Balistik Blabber #1

Good day and welcome to “Balistik Blabber”, my little corner of wrestling opinions, suggestions and wishes. Today I’ll be talking about something serious… it’s about the anti-wrestling movement… specifically, a book that recently came out with a very, VERY long title… behold:

“Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit and the Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry”

This book contains a gold mine of scandals within the wrestling business, including the following which I found and edited from “The Score Boards Sports Forum” due to some very grisly detail. The complete and unedited list of items can be found in this link:

WARNING! This list contains very crude content! Read at your own risk! Parental guidance is strongly urged.

1. What life really was like at the New Japan dojo during the company's peak, including countless stories of outrageous hazing, violence, psychological and sexual torture.

2. The behind-the-scenes story on Kensuke Sasaki beating New Japan trainee Hiromitsu Gompei to death.

3. The most coherent and well-sourced profile of Antonio Inoki (a Japanese wrestler who Hulk Hogan once KO’d in the ring with the “Axe Bomber” stiff lariat) being a somewhat crazy and gullible person, being fooled to believe in the existence of treasure so much he almost hired a search crew for it.

4. An account of Riki Choshu & Masa Saito being completely rude and brutal including a situation where Masa Saito beat the stuffings out of Vader for trash talking with him… this led to Saito to knock Vader out for real in the middle of the ring and having the referee count Vader out…

5. Stories about Benoit being very violent towards new trainees and Jushin Liger randomly punching rookies in the face for the heck of it.

6. The most in-depth, grisly, unbelievable behind-the-scenes expose of the role of the Yakuza in Japanese pro wrestling and countless stories about them including the FMW disaster.

1. Paul Heyman talks about his drug use…

2. The greatest catalogue ever of ECW/WCW backstage debauchery, including new Hall and Nash stories. Includes information on how many drugs and groupies were being abused and how absolutely insane everyone went.

3. The REAL story of the Kevin Sullivan versus Radicalz situation.

4. A previously unpublished story about how Bischoff started Nitro to avenge himself on a rib played against him by an unnamed, anonymous devilish promoter.

5. The bar-none most uncensored look at modern-day Vince McMahon, his outlandish behavior, and his bizarre relationship with Stephanie.

6. The first behind-the-scenes, uncensored, completely honest look at what it's like on the WWE Creative Team, including interviews from a half dozen former writers on the record including Heyman.

7. That longtime WWE Head Writer Dave Lagana fired in early 2008 for repeatedly extorting sexual favors out of the wrestlers, male and female alike, with the alleged knowledge of WWE management -- a scandal that has been successfully kept from the press until now.

8. That Vince McMahon recently fired a heavily injured wrestler for seeking medical help -- calling him a "*****" who wasn't worthy of being a WWE wrestler and creating a neurotic fear of rehabilitating injuries within the WWE roster.

9. Some great McMahon family stories, including the account of writer Dan Madigan driving in the McMahon limo… apparently, he watched Vince very gently cradle and snuggle Stephanie to sleep in his arms, then fall asleep himself snoring… it’s not over ‘coz he suddenly catches HHH looking at them drool unto each other and snore into each other's faces with a mixture of utter repulsion and spectacular triumph.

10. That multiple sources claim Dean Malenko was allegedly Eddie's drug hookup?

1. An entire chapter delving into the life of Kevin Sullivan (Benoit’s WCW “rival”), including his many secrets… how he used Nancy to get booking power… eyewitness stories of his drug abuse debauchery… how he beat Nancy, and how he convinced Nancy to pretend to cheat on him for the show… and then beat her until she finally decided to actually cheat on him for real.

2. Publisher PR. "Despite regularly passing "comprehensive" World Wrestling Entertainment drug tests, Chris Benoit's psychological meltdown was partially caused by an enormous drug habit that he maintained for the majority of his WWE tenure. On a daily basis, Benoit haphazardly mixed huge dosages of amphetamines, steroids, painkillers, psychiatric drugs, and alcohol -- with catastrophic effect on his psyche."

3. PR: "Chris Benoit had displayed dangerously violent and sadistic behavior as early as 1987, and over the next twenty years he was involved in countless incidents of cruelty and extreme hazing of younger wrestlers."

4. Sullivan booking era, "In 2000, Chris Benoit threatened his bosses in Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling with the promise that he would mutilate himself on live television if he was forced to go through a storyline he didn't like."

5. The gritty details about Benoit being a drug addicted lunatic...

6. Probably the only honest psychological profile of Benoit published, speaking in detail just how much of a selfish, misguided, utterly cruel and ridiculous man he always was and how his choice of lifestyle indicted him from the beginning.

Like a lot of things, we will never be sure if these allegations are true. It clearly says that interviews were conducted including “FORMER” employees of the biggest wrestling companies then and now… doesn’t that mean “DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEES”… the kind of people who would do anything to get back at their former bosses for kicking them out? How reliable is that kind of data? Nowadays, people blog about something and people may very well accept it as fact without even checking… like Wikipedia.

What is it with these guys who continually try to make wrestling look so bad? I know they may be doing this for the sake of children who don’t know the difference between real and fiction but this is getting ridiculous! I mean this guy actually made a book to reveal these things about these people whom he has nothing to do with and to a guy whose reputation has already been tarnished enough! The author of the book is a TRUE CRIME writer… why would he touch on a topic that has little to almost no connection to his field of work? No, don’t tell me about the time Sabu and RVD got caught with drugs… or when Hulk Hogan’s son getting into that car accident… or the time Ric Flair got arrested for getting into a car accident… or when Psicosis punched and stole his friend’s car… or even about the infamous Brody murder… these were rare and unfortunate occurrences. There are still over 10,000 other amateur and professional wrestlers who are alive, healthy and living a clean life. I smell something fishy and it most certainly isn’t my dinner (I’m having pork chops!)!

It is my opinion that the writer did this solely for the money. I mean, come on! There are tons of other worse things to write a book about…graft, corruption, the so-called war on terror… why couldn’t he just write about those instead? Why did he went out of his way to find people and ask them about the wrestling industry? To put what I’m trying to say bluntly: IT WAS NONE OF HIS BUSINESS! Oh wait, I hear some defenses…

“He’s only concerned about the welfare of other wrestlers struggling in the business”

I only see a guy trying to get money off a tragedy.

“But he’s a legal consultant that manages Hurricane Katrina rehabilitation”

So he helps people… There! You see? Why doesn’t he write something about the government instead since a lot of analysts say it was the government that screwed that one up!

“You’re just a whacked up wrestling fanboy! Shut the hell up!”

Why, yes I am! But you don’t see me stepping on other people after they’ve been humiliated do you?

Listen, I don’t want to drag you further into my rant. I won’t tell you to side with me but one things certain: the publication of this book may raise more awareness for the welfare of all the people involved in the wrestling industry but underneath all that good, all it has done is to make wrestling look bad and has undoubtedly brought more shame to what’s left of the reputation of the man named Christopher Michael Benoit... You can call me a Benoit fanboy all you want but I still hope that one day the investigators will admit they got it wrong… or maybe somebody told them to fake the evidence… that maybe he didn’t do that to his family…

Why did Mr. Matthew Randazzo V (there, that’s his name… if you agree with me and want to contact him in some manner, there’s his name) have to do that to make his point? Why couldn’t he just lay off guy even if he really was a jerk to others? Benoit has lost everything… he hit the bottom of the pit… this book throws garbage into that pit… it is uncalled for and just plain unnecessary.