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WWE News
WWE News: Associated Press adds more to story about Benoit's brain damage (w/Keller Analysis) Sep 5, 2007 - 11:40:00 AM
The Associated Press has issued a report on this morning's appearance on "Good Morning America" on ABC by Michael Benoit, the father of Chris Benoit, regarding his son being brain damaged.
"Whether it is the sole factor I believe is speculation and I will not go there," said Dr. Robert Cantu, a member of the Sports Legacy Institute, founded by Christopher Nowinski, whose purpose is to raise awareness of concussions in sports and their debilitating effects.
Cantu did say the level of brain damage Benoit experienced can cause depression and irrational behavior. Benoit's brain showed similar degeneration as the brains of three football players who committed suicide. There were abnormal protein deposits in the brain caused by trauma to Benoit's head.
Michael Benoit says that he agreed to have his son's brain tested because he found a diary his son wrote that indicated he was "extremely disturbed" at the time leading to his suicide.
Benoit says the human head is not meant to be hit by a chair. Nowinski says he got four concussions in three years as a pro wrestler. "A lot of concussions happen from mistakes," he said.
WK ANALYSIS: The ABC appearance today wasn't the "bombshell" it had been hyped to be through some leaks, but it is revealing and telling. It should be alarming to pro wrestlers who take blows to the head either through chairshots like Triple H delivered to Umaga on Raw this week or bumps where the head hits the mat. It should also be concern to family members - children, partners, parents - of wrestlers if they want to have a long, happy life with their current wrestlers. The stiff chairshot trend, decried by me and others from the time it began, has been around for around ten years. While the "extreme" style has cooled off in recent years, there are still more stiff, unprotected chairshots these days than 15 years ago - when one chairshot was sold like a gunshot. We may be entering a phase of ten years where those who were absorbing chairshots during the last ten years begin to feel the cumulative effects, just as has been happening with the effects of steroids and prescription pills over the last ten years.
There is "acceptable risk" and "necessary risk" by being a pro wrestler. But the excessive chairshots, a trend most famously epitomized by Mick Foley, where ten shots were absorbed when one could have had the same effect had it been sold like a gunshot, was needless risk that raised the bar for everyone else needlessly. There are an infinite number of ways to tell a story in the ring or build a feud, and pro wrestling should opt for the ones that both (a) look damaging, (b) but aren't damaging, as there are plenty of those options out there.
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