Wrestling with Bad Taste

Unless you've been under a rock for the past week or so, you probably know that technical wrestling genius Chris Benoit went on a rampage when his wife accidentally cooked his steak medium rare instead of well done. Erupting into a passionate frenzy, Benoit proceeded to German suplex his wife through a table, apply the Crippler Crossface to his son, and finally finished himself with a flying headbutt into his barbell collection.

Now before you label me as some sort of monster, let me just say for the record that the "Rabid Wolverine" is a monster and most certainly doesn't deserve my respect. I know that legions of you Hulkamaniacs in pink-and-blue tights are probably ready to give me the big boot and legdrop me into the seventh layer of hell, but hear me out for a minute. Benoit wasn't the only one in the history of "sports entertainment" to lose his cool and succumb to the gamma radiation of 'roid rage and bad publicity. In fact, there are a slew of other horrible tragedies and crimes in the long timeline of Vince McMahon's brainchild:

----Triple H, our favorite walrus 'stached heel, was once arrested for performing the Pedigree to a supermarket stock employee when he was unable to find a box of Lucky Charms on the shelves. Eyewitness accounts also revealed that a small group of men proceeded to dance around the employee, telling him to "suck it."

----Stone Cold Steve Austin snapped after he played role-playing games for twenty hours straight in the summer of '99. He walked the streets looking for what he called "random encounters," and always announced his intended means of assault. With cries of "Attack!" and "Critical Hit!" Austin injured at least ten pedestrians in the area. Periodically, he would "Loot" their bodies for wallets, and drink a beer whilst shouting "Potion consumed! Fifty hitpoints healed!" When he was brought into custody, Austin's only words were lamenting why he didn't "save earlier and restart the area."

----Mark Calloway, otherwise known as The Undertaker, once challenged Billy Graham to a Hell in a Cell match. Graham did his best to rebuke the satanic Phenom with holy water and his Graham Cracker brainbuster, but his mission to exorcise Calloway of his demons was cut short by a flaming chair shot to the head by Lucifer himself. Technically, Graham still won by disqualification, so...score one for the god guys!

----Bret Hart once melted an entire classroom of high school students with his heat vision.

----Scott Steiner was once rumored to have the leading role in Forrest Gump. However, the director quickly withdrew the offer once he found out that Steiner couldn't control the urge to powerbomb Sally Fields into the ground every fifteen minutes.

----We all know that Hulk Hogan attempt to open a "Pastamania" restaurant ended in failure. This may be part of the fact that Hogan insisted that the Italian chefs use only the sweat from his own balding head for salad dressing. Upon eating a spaghetti platter sprinkled with the perspiration, Randy Savage was so angry that his inflatable arms exploded.

----Although Bill Goldberg was never technically at fault for his body of solid kryptonite, he received daily complaints from Clark Kent about the dangers of walking around in plain daylight. "You could hurt someone; seriously, I might -I mean, Superman might get hurt if he gets too close to you on a daily patrol flight," Kent wrote.

----Remember the storyline script where McMahon had FDR "killed" by The Rock, only to be the impetus for giving a huge push to midcard talent "Hammering" Harry Truman? Man, the writers on WWE suck. Even worse was the referee making a 2-count count mistake when Dewey The Destroyer pinned Truman three nights later. It took a rematch to finally settle the dispute over the title.

----Probably the worst tragedy to ever befall the ECW was when Ernest Hemingway was found dead in his locker room. To this day, I still suspect that Tommy Dreamer had something to do with this. Maybe it's because the police found that bloody Singapore cane at the scene of the crime.

----Kane kept his monster-guy gimmick for the entirety of his career in the WWE-but did you know that he once tried to diversify himself by purchasing a John Wayne Gacy costume? Unfortunately, the gimmick was canned by officials, in what has been called "a good idea gone bad. Kane just couldn't grasp the murderous aspect of Gacy, and the whole legacy behind the gimmick just fell apart." However, McMahon and company have resolved to try the "serial killer" aspect again when John Cena turns heel and crowns himself "Stepson of Sam."

----Chyna was arrested on several occasions for filming a sort of fetish porn which involved her beating the snot out of men at the moment of their climax. One of the men was Kevin Nash, who suffered a crushed finger and two broken ribs. He has called Chyna "sadistic and a sexist wench who delights in torturing helpless men."

----Rob Van Dam has been charged with two restraining orders over the years. His first one came after he bullied fellow wrestler Rey Mysterio over the internet, claiming he'd "haxor your computer" and that Mysterio's "leet skillz" were nothing more than parlor tricks. His second restraining order was assigned after he beat and killed Kurt Vonnegut with a hunting knife. The court ordered that Van Dam "cannot be within forty feet" of Vonnegut's corpse. Since this action has taken effect, Van Dam has issued the statement that "Kurt lived far too long. Hi-ho!"

----Booker T was fired shortly after throwing a tantrum on the company plane, on account of Shawn Michaels cheating in a game of Pokemon. "Charizard can't use Thundershock; that honkey cheated," Booker accused.

----A few years ago, Scott Hall was suspended from the organization after informing Vince that Snape kills Dumbledore in the next Harry Potter book. Apparently, Vince was a huge fan of the books, and didn't appreciate Hall spoiling the surprise.

----Jeff Hardy beat up and nearly killed Edge for making fun of his goofy MySpace page full of sparkly photos of puppies and Jewel poetry. The next day, MySpace accounts were banned for all contracted wrestling employees.

----Kurt Angle was suspended for two weeks without pay after he made John Bradshaw cry. It turns out that Angle was playing hide-and-seek under the ring, and the frustrated Bradshaw began to spill tears after ransacking the arena and failing to find him.

----In a quick decision he would soon regret, Vince McMahon put together a tearjerking tribute to deceased wrestler Chris Benoit without knowing that he took a page out of Ken Shamrock's book and proceeded to perform the most fatal "bare-knuckle shuffle" in the history of the sport.

----In the recent turnout of Chris Benoit's actual death, Vince McMahon told us all that the angle where he is blown to pieces in his limo was "fake," therefore proving once and for all that wrestling is fake. This is the single greatest tragedy in the history of the sport, because I was under the impression that the Gobbeldygooker was an actual giant rooster.

Well, there you have it. No sport is complete without its list of flubs, and the WWE is no exception. Filled with superhero drama and soap-opera ballet, the world of pro wrestling certainly is no stranger to the odds and ends of "real life." That is, the dimension where one shot with a chair can actually hurt you for more than fifteen seconds.

Somebody should have told Benoit that people don't get up after you apply the Crossface for more than ten minutes.
But seriously, I blame the kid. Why didn't he have the good sense to just tap out?