June 2007 - What did you think?

[RealMattKozza91]

June 2007 for the WWE was probably and/or arguably the most memorable month in its history.....

The Vince McMahon storyline was in my opinion one of the worst in recent memory, We have no idea where they could have gone with it if the other June 2007 incident did not occur...

I remember watching Vengeance: Night of Champions on PPV and back in 2007 i wasn't much of a internet fan, i liked to have things as surprises and what not but going into the PPV i didnt know about Chris Benoit not being in Texas for the PPV... As the ECW Championship match was on Joey Styles and Tazz were talking about Chris Benoit not making it to the PPV, i believe the reason they stated was for family reasons... As the PPV went off the air i decided to check the net out for news on Benoit and found some stuff and then when i saw the news on TV about What benoit done it all added up and made obvious sense, now before this point i was not a fan of the McMahon storyline and i knew from this point they were gonna ditch the storyline cause of the real life incident with Benoit.....This changed wrestling for the rest of our lives, Im not going to go into full detail but Benoit doesnt do what he done, wrestling wil be 100% different today, mainly still WWE TV14, But it is what it is and cant believe it has been almost 3 years to the day....

My question is, Where were you when you heard the news about benoit?? What was your first thoughts when Benoit missed the PPV?? What were your thoughts on the McMahon storyline??

In what ways would WWE or even wrestling for that matter be different today if Benoit didnt do what he done?? Where would this storyline have taken us?? so many questions to be asked..

To me this month, June 2007 was the most memorable month in history, for all the wrong reasons.....

[Deleted]

Main thing for me being that I remember thinking the whole subbing in Nitro for Benoit was a great twist and I wanted to see what they'd do with it.

[WWE Trademarked My Name]

I didn't think much about Benoit not making it to Vengeance. I thought maybe it was a storyline to reserve the dream match of Punk/Benoit for Summerslam. Then Nitro won and I checked the internet to find out Benoit had family issues. Again, I didn't really think anything of it, just hoped everything was alright and he'd be back in no time.

Then the next morning, I was on these boards pretty much until a couple hours before Raw, not really a whole lot of talk about Benoit I'm guessing until literally just moments after I got off. So I went into Raw and was actually really excited to see where the McMahon storyline was going. I actually loved the storyline and told a bunch of friends who didn't watch regularily in hopes of getting their interest. Then the "In Memory of Chris Benoit" graphic popped up. I can remember the exact thoughts going through my head. At first I was in absolute shock and confused. Then I tried forcing myself to think "It's all apart of the storyline, it's all apart of the storyline." Then we saw the empty arena and Vince McMahon sitting in the middle of the ring and my heart sank and my mind went on auto-pilot.

I ended up watching most of the tribute show before coming back to these boards to see what was going on, what had happened. The minute word broke out all signs were pointing to Benoit as the murderer, I turned the tribute off and just sat back to let it all sink in.

Of course, I was hoping against all hopes that there was a mistake and it'd all clear up in the morning but it was not to be. All sorts of thoughts ran through my head that night. I remember jumping the gun and just immediately thinking somehow Kevin Sullivan was involved and all sorts of crazy things, I just really didn't want it to be Benoit even though I knew it was a possibility deep down. Just a hard pill to swallow.

[Free Hat]

I didn't see the PPV and my computer was getting repaired or upgraded or something, so I didn't have access to the internet that whole weekend. I found out Benoit died when I watched the tribute show on Monday night. So yeah, I was pretty shocked.

[fw91]

I didn't watch vengeance, but I read Benoit had family problems thought nothing much of it Then the next day late afternoon /early evening, IK go on Wrestlezone and it says Chris benoit and family found dead. At first I didn't think Benoit did it. I thought it had to be a murder because of the "family problems". I thought Nancy was receiving threating phone calls, and called Chris to come home, and then the caller killed them all. I watched Raw. then I went back on here, and i saw that RD pulled the Benoit tribute photo on the front page. Then I realised something wasn't right. then after it I went back on wrestlezone and found out the facts. I couldn't believe it. I was still a lurker here at the time, and i remember the thread was locked so people can cool off.

[slickster]

The Benoit incident also led directly to the downfall of the ECW brand in part because WWE never put another main-event guy on the brand to take Benoit's place. Without an established WWE upper-card guy on it, fans never took the ECW brand seriously again.

[Nacho STAYS Hyped]

The month I became a wrestling fan, believe it or not.

