I remember tuning into Monday Night Raw, WWE's flagship show, on June 25th 2007 to find it was a tribute show to WWE superstar Chris Benoit who had been found dead earlier that day along with his wife and young son. My blood turned cold and my skin broke out in goosebumps. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and quickly logged onto the internet to validate that this was real and not some twisted storyline (up until their recent change to a more PG rated product there was very little off limits in terms of WWE storylines including such topics as necrophilia, gay rape, wrestlers being covered in excrement and, ironically, the week previous to June 25th's episode the murder of WWE chairman Vince McMahon). Unfortunately, this was no storyline.
It's unfortunate that in my tenure as a wrestling fan that a whole bunch of my favorite wrestlers have died while still young including such greats as David Smith aka 'The British Bulldog', Curt Hennig aka 'Mr Perfect' and more recently Eddie Guerrero. What's even more unfortunate is that the passing of these lives occurred without much scrutiny from the media in general. All that changed with the Benoit tragedy.
If you're not familiar with Chris Benoit, or somehow missed the media explosion following the murder-suicide, he was regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of his era. He was a former WWE champion and looked upon as being a role model to fans and younger wrestlers learning their craft. Outside the squared circle he was known as a very humble and reserved man who always found time to pose for pictures, and sign autographs, for his fans. 'Chris & Nancy' looks at the reasons as to why Benoit snapped and committed such atrocities and the subsequent investigation into the murder-suicide along with the role the WWE played in distancing themselves from the scandal.
I found this a very difficult book to read due to the fact I was a big Chris Benoit fan and knowing what he done to his wife and child sickens me to my stomach. However, such crimes are not committed on a whim and I wanted to know more about the timeline of events and what might have led to such a tragedy. This book was the perfect source for such information.
The book itself is split into fourteen chapters each dealing with a particular topic related to the events that unfolded on that fateful weekend in June. Each chapter relays the officially stated facts pertaining to the particular topic it is dealing with and Muchnick's investigation into those facts. It soon becomes apparent that those "facts" are sometimes nothing of the sort and he exposes such things as inconsistencies in the police reports, information that was overlooked and a possible WWE cover up of the timeline to limit damage to their public image.
The investigation by Mr Muchnick is very much a thorough one although I felt some information would have been better left out of the book. For instance, Chris Benoit was rumored to be having an affair with a current WWE diva. Even though it might appear that this was true, and may have led to further instability in Benoit's already unstable marriage, there wasn't enough evidence to support this theory as concrete fact. Yes, the diva's phone number might well have appeared on Benoit's cell records but that doesn't necessarily mean they were having an affair. Although intriguing I also felt that the chapter on the Wikipedia hacker was more filler than it was anything substantial in relation to the investigation.
As for the rest of the book it was very well thought out and evidence was presented, as required, in relation to the case that Muchnick built throughout the text. Ultimately, the reader is left with many unanswered questions that we will never know the answers to due to the case being closed and many people involved refusing to speak further about the incident. One of those bigger unanswered questions, in my opinion, was why WWE wrestler Dave Taylor was at the scene of the crime but later denied being there at all? However, Muchnick does make it clear that multiple explanations are the likely cause of Benoit snapping including prolonged use of performance enhancing drugs (which WWE knew about but chose to look the other way), depression and trauma inflicted upon the brain. The biggest unanswered question though is how Mr McMahon sleeps comfortably of a night knowing the role that his company has played in the deaths of many its performers as well as Chris Benoit and his family?
Normally I give ratings to books but given the subject matter I don't think it would be appropriate to rate this book. What I will do though is recommend this book if you are interested in finding out more about what took place, the attitude of the WWE to what happened and the reasons as to why the murder-suicide occurred as you will find 'Chris & Nancy' be the definitive source on the subject matter.