months later in a PR-heavy effort to reduce the number of times substances would be tied to wrestler deaths.
Less than two years later, between June 22nd and June 25th 2007, Chris Benoit killed his wife Nancy and seven-year-old son Daniel. He then took his own life by hanging, using gym equipment in his garage. It was a horrifying scene that revealed the devastating acts of a crazed individual, damaged by the the rigours of an industry he'd dedicated himself to. It shone an unflinching light on how a profession could aid a complete mental and physical collapse of an ostensibly right-minded and reasonaly balanced individual, and made a mockery of whatever the Wellness Policy sought to be.
The severity of the crimes briefly brought the case and wrestling in general into the mainstream consciousness, with numerous new voices and media commentators (informed or otherwise) opining on the brutal crimes. Like most stories from niche corners of the world, the press moved on within a few days, but this wasn't the case within the pro-wrestling bubble. The ramifications from the murders will linger forever, with fans and wrestlers alike still trapped in something a perpetual recovery, no matter how much WWE strategically whitewashes the event from wrestling history.