WRESTLING BABYLON News

The coroner has ruled that former wrestler Brian Adams’ death August 13 was an overdose. See http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=20843.

[cross-posted to the CHRIS AND NANCY Blog, http://benoitbook.blogspot.com]

(Have tips for author Irvin Muchnick on the Chris Benoit story or any other aspect of pro wrestling behind the scenes? Send them to tips@muchnick.net.)

As work proceeds on my book next year about the Benoit murder-suicide, this blog will periodically share preliminary reporting on selected topics. Today’s topic: the mystery of Daniel Benoit’s Fragile X Syndrome.

In the days after Chris Benoit strangled his wife Nancy and their 7-year-old son Daniel, and hung himself, a report surfaced that Daniel had Fragile X. This is a family of genetic conditions, which include both the most common cause of inherited mental impairment and the most common known cause of autism. (Fragile X also has other, physical manifestations, which differ between males and females. For complete information, see the website of the National Fragile X Foundation, http://fragilex.org.)

The report originated at a Vancouver radio station, after which it was aggressively promoted by World Wrestling Entertainment as a global explanation of the Benoit tragedy. This seemed plausible in part because initial reports from the crime scene included the detail that Daniel had needle marks on his arm, perhaps from injections of human growth hormone. (And perhaps this was Chris’s response, rational or not, medically authorized or otherwise, to his son’s physical problems and smallish size.)

But the suggestion that Daniel had Fragile X was quickly denied by the Fayette County district attorney, by Daniel’s kindergarten teachers, and by his maternal grandparents. The British Columbia woman who was the root source of the report then clarified that her knowledge of Daniel’s condition came second-hand, from a conversation her late husband had told her he’d had with Chris Benoit.

And there things stand – like many other aspects of this story, tantalizing and without closure. There are three subsets of the Fragile X angle:

(1) Did Daniel Benoit, in fact, have the condition?

(2) What do we know about World Wrestling Entertainment’s role in spreading this story?

(3) How do conclusions about Fragile X impact the bottom line on the murder-suicide?

No. 1: Daniel Benoit Almost Certainly Had Fragile X

I spoke with Robert Miller, executive director of the National Fragile X Foundation, and Arlene Cohen of the foundation board.

The foundation had issued a statement in the midst of the June media frenzy; that no longer appears to be up at the website. Miller has written a takeout on the Benoit story for the foundation’s quarterly publication, the full text of which can be viewed at http://muchnick.net/FragileX.pdf. Here’s the money passage: “[W]e never imagined the kind of awareness that came with the recent tragedy involving wrestler Chris Benoit and his wife and son. Like it or not, though, awareness is what we got. Gobs of it. As in 30,000 visitors to our website in three days. (A number typical for an entire month!) People tripping all over each other to report on the role that fragile X syndrome played in this terrible murder-suicide. Unfortunately, in most instances, they got it wrong. Once the first wave of sensational media accounts had passed, no reporter could find any evidence that Chris Benoit killed his wife and son and then himself because his son had fragile X syndrome.”

Neither Miller nor Cohen had special insider information on the truth of the report. Cohen agreed with me that it would be wildly unlikely for the source, Pam Winthrope – like Cohen, a parent of a child with Fragile X and an activist for research and awareness (in Winthrope’s case, with the B.C. chapter of the Fragile X Research Foundation of Canada) – to have fabricated such a thing.

Beyond that – and beyond understandably impressionistic anecdotal observations of people like Chris Jericho and Superstar Billy Graham after the fact – there are other elements pointing toward a “yes.” These include some medical history on Nancy Benoit’s side of the family suggesting a related genetic syndrome; the general hyper-privacy of many Fragile X families; and the specific, extremely close-mouthed, nature of Chris Benoit himself.

In my opinion, we eventually will see confirmation of Daniel’s Fragile X. Even if the condition was not reported to his school by the family or noticed by his teachers (which itself seems questionable), there is multi-front litigation pending, with means of discovery not yet tapped.

No. 2: The Fragile X Story Itself Was Spontaneous, Not Planted, Though WWE Did Opportunistically Exploit It

I exchanged email with Jacquie Donaldson, program/news director of News1130 in Vancouver, and with Pam Winthrope.

Though I draw no conclusions from this, Donaldson was not helpful. In response to my request for a transcript or audio copy of the station’s report, Donaldson said she could not provide one. She said she was forwarding my questions to the reporter on the story (whom she would not name), but the reporter has not returned the messages. But perhaps the News1130 people are just embarrassed by their role in this affair. Without hearing the report, let me add that I don’t think they need be, as it contributed, however confusingly, to the overall Benoit conversation.

In Winthrope’s email to me, she essentially recapitulated what she had told News1130, and added her frustration – which of course many of us can relate to – about how it got distorted through the prism of the media frenzy. Winthrope said her knowledge of Daniel’s Fragile X came from her late husband’s very brief contact with Chris about five years ago. Winthrope’s husband had heard about Daniel in the Fragile X community (Pam Winthrope did not know from whom specifically), and she and he thought that if Chris were willing to become a spokesperson he could raise consciousness for the cause, especially in Canada. According to Pam Winthrope, her husband tracked down Chris, talked to him for five minutes, and learned that Chris was not interested in a public role.

Pam disclosed a little more to me, but not much, and she has not as yet responded to my request to quote her verbatim. Nor has she responded to my request to clarify how the News1130 report came to be – whether it was she who approached the station or whether the reporter, based on independent information, approached her. That said, nothing in her words or tone supports speculation that WWE put her up to telling the world about Daniel’s condition in the aftermath of the murder-suicide. She said that to this day she is unsure if WWE knew of it or was simply using it, based on the same sketchy information everyone else had, as something to hide behind.

Thus, my conclusion that the Fragile X angle got out there on its own but that WWE exploited it shamelessly – and characteristically. Only recently did I catch up with CEO Linda McMahon’s June 28 interview on “Good Morning America” (video of which can still be accessed at the ABC News website), and I was struck by her lack of equivocation about Fragile X in her sound bites and her obviously calculated touting of it as a tidy single-bullet explanation for Chris Benoit’s rampage. That was really irresponsible.

I also confess to having been overly invested myself in the Fragile X explanation. In my June 27 appearance on Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor,” I found myself accused – as I haven’t been before or since – of being a WWE apologist when I raised the Fragile X possibility. Granted, I was up against Bill O’Reilly, an insufferable hot-air balloon berating my refusal to cooperate with his preconceived and uninformed “agenda.” But in light of Linda McMahon’s GMA shot the next day, and other evidence of WWE’s ham-handed crisis-management propaganda, I have to admit O’Reilly and other cable news observers had a point in asserting that Fragile X was classic McMahonesque diversion from the real story. (The O’Reilly clip can be viewed at http://wrestlingbabylon.com.)

No. 3: Parental Stress Over Fragile X Was, at Most, a Contributing Factor in the Crimes

All of which is to say that an argument between Chris and Nancy Benoit over their son’s care was probably part of the mix. Steroid abuse, other drug abuse, brain damage from concussion syndrome, professional stress, personal stress, Chris’s unique and tightly wound personality – all undoubtedly contributed, in measures we’ll never adequately quantify, to this sad and perfect storm.

IRVIN MUCHNICK

September 28, 2007

BENOIT: Wrestling with the Horror That Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport (ECW Press), by Steven Johnson, Heath McCoy, Irvin Muchnick, and Greg Oliver, will be in bookstores shortly.

BENOIT: Wrestling with the Horror That Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport, by Steven Johnson, Heath McCoy, Irvin Muchnick, and Greg Oliver, has shipped from the printer to Chicago-based IPG Books, the U.S. distributor for publisher ECW Press. The book should be widely available very soon.

Pre-orders of BENOIT already establish it as one of the 400 top-ranked sellers at Amazon Canada. Interest was fueled by a two-part interview with co-author Greg Oliver this week on the Canadian edition of Entertainment Tonight.

“Congressman demands action” (http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news;_ylt=Ar8rP5eMW.FuvH7u2gqqKRo5nYcB?slug=jo-rawdeal092507&prov=yhoo&type=lgns) is the headline over Josh Peter’s latest follow-up at Yahoo Sports to his report on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s “Operation Raw Deal,” the biggest steroid and human growth hormone bust ever.

The Congressman is Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia, ranking minority member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform — one of two committees probing drugs and death in pro wrestling.

DEA is developing a database of the customers of the more than 50 steroid manufacturers and distributors caught in this dragnet. Davis is advocating for those lists to be shared with sports leagues and cross-checked with their athlete rosters. Of course, this is a huge story beyond wrestling. But here’s why the timing of the latest development and the Congressional pressure for transparency at the user level could prove especially dangerous for World Wrestling Entertainment.

Of the 67 male wrestlers listed on the current WWE three brands, 12 were linked to the recent Signature Pharmacy investigation by the Albany, New York, district attorney’s office, points out Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Three major league baseball players were also on the list, along with one National Football League player (plus one assistant coach). But there are 700 current MLB players and 1,700 NFL players.
Meltzer’s take: “As soon as someone brings up baseball or the NFL and says [steroid abuse exists] in all sports, and wrestling is no different, the answer is yes and no. Yes, it does occur in all sports. Yet, NFL and MLB players are far higher profile, but … WWE wrestlers’ names keep coming up with more frequency.”

After the Signature Pharmacy names became public, WWE suspended many performers under its “Wellness Policy.” (Mysteriously, wrestler Randy Orton, who last year was suspended for failing a WWE drug test and who was revealed to have received Signature shipments as recently as February 2007, was not one of those in the latest round of suspensions.) And henceforth WWE has promised to begin naming wrestlers who violate the “Wellness Policy.”

Irvin Muchnick

[cross-posted to the CHRIS AND NANCY Blog, http://benoitbook.blogspot.com]

Entertainment Tonight Canada will interview Greg Oliver, co-author of BENOIT: Wrestling with the Horror that Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport, airing in two parts on Monday and Tuesday, September 24-25. The interview will focus on Oliver’s personal correspondence with Benoit. ET Canada is the sister show of U.S. newsmagazine program Entertainment Tonight. It airs every weekday and is broadcast nationally on Global TV

Live Audio Wrestling (Fight Network Radio) will interview Heath McCoy, another co-author of Benoit: Wrestling with the Horror that Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport. The interview will be heard on Sunday, September 30 at 12.30 a.m. Eastern time. LAW is a syndicated radio program that is broadcast on Sirius Satellite Radio (channel 186), CFRB 1010 – Toronto, The Team 1200 - Ottawa, The Team 1040 – Vancouver, The Team 1260 - Edmonton, The Fan 960 - Calgary, and CJOB 68 - Winnipeg.

BENOIT: Wrestling with the Horror that Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport (ECW Press) is co-authored by Greg Oliver, Heath McCoy, Steven Johnson, and Irvin Muchnick.

Much of the reaction to the report here of Randy Orton’s rumored suicide attempt in the spring of 2006 looks through the wrong end of the lens. This is typical of a mentality holding that the paramount value is to protect the business. In reality, such a stance is destroying the pro wrestling business.

And it’s doubly ironic because if the story is proven true – as I’m confident it will be – and proceeds to reach a certain threshold of public awareness, Orton’s bosses at World Wrestling Entertainment will have no qualms about incorporating it into a new storyline. (As I post this, Teddy Long is “semi-comatose” from a Viagra reaction.) They won’t miss a beat, and the fans will buy tickets and pay-per-views on the basis of a fiction loosely based on a fact.

And wrestling fans wonder why they have a lousy reputation?

An Internet columnist by the name of John Meehan criticized my report at http://www.411mania.com/wrestling/columns/60170/The-MeeThinks-Friday-FreeThinks:-09.21.07.htm. Great. Lively dialogue makes the world go ’round. Unfortunately, Meehan’s gripes ranged from half-legit to delusional, as I pointed out to him in a September 21 email. The text is below; I’ve not heard back.

For an example of a much more sensible reaction to the Orton story, you can turn to a blog of his fans called “RKO Rules.” See the post and discussion board at http://community.livejournal.com/pieces_of_randy/37697.html. Imagine that: people who actually express concern about Randy Orton’s health and life, rather than knee-jerk denial of unpleasant news and fear of his being wiped off their TV screens and fantasy worlds.

***************

Mr. Meehan:

Thanks for covering the Randy Orton suicide attempt story on my blog. You quoted in full the original item (http://muchnick.net/babylon/2007/09/18/did-randy-orton-attempt-suicide/). I suggest that your readers also be pointed to the follow-up item (http://muchnick.net/babylon/2007/09/19/orton-further-notes/).

1. You and I disagree over what is “a major detail.” As browsers of my blog can see, I immediately corrected the error about the Legend Killer gimmick, which did indeed precede Eddie Guerrero’s death (though, for defenders of WWE’s taste, I must say that the correction might be worse than the disease). I also immediately — as in minutes — corrected Congressman Tom Davis’s state in my column for BeyondChron; that kind of copyedit touch-up happens all the time between editions of a newspaper. Which shows better faith: my lack of defensiveness about these very minor errors, or your need to hype them as “major” without even referencing the quick, voluntary corrections?

2. Why you represent that I claimed “that Randy Orton was ‘downgraded for a few weeks in TV storylines’” is simply mystifying. Please read the following consecutive sentences, as quoted in your own item: “Some vague number of the miscreant wrestlers, not named, were ’suspended,’ but the suspension appears to have consisted of simply being downgraded for a few weeks in TV storylines. From the same evidence, Randy Orton was not touched at all.” One universally accepted fact is that Randy Orton was not in this current round of suspensions. Your reading of my written words is much sloppier than those very words.

3. Unquestionably, Kennedy et al. were kicked off TV for a while, and that was most inconvenient for them and for WWE’s creative team. I also understand that some, most, or all of them are being rushed back in 20-odd days, which makes for a strange 30-day suspension. And in any case, aren’t suspensions, by definition, “on-air downgrades”? Where’s the “major hole” promised by the intro to your bullet points?

4. You seem to be saying that if Randy Orton did not attempt suicide between September 2006 and September 2007, but did attempt suicide between March or April of 2006 and September 2006, then a report of such an incident “within the last year” (quickly amended to a more accurate time frame) is utterly invalidated. I think your priorities are trivial, and I think most reasonable readers would feel the same

5. I don’t think you’re saying that I had no right to include those details of Orton’s private life (which were culled, by the way, from a joint interview he and his fiancee did this spring in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). Still, when a writer has to explain too much, he’s probably composed a passage too cryptic for comfort. I therefore accept your criticism on this one. I thought the information in that paragraph was interesting, but the item could have done without it and probably would have been better received without it.

Irv Muchnick

“Over the last ten years, an inordinate number of wrestlers have passed away. Some of those deaths may in part have been caused by drugs or alcohol.”

So begins a letter just sent to all former World Wrestling Entertainment performers by WWE chair Vince McMahon. In the letter, WWE goes on to offer to pay in full for any substance-abuse treatment their former wrestlers might need.

The full text of the letter can be viewed at this link at the newsletter Pro Wrestling Torch: http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/WWE_News_3/article_22905.shtml.

McMahon makes no mention of investigations of the wrestling industry by two different committees of the House of Representatives. But the link between the drug-treatment offer and the Congressional probes is obvious. The standard WWE line had been that only five wrestlers — most recently Chris Benoit, who murdered his wife and son and killed himself in June — died on the company’s watch. This letter moves WWE toward accepting greater responsibility for the problem of drug abuse and death in an industry that it dominates.
This is an important positive development. By themselves, however, the steps taken in the McMahon letter seem unlikely to quell the call for Congressional hearings. One subject not yet scrutinized in depth is the efficacy and credibility of WWE’s Talent Wellness Program. Another is whether the physical and mental demands made of wrestlers by WWE and other promotions create or worsen their drug problems.

See http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5909.html.

Irvin Muchnick — author of WRESTLING BABYLON and co-author of the soon-to-be-released BENOIT: Wrestling with the Horror That Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport — is the guest today (Wednesday, September 19) on the Internet interview show “Figure Four Daily,” hosted by Bryan Alvarez.

Topics are Muchnick’s books and his reports on this blog yesterday about a suicide attempt last year by Randy Orton.

The interview can be accessed by Figure Four Weekly subscribers at http://www.f4wonline.com/.

Brian Stull invited me onto his “Stranglehold” show Tuesday night on KFNS radio in St. Louis to discuss the blog report on Randy Orton’s rumored suicide attempt.

Off the air, Stull had spoken with Cowboy Bob Orton, Randy’s father. Bob Orton told Stull the report was false. Bob Orton also said he had spoken with his son, and Randy said he had no idea where this rumor started.

I have little doubt that the story is substantially true, though the time frame of my original blog item (http://muchnick.net/babylon/2007/09/18/did-randy-orton-attempt-suicide/) was mistaken. The Randy Orton incident, whatever it was, occurred in the spring of 2006, shortly after he was suspended by World Wrestling Entertainment for “unprofessional conduct,” and a few months before he was suspended a second time, in August of last year, for failing a drug test.

I compared notes on this with another journalist, who not only has unimpeachable credentials but also had looked into the same story last year on the basis of a tip from a completely different direction. Independently, we each had the name of the St. Louis area hospital where Orton was said to have been taken (and, no, it’s not some generic name like “St. Louis Hospital”).

Likeliest explanation: Randy was depressed and OD’d on something.

The Orton camp’s contention that there is neither smoke nor fire here is, sadly, not the case. Indeed, WWE’s vice president of talent relations (now senior vice president) John Laurinaitis was concerned enough about the rumor last year to investigate it himself. Laurinaitis talked to Randy and others, and concluded that there had not been a suicide attempt. I would say that such a finding is hardly dispositive, given the company’s nonexistent reservoir of credibility these days.

Like his many fans, I hope Randy Orton will be OK. If he is relying solely or largely on the WWE wellness policy to regulate his drug use and mental hygiene, however, I am not confident on that score.

Suicide attempt or not — and I stand by the report that there was one in the spring of 2006 — WWE needs to explain why Randy Orton was not suspended for 60 days upon exposure of his role in the recent Signature Pharmacy dragnet. The explanation that Orton’s August 2006 suspension already covered this wellness policy violation does not wash, since the evidence shows that he continued to receive Signature shipments as late as February 2007.

Are these questions impertinent three months after the Chris Benoit horror?

Or would a fair-minded observer agree that they are newly urgent?

Irvin Muchnick