Reported by Hunter Golden of WrestleView.com
On Thursday, June 28, 2007 at 11:58 PM EST

What Exactly is a "Wrestling" Choke HOld? Part 1
By Hunter Golden, Wrestleview.com

Chris Benoit and his family are dead, but really, we’ve all lost our heads.

Mick Foley always said the real world was a lot faker than wrestling and I’ve got a feeling he’s right and almost to a scary degree. After all, Chris Benoit proved to be far more of a fraud as a man than he ever could have been as a wrestler.

Because of Benoit, the ‘sport’ of pro wrestling is in serious jeopardy. If anyone’s to ‘blame’ for anything, it’s the rabid wolverine, who in real life is more like the cowardly lion. So as angry as we wrestling fans may get about the media coverage and the absolute hack job on the WWE, you can rest the responsibility all at the feet of one man: Chris Benoit. His actions may sadly cost a lot more than just his family’s lives. Thanks to the guy who supposedly represented everything that pro wrestling was supposed to be about, we now have an utterly incompetent batch of boobs investigating a case that’s clearly above their mental acuity to solve and a media storm that may be enough to hurt WWE stock to the degree that wrestling could forever lose it’s foothold as an anchoring form of television entertainment.

That being said…

Because it seems that very few have any interest in sticking up for pro wrestling in any shape or form, I’d like to take the opportunity to speak my peace about the utterly appalling coverage on the part of the national news media regarding the whole Benoit ‘investigation’ and attempt #678,441,334 to rake pro wrestling over the coals on the part of the national news media. It’s high time other spineless, publicity loving wrestling reporters tried to do the same.

I’ve seen some pretty intense and wild media hack jobs in my time, but this one ladies and gentleman, may take the taco. The crappy investigating and shoddy reporting should be looked upon as almost as embarrassing as Chris Benoit’s actions. Really, this column is no more than a semi-organized rant, but someone’s got to at least ATTEMPT to defend pro wrestling in a semi-coherent manner.

Perhaps the most interesting claim on the part of the police and national news media is the claim that Chris Benoit killed his son with a ‘wrestling’ choke hold. Did I miss something? When did wrestling get credited with inventing the concept of choking a human being? What exactly is a ‘wrestling’ choke hold and how does it differ from a ‘real’ choke hold? How do the police break the angles down to determine that Benoit used a ‘wrestling’ choke hold on his son? Did they use a ruler to determine it? Wait, and isn’t wrestling NOT REAL? Like as in wrestling is fake, so the choke hold shouldn’t hurt as opposed to a real one (not wrestling) that does hurt? Are human beings that stupid these days?

Nearly as entertaining has been the re-emergence of Debra and Chyna. One woman’s claim to fame is her incredibly plastic boobies and the other’s perhaps best known for taking in the butt from X-Pac and snorting a ton of coke. Every circus side-show that’s got a grudge against Vince McMahon is coming out of the woodwork, but the media seems utterly disinterested in anyone who’d dare support the WWE, or pro wrestling in general. To the mainstream media, apparently nothing screams credibility like getting slammed in the butt by X-Pac.

You’d figure the media would be more cutting-edge and mod. After all, steroids are so 15 years ago. Why haven’t we heard about the piles of pain killers and anti-depressants taken out of Benoit’s house? Instead, we just hear about the anabolic steroids that were legally prescribed. Nothing pricks up ears like the word ‘steroids’.

The investigation, for the most part, has been pretty third rate, too. They’ve changed the timeline of events close to 10 times now and the more police investigate this case, the less they actually seem to know. First Nancy Benoit was left strangled in the middle of her television room floor, but now we’re hearing it was at the top of the stairs. First it was just strangulation but now we’re finding out her head was in a puddle of blood. The son went from being suffocated with a pillow to being killed in a ‘wrestling’ choke hold. Do these morons really know ANYTHING right now, much less enough to be talking to an utterly listless and brain dead media?

Perhaps what’s even more hilarious is a fundamentally irresponsible media and police force attempting to hold folks responsible for Benoit’s actions. If the WWE is to blame for any steroid use amongst its wrestlers, then shouldn’t Major League Baseball or The National Football League be held responsible for Barry Bonds’ steroid abuse? What constitutes an ‘active’ wrestler? And no, Meredith, Owen Hart didn’t die from a heart attack. He died from a stunt gone bad. You’d figure at least the ‘Today Show’ would take a swing at research.

All these questions that are just so easy to answer if the media would take the opportunity to listen for a change. Are steroids a problem in wrestling? Steroids are still prevalent in wrestling today. However, they’re not nearly as prevalent as they were 10 years ago because the demand for smaller, more athletic and durable wrestlers has done a lot to phase out most of the need for anabolic steroids. Pain killers are a huge problem. Depression is an even bigger problem. Want to know what happened to Chris Benoit? It might be advisable to start there.

And how about not releasing information until the autopsy results are in? It’s obvious the police really DON’T have much of an explanation for what happened. To anyone who knew the guy or closely followed his career, these guys would just be joining the club But what D.A. would let that get in the way of becoming a media star!?

People like Debra and Chyna get lots of airtime on mainstream news networks because they fit the perceived mold of what most pro wrestlers are, or in the media’s eyes, should be: Retarded, mostly made of plastic, and did I mention completely drugged up and, before I forget, retarded?

They also love to hammer Vince McMahon because of one reason: Money. Wrestling is almost always a sure fire way to make money and cultivate a stable viewing audience on any network. Pro Wrestling was one of the first stable broadcasts in TV history. It was cheap to produce and people watched it in droves. It literally kept the DuPont Network alive for five years. When people are watching wrestling, they’re not watching steaming piles of dog-____ like Nancy Grace, Geraldo Rivera, Al Franken or Bill O’Reilly. So the best thing to do is demonize wrestling and make people who watch it feel stupid for watching it. That way, they’ll come and watch them. Don’t ever expect the media to ever give McMahon a get out of jail free card based on money interests alone, Especially Ted Turner-owned CNN.

We get all of this insanity and more. All thanks to Chris Benoit. I’ll have more to say eventually, when I’m a little less ticked off.

NOTE: The views expressed in this column are not the views of WrestleView.com and its immediate staff.