[Jason]

I didn't think anythiing of the family problems. Just thought his son might have been sick or something. Then the next night, I remember hearing it on the radio over here on monday night, that Nancy Benoit died. And I was thinking "Damn, poor Chris.", my internet was down at this time since I moved house. So I was watching Raw and I saw "In memory of Chris Benoit", I was thinking "Oh my God..." I was thinking something really bad happened. I thought that Nancy called him home because she was held hostage or something. And when he got there, him and his family were killed.

It's pretty hard to imagine, to this day, I still can't believe he did it. When you look at a guy like him for so long on television, you just don't think "This guy is a murderer." He seemed like such a nice guy and I guess we'll never know how the whole thing went down.

[Tyfo]

I remember the day before Vengeance reading that Benoit had gone home because of a family emergency and it was unsure if he would make the PPV or not. Thought nothing of it really, just hoped things were OK and hoping he could get back in time for the show because I was really excited for his match with Punk.

Then the day of Vengeance I remember there being nothing really on if he was there or not. So once showtime came and he was replaced with Nitro, I just figured he was needed at home still and couldn't leave. Still didn't think a lot of it.

The next day, I recall being online in the afternoon, I had just read through some wrestling sites, there was nothing yet. I was also talking to someone on AIM at the same time. About 10 minutes later the person I was talking to said, did Chris Benoit die? Of course I thought they were talking about him missing the PPV and were just kind of saying it jokingly. So I said no, he had a family situation and had to miss the show last night. Right after typing that, I went over to wwe.com and they had just put the graphic up on the main page.

My thought process after reading that they found his whole family dead in their house was 2 things. Either 1) there was something like carbon monoxide poisoning or something to that effect and it killed them all in their sleep, or 2) Remembering it said that Benoit was called home due to a family emergency, I was thinking maybe someone had his wife and kid held hostage and he went back without telling anyone what was really happening and ended up getting killed along with his family.

Never did it cross my mind that what happened happened. The first time that thought entered my mind was when one of the news shows I was watching brought it up as a possible situation.

[barley96]

I came home somewhere in the beginning of RAW and turned on the tv. I saw John Cena talking about Chris Benoit. I was not much of an internet fan then, but I searched for news on Chris Benoit and found out that he died with his family. The thought of Benoit killing his family and himself crossed my mind, but I blocked it out because it was hard to believe that someone as loved as Benoit was, that he would do something like this.

[Alex Shelley]

I wasn't actively watching in 2007. I was working with an insurance company at the time and my work involved going online. I remember that every major website was flooded with news about Benoit. I pretty much ignored my work that morning and spent a long time reading about it. I honestly don't remember much more than that, about how I felt or anything. I just kind of went through the motions, trying to comprehend it.

[-Lithium-]

Though I wasn't happy with the way 2007 was going, I remember the couple RAWs before Vengeance being good. Especially the last RAW main event before the PPV, at least if I remember it right. I seem to recall Orton getting tagged in without Lashley seeing, and he rolls under the bottom rope, and RKOs Lashley for the win. Was good.

I think I remember just checking WWE.com, which is weird, cause I don't think I've ever found out any big news on that site, or any wrestling site other then WC. After reading it for a while, I kind of thought that maybe Nancy had killed Daniel, and Benoit killed her in anger, then killed herself. That would have gone along with the "Double Murder-Suicide" thing.

Then later I found out what actually happened. I remember my friend was over here, and once I told him what happened, and how Benoit hung himself, he made a joke (which I wrote here originally but didn't wanna leave in to the more serious nature of the thread). As messed up as it may sound, I did laugh. But that's cause that's how I usually am with bad things. Maybe its how I deal with it. I can feel empathy to a degree, and totally understand how bad things are, but news like school shooting or terrorist attacks or any tragedy never seem to bring me down.

I'll be honest, though, this was an instance that came really close. This was one of those things, kind of like Eddie, but in a much more intense way, would just hit me over and over and over. I'd not think about it for a while, or not think about it in detail for a while, but eventually I would be reminded about how bad it was and is. I just hope I or any wrestling fan has to ever go through anything like that again...

[jamielowndes {N}]

I was 17 at the time and part of an e-fed. I signed in on Monday morning, checking to see if they had put our show's results up, and they wrote a Benoit tribute at the start of it. And my heart just sank immediately. I hit wwe.com and there it was. Found dead. And then later in the day, all the tribute stories to Benoit were gone, all the wrestler reactions, gone. Just one story, "Confirmed murder-suicide".

[Bravo Echo November]

I just got back from a cruise on the night of Vengeance so I had no knowledge whatsoever of the events that happened prior to the PPV. I didn't even know what was going on at Vengeance (I was still coming off of my first wrestling hiatus). I went to work the next day, came home and turned on RAW and it was showing an old Benoit match against Dean Malenko.

I saw the graphic at the bottom-right of the screen that said "In memory of Chris, Nancy, and Daniel Benoit" and I thought at first it was just a storyline, like maybe someone fired him and was running a tribute to mock him or something. But then I log onto here and then it all made sense. My favorite wrestler, just passed away.

At first I thought it was Carbon Monoxide poisoning because I read earlier that Benoit called and said his family was coughing up blood. Or maybe they got into a car wreck going to the doctor. my head was spinning way too fast.

I then proceed to watch RAW with the WC forums, I'll never forget some of those posts when Eddie showed up in view of the camera at WrestleMania XX to celebrate with Benoit. I was bawling my eyes out and was just a mess.

I tried to look up the song they used for Benoit's tribute on Youtube and that was when I saw people posting things like he did it, or "don't support him he was a murderer!" I just dismissed as some jerks on Youtube just trying to be trolls but then I went to WWE.com and all that was there was:

"Authorities have confirmed that the cause of death was a murder suicide."

I went numb, then went to bed trying to talk myself out of believing that this could be possible. It was sadly.

Edit: Therefore June 2007 became the worst month to be a wrestling fan. Ever. It started a streak of horrible months for WWE programing that lasted all the way to October.

[notoriousjrh]

I didn't watch the show live. I was out bowling alone that night during the show's first hour (friend had challenged me one on one, so I was sharpening my game, if you will) and I came home to read about Nitro filling in for Benoit.

My first thought was "Benoit'll probably get him at Summerslam".

*chirp*

[bob]

the days thatVengence and the incident happened was one of the extremely rare days when I didn't visit this forum.........

I found out what happened when I turned on RAW and was extremely shocked

[MiLB Fan]

I remember checking PWInsider for Vengeance news and results, and there was a small note that Benoit missed the PPV because of a "family emergency." At that point I didn't think too much of it, other than, "Gee, hope everything's OK."

The next time I accessed the Internet was around 7:45 PM. As this was supposed to be the Mr. McMahon tribute show, I was all set to kick off my night of posting with a joke about which of these would dominate the show: Vengeance recaps or Mr. McMahon tribute segments. Since there was still some time before the show, I headed over to wwe.com. And that's when I saw this:

"Benoit Family Dead."

Now without reading the story (and remember that details were still sketchy at this point) I thought maybe there was a fire at the home, or a car accident, or even an intruder had broken into the home and killed them.

I immediately raced over here and of course, everything was pretty tense. My dad called me during the tribute show to ask me if I had heard about what happened, and that was when I learned that authorities were treating it as a murder-suicide.

[Nikki Heyman]

I remember watching Vengeance 07 and the announcers mentioning that Benoit had gone home on a family emergency. I thought to myself "it must be an emergency, Benoit doesn't miss a show for a good reason."

I didn't really buy into Nitro winning the match, but I can't say it was a bad match overall.

The following day it had been on my mind but figured that things should sort out. When I came home from work that day I hit the boards (not this one) and saw the headline "Benoit found dead".

At first (and because of the McMahon storyline) I thought Benoit's death was a work as well. This twisted thought of a murderer in the WWE fit in with other ridiculous storylines, perhaps leading to some enormous worked-shoot heel transofrmation for one of teh guys (Lashley was high on my list for this one, since he had legit military demolitions experience).

That made a lot more sense than what really happened. Shame, too; while the storyline may have ended up on the Gooker list, at least the end of that storyline would have the murder-ees (if that's a word) alive and well and victims of mistaken forensics or somesuch.

[Psychoblue]

It took me a few months to get it into my head, but I've since come to terms that Benoit did some very bad things. There are a lot of vendors at my local Indy fed who still refuse to believe what happened happened.

[texan]

I was actually at the Vengeance ppv that night and remember the loud "We Want Benoit" chant that started when it was announced to the audience he would not be there.

At some point the next day, I went to wwe.com to check out pics from the night before and the first thing I saw was the "Benoit Family Dead" graphic. It was one of the feelings where your stomach just sinks, and I don't get those often.