I've just finished directing the 11pm newscast. Since we have no one at our web desk, I went ahead and posted our top two local stories for the evening.
Actually, the heat was our top story, but that was already posted as part of our webcast.
Our next story was by Nancy Yamada. She followed up the murder-suicide story that has shocked many people, especially wrestling fans.
Nancy took a local angle and went to the Superior Pro Wrestling Training Centre in Hagerstown, MD. She interviewed up and coming wrestlers about the shocking events concerning one Chris Benoit of the World Wrestling Entertainment Company.
Obviously many of the people she interviewed were devastated about the whole affair. For the most part, professional wrestling is a light hearted form of entertainment and every once in awhile, something comes along to shock the fans back into reality. The death of the Benoit family was probably the biggest shockwave to hit professional wrestling since the death of Owen Hart back in 1999.
For myself, I feel sick about the whole thing. Early in my career, I did free-lance work for Jim Crockett promotions down in Florida. At the time, Jim Crockett Promotions was the "arch - rival" of Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation.
My main job was operating the instant replay machines. It was kind of cool to be in the truck and get to know all the tricks of the trade on how the pros keep the show on time and as scripted.
What was really cool was that after the show, many of the staff and wrestlers would meet at a local restaurant and bar and just socialize.
During one of those after job get togethers, I and a female friend of mine had the chance to sit and chat with some of the biggest wrestling stars of the day. In fact, people came up to my friend because she was sitting next to Ric Flair. They wanted my friend's autograph because they thought she was part of Ric's group. She told the fans she was strictly behind the scenes, but Ric was very good natured and was cutting up and convinced my friend to give out the autographs.
My friend was completely shocked at all this while Ric and his friends had a good laugh.
Another incident comes to mind when I was reporting for a sports station in Gainesville, Florida.
The main anchor and I were in Ocala, Florida covering a wrestling event because at the time, wrestling was big time in Ocala. You couldn't tell the fans that wrestling was fake because they would read you the riot act on how real it was.
After the matches, I interviewed two wrestlers, Jimmy Valiant and Kevin Sullivan. Jimmy had an act at the time where he called himself, "The boogie woogie man." When the camera was off, we had a great conversation. As soon as the red light on, it was amazing to see how fast he could slip into character.
Kevin Sullivan was the second person I interviewed. He was a very likeable gentleman, smart and intelligent. As soon as the camera came on, he slipped into his act, which at the time was that of a demonic worshiper or something of that nature. He was quite the actor...and it brings me full circle, as Kevin had a lady friend at his side, Nancy Elizabeth Daus. At the time, she was known as "Fallen Angel."
Now, she's known as the deceased, Mrs. Chris Benoit.
A sport that's been known to entertain fans and make them laugh has had its fair share of tragedy. Two adults and an innocent child are now dead for no good reason.
We may never know why this tragedy happened. To tell the truth, all I can think about is that a young boy with a bright future is now dead, a woman and her husband in their prime are gone.
Whatever stresses we may have in life, the last thing anyone should do is take them out on the ones we love. We all have the daily stress of life to deal with; we all have our own aches and pains.
I guess my parting thoughts in all this:
Join a gym, train for a marathon, whatever you do, take positive steps to deal with the challenges of life. Any loss of life, especially in this case is just tragic and heartbreaking...
