"...I had a dream last night
Of rust, and far below me
Battered hulls and broken heart ships
Leviathan and lonely"
- Josh Ritter "Change the Times"
On all the professional wrestling sites there are many columns talking about all the past Wrestlemanias and how much they meant to the authors. There are numerous rankings of worst show to best, worst match to best, greatest moments, goofiest moments, etc. One that crops up time and again despite the tragedy that came after is the main event and aftermath of Wrestlemania XX from Madison Square Gardens in New York City. In that final moment, Chris Benoit won the World Heavyweight Championship from Triple H and then celebrated his victory with his best friend and also a recent championship winner Eddie Guerrero. The crowd gave a standing ovation for damn near twenty minutes as confetti covered the ring and audience. The two best friends embraced and posed with their belts and cried and celebrated finally making it to the top of their careers.
I started watching Benoit and Guerrero in WCW in 1996. Benoit was in the middle of a feud with Kevin Sullivan over a storyline affair Benoit was having with Sullivan's real life wife Nancy. Real life mirrored fiction and Nancy and Benoit ended up having a real affair that eventually lead to her divorce from Kevin and marriage to Benoit.
There was something real about Benoit then that struck me early on. His intensity seemed real, his moves and skill set in the ring seemed like he was legitimately competing against his wrestling opponents. He was straight forward and simple, both in good ways. He didn't have the height or charisma as his more successful peers did, but he was beloved by fans because of his realness.
Guerrero, I can't well remember what he was involved in when I started watching him. I remember respecting him for his wrestling ability for sure, but laughing at his creepy mustache and curly mullet. When he turned heel (bad guy) he was easily hateable, but I soon realized how much I liked that aspect of his character because of how much fun he seemed to have doing it.
I followed Benoit through many feuds I count amongst my favorite in wrestling: with, Kevin Sullivan and their brutal matches, with Raven and Diamond Dallad Page, his best of seven series with Booker T, the three way tag feud with he and Dean Malenko against Raven and Saturn and Rey Mysterio Jr. and Billy Kidman, his matches with Bret Hart, into WWE feuding with Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle, the Rock, Guerrero, teaming with Jericho against Steve Austin and Triple H, then the legendary Smackdown Six feud teaming with Angle against Rey and Edge and Eddie and his nephew Chavo, his big Mania win, then feuds with Orton and MVP.
Eddie went through the motions pretty much in WCW, rarely seeming happy. He had one of if not the best WCW match ever with Rey at Halloween Havoc 1997 (I think). He went on to form the lWo (Latino World Order) as a protest against unfair treatment of the Latino workers in WCW (half real, half storyline), and had more good matches in WCW but few memorable feuds. In WWE he became a popular duo with Chyna as Latino Heat before his drug and alcohol usage got him fired there. He cleaned up and rebuilt his reputation on the indie scene in an attempt to return to WWE. He succeeded and began feuding with Rob Van Dam, and then Benoit. Fan reaction was good and getting better as he turned into a likeable heel who fans loved cheering because of his cheating tendencies. He was part of the Smackdown Six feud and eventually turned face to begin his rise to the top. At No Way Out one month before Mania XX he defeated Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship and went on to feud with Angle over the belt. In his prime in WWE, Eddie was considered one of the most popular wrestlers there, often getting bigger pops and heat than stars like John Cena.
For both, Wrestlemania XX and that moment at the end represented a realization of their respective dreams. Both ended the show as champions after being told for years they were too small or uncharismatic or weak on promo skills. Winning a championship in wrestling might not be from a competitive aspect like sports, but it's still a competitive victory and means the company thinks you are someone who can lead them as the on air representative, and top moneymaker for a near billion dollar industry. Benoit and Guerrero achieved a rare pinnacle and rightly got to celebrate it with fans, friends, and family. It was one of the most amazing and memorable moments in wrestling.
And then it fell apart.
Eddie Guerrero died a year or so later from a massive heart attack due to pain killer addiction years previous. A year later Chris Benoit murdered his wife and child and then committed suicide. Eddie's death was a sad blow for someone so beloved and respected, and for someone who tried so hard to face his demons and win back his family and professional reputation. Benoit's death was a betrayal and the realization of the darkness and heartbreak inherent in the pro wrestling culture.
I haven't watched the Wrestlemania XX match since the night of his death, hours after learning about it and minutes before finding out it was his fault. In fact I haven't watched any Benoit match since then. I have seen numerous Eddie matches, but still with the same melancholy each time. Benoit had many things wrong against him during his final days: drugs, alcohol, deaths of so many friends, pain, injuries, and apparently a brain the condition of that of an 80-year old man in severe dementia. I blame him, and I don't blame him. I blame wrestling and I don't blame wrestling. I blame Vince McMahon, and I don't blame Vince McMahon. I blame myself, and I don't blame myself.
I don't know how I would feel watching what I use to consider to be an inspiring, unbelievable moment. It's hard even thinking about the meaning behind it then with the layers of pain residing on it now. I wish those two, two of my favorites, had traveled different paths and none of the suffering ever happened. But it did, and it gave professional wrestling a heightened sense of realism belittled by it's fictional television universe, and the reaction of non-fans to its insanity. "Rowdy" Roddy Piper once famously said, "Just when you think you have all the answers, I change the questions." That about sums up professional wrestling to me, and why I love and hate it so much.
