Vince McMahon Talks about Chris Benoit

Quote :

Vince McMahon Talks about Chris Benoit
Posted by: Wrestling-Radio.com

Quotes from Vince McMahon feature in a new book called The Untold History Of The WWE. The title looks back at the company from when McMahon bought Capitol Wrestling from his father to the present day.

When asked about Chris Benoit not being acknowledged in more recent books and DVDs, the WWE supremo said: "It's not right to pretend [Chris Benoit] didn't exist. It's one thing to include him as part of a historical perspective, which I believe is OK, and it's another thing to promote him, which is not OK.

"The situation is very similar to that of OJ Simpson — despite his controversy, he was still a part of the NFL scene. You can't deny that he existed." - The Sun

I totally agree on this one.

I agree in this as well. Definitely well said by Vince McMahon here because he is 100% correct and I don't think anyone could disagree here.

I can't agree fully on this. For what Vince said, sure. I can agree with that completely. Why I can't agree fully with this is because, WWE hasn't been including him as part as a historical perspective, not fully anyway. For example, I remember reading a WWE magazine like five months ago, where they listed every money in the bank match. Guess who was left off the first match? Putting his name down on paper when talking about who was in the first MITB match is much more about history then promting someone.

Y2J X wrote:

I can't agree fully on this. For what Vince said, sure. I can agree with that completely. Why I can't agree fully with this is because, WWE hasn't been including him as part as a historical perspective, not fully anyway. For example, I remember reading a WWE magazine like five months ago, where they listed every money in the bank match. Guess who was left off the first match? Putting his name down on paper when talking about who was in the first MITB match is much more about history then promting someone.

same here i dont fully agree on this eigher, because WWE havent acctualy made benoit apart of any new WWE books or any WWE dvd's, so how can vince answer in such a way.

What Beniot did can't be ignored because he was a great wrestler. He has been left out of the recent DVD's, but I am pretty sure he is in the WWE Encycolapida that came out a few months back.

I think that Vince is right on here and the WWE or the wrestling business in general, does not need anymore bad press. Kurt Anlge and Jeff Hardy are doing just fine in that area.

Concrete Jesus wrote:

What Beniot did can't be ignored because he was a great wrestler. He has been left out of the recent DVD's, but I am pretty sure he is in the WWE Encycolapida that came out a few months back.

I think that Vince is right on here and the WWE or the wrestling business in general, does not need anymore bad press. Kurt Anlge and Jeff Hardy are doing just fine in that area.

All I was saying was that Vince has ignored him from a historical perspective which in the answer he said that it wasn't ok to do that. The WWE encyclpedia and this Untold Stories, are the only mentions of Benoit outside the few on WWE.com. Look back at the example I posted in my previous post, their are more like these. I agree with what Vince said, I just wish he had more follow through with it though (as in, actually keeping Benoit from a historical perspective).

The problem with "ignoring" Benoit's accomplishments is that if you choose to pretend it never happened, there are some serious gaps in title histories, more importantly his World Heavyweight Championship victory at Wrestlemania XX. You can go so far to avoid any possible Benoit mentions in any programming or DVDs but as big as a black eye he gave to the sport 2 years ago, it's personally ridiculous to pull all the stops to make sure he isn't mentioned anywhere.

Personally, I think his analogy with OJ Simpson is hypocritical. Everyone knows what OJ did but I've never seen NFL broadcasters go out of their way to say "Oh, by the way, that guy never played in the NFL, never played for the Bills and never existed". They don't talk about him a lot but at least, they don't erase him from the history books. Same goes for Pete Rose in MLB. He's banned for life for gambling but he's still praised as "the Hit King". I'm not saying to glorify Chris Benoit especially after how it ended. But, at least, stop hiding your head under the sand and if you have to mention his name, do it.

Yes, Valid point Edgehead. But suspicion of Murder (Later proven not Guilty) and gambling is completely different to the Murder of your Son, Wife and suicide.

Yeah, I know. That's why I said it's important not to glorify his accomplishments, but at least acknowledge them.

But then again, it also depends on where you draw the line between acknowledging the man's accomplishments and promoting them. IMO, they've done nothing to acknowledge his accomplishments until that excerpt we've seen in this thread.

EdgeHead wrote:

Yeah, I know. That's why I said it's important not to glorify his accomplishments, but at least acknowledge them.

But then again, it also depends on where you draw the line between acknowledging the man's accomplishments and promoting them. IMO, they've done nothing to acknowledge his accomplishments until that excerpt we've seen in this thread.

WWE has acknowledge Benoit previously. In the WWE encyclepedia, he is given at least a page. On WWE.com, they don't get rid of him on the title histories pages. They still say he beat Trips for the title, you can't click on his name, like you can for everyone else but, that is acknowledging it. Besides that, they don't. I really hate how they replaced the Wrestlemania XX main pic on WWE.com with a picture of just Eddie in the WWE title. They still mention him winning the belt but, that little thing annoys me. I do agree with you though, I don't think they've been acknowledging Benoit from the historical point of view, at least, as they could/should of. Another example, is Flair mentioned Benoit in his Hall of Fame induction speech, which was cut out for the DVD, which really pisses me off.