The whole Benoit situation still has me in shock. Now the shock has changed from, "I can't believe he is dead," to "I can't believe he was a murderer." I thought about deleting the RIP post. I had my finger on the delete button. At the last minute, I decided not to. Although I will always remember him now as a murderer and not the great wrestler he was, I still have a hard time completely erasing his career from my memory. This got me thinking about how many wrestlers I used to watch are dead now. Here are my top 5 wrestlers who are deceased that I wish were still alive today, not necessarily wrestling, but just hanging around and at least making appearances.
#5 - Davey Boy Smith - One half of the great 80s tag team, The British Bulldogs. He was a great wrestler who wrestled almost to the end. He died in 2002 at the age of 39, in what authorities say was probably at least partially due to steroid abuse.
#4 - Curt Henning - Mr Perfect was one of the greatest technical wrestlers I had ever seen. He died in 2003 at the age of 44 from a cocaine overdose although his father blames steroids.
#3 - Owen Hart - Brother to the great Bret Hart. A superb wrestler who also appeared to be a great all around guy. He died in 1999 when a stunt went wrong at a match and he fell from the rafters of an arena to the ring while everyone was watching.
#2 - Eddie Guerrero - I already did a post on him when he died in 2005. I can't believe it has almost been 2 years now. He entertained me more than almost any wrestler I had ever seen and the skill and athleticism he had was unbelievable. He died of heart failure most likely due to past substance abuse problems, although he was known to be clean the few years before his death.
#1 - Andre the Giant - The Eighth Wonder of The World. He was awesome. He didn't do much, but what a character. Don't believe me, just watch his role of Fezzik in the Princess Bride. Unfortunately, his size is what ultimately killed him as he had an excessive growth hormone that led to his congestive heart failure. Andre you are still missed 14 years later...
4 comments:
Andre the Giant was awesome. Princess Bride is one of my favorie movies.
All sad deaths and like the post earlier and what Jess said too, I'm sorry that I felt bad for Benoit. Dying because of complications from steroid use is completely different than the killing of innocent human beings, especially a child-let alone your own child.
Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies too - in part, because of Andre. He was a great human being!
The Benoit story just keeps growing more disturbing. We sort of feel like we know these people because we see them so often, but they have secrets that we can never guess.
I am in the mind that believes wrestlers, like other entertainers and athletes, have a hard time separating the character from themselves. The Benoit thing is getting too disturbing at this point.
If you saw the beginning of ECW last night, even the business is trying to distance itself.
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