By Michael Lewis
 Chris Benoit had every intention of making it just as big. Unlike the Hogans of the business, who tended to rely on outrageous stage personae and massively inflated physiques, Benoit—just 5'10"—focused on the acrobatics of his performances. He was a “wrestler’s wrestler,” a hard worker who excelled at the fundamentals.
“He was such a terrific technical wrestler,” says Bret Hart, Benoit’s idol and mentor. “He had so much deep respect for the craft. That’s part of what made him so good.”
Benoit’s stage image, that of a shy, average guy, became a favorite among the more cerebral fans who appreciated the craft over ludicrous story lines. Still, his rise was anything but rapid. He performed four years with Stampede, then five overseas with New Japan Pro Wrestling, an NWA affiliate. By 1995 he had landed a regular gig with World Wrestling Championship (WCW), then the second-biggest pro wrestling outfit in the U.S.
It was a dream come true for Benoit. He traveled to big cities, performing in front of thousands of adoring kids and on national TV. Over the ensuing years, everything about him would only become bigger: his size, his star power, and—though few on the outside would ever see it—the toll it all took on his personal life.
The theatrics of pro wrestling make it easy to think thatno serious damage is ever done to its performers. In reality, it is just as competitive and far more dangerous than any real sport. One recent study found that pro wrestlers are 12 times more likely to die from heart disease than other Americans ages 25 to 44; another found that they are 20 times more likely to die before 45 than NFL players. For a wrestler, competing with injuries is the norm.
64 wrestlers under the age of 50 have died since 1987, including eight that made the world take notice.
“Sometimes on the day after a match, I’d be in so much pain that it would take me 10 minutes to summon the courage to attempt standing up and getting out of bed,” says Hart, now 50 and retired after nearly 25 years in the business. “Often I’d just fall back down.”
Severe concussions are one of wrestling’s dirty secrets. “There have been matches I didn’t even remember competing in after I was done. Or how it was finished or who won,” says Marc Mero, a former WWE star.
During his stint with WCW, Benoit performed 250 to 300 nights a year—a grueling schedule involving nightly physical punishment. One of his signature moves was the flying head butt, in which he’d dive off the top rope and smash his head into an opponent. And while many wrestlers were hesitant to get smacked with a steel chair, Benoit—devoted to authenticity—insisted that his colleagues strike him in the head. He laughed off the pain in the locker room. Then it was on to the next plane and the next city.
To cope with the physical pain and isolation of the road, Benoit increasingly turned to the pro wrestler’s greatest solace: drugs. Thanks to a lack of regulation for most of the past three decades, a pro wrestling locker room was better than the pharmacy counter at Walgreens. Somas, Percocets, Halcion, Vicodin, human growth hormone, half a dozen kinds of steroids—if you named it, a network of doctors well-known on the circuit could prescribe it. It wasn’t unusual for a doctor to enter a locker room with grocery bags bearing the names of a dozen wrestlers, each one filled with drugs.
“Sometimes I held out my hand and swallowed whatever they had,” says Rob Van Dam, a 36-year-old retired pro. Van Dam once thought he might have a problem; he was taking 30 Somas (painkillers) a day. Then he looked around and saw ex-wrestler Louie Spicolli “taking 100 a day, so I figured I wasn’t as bad off.”
Spicolli died when he was 27, one of 64 professional wrestlers who have passed away before reaching 50 over the past 10 years (see “Grappling With Death,” page 154). Pop in a DVD of WrestleMania VI and you’ll see the event through a harrowing prism. Of the 45 performers who entered the ring that April night in 1990, a dozen are dead—27 percent of wrestling’s biggest yearly event, now a morbid footnote.
The rationalization for