What’s the story?
Chris Benoit’s eldest son David Benoit, son of Chris and his first wife Martina Benoit, was seen backstage at the SmackDown Exclusive WWE Live Event in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and was in the ring before they started letting fans into the building.
This is not the first time this has happened as he was seen at another Edmonton, Alberta, Canada WWE Live event with WWE Women’s Wrestler Natalya in 2015.
In case you didn’t know...
Chris Benoit first married David’s mother, Martina and had a daughter named Megan Benoit as well. Eventually, Chris and Martina parted ways and Chris began a relationship with Kevin Sullivan’s ex-wife, Nancy Sullivan. The two married and had their son, Daniel Benoit, in 2000.
In June of 2007, the police discovered the bodies of Daniel, Nancy and Chris at Benoit’s Home. The WWE would air a tribute video for Chris Benoit when they believed the family’s deaths to be a homicide, but it was later determined that Chris murdered his wife and child, then took his own life over a three-day period.
This led to WWE distancing themselves from Benoit’s likeness entirely and removing him from almost everything except the WWE Network.
A biopic is currently being made on Chris Benoit’s life and the murder-suicide that sent shockwaves through the wrestling world called Crossface, which will be directed by indie filmmaker Lexi Alexander.
The heart of the matter
Though his father has been accused of heinous acts, people like Chris Jericho and other WWE Canadian wrestlers seem to keep up with him and don’t treat him any different.
Despite what many fans believe the business “drove” his father to do, David’s occasional appearance at WWE events indicates that he stills seems to have a love for the business of professional wrestling.
What’s next?
There have been several reports over the years that David had expressed interest in wrestling, but they have never panned out. He was reported to be enrolled in Lance Storm’s wrestling school at one point, but he was reported to have never shown up afterwards.
He almost made his wrestling debut in July 2014, where he would team up with Chavo Guerrero at a Hart Legacy Wrestling event, but Chris Jericho came down on Stu Hart and Chavo for advertising him for a match when he had little to no experience in a wrestling ring. The match was cancelled as a result of this.
Sportskeeda’s Take
As of now, this story is nothing more than friends of the Benoit family showing David some love by bringing him backstage and things of this nature. Chris Benoit’s actions had nothing to do with David, so it would be wrong of WWE to ostracise him because of his father’s actions.
However, if David still wishes to get into the wrestling business, then he’d probably have to realise that WWE isn’t a likely viable option. Though David has suggested otherwise in interviews, the WWE will probably never be okay with David wrestling with his father’s name; assuming they let him wrestle at all.
The company would immediately be accused of profiting off Chris Benoit name, which would be viewed as extremely distasteful and disrespectful to the victims of the Benoit murder-suicide. Even if David changed his name, fans would do their research and probably show up with Benoit signs anyway, which would fuel negative press from the media.
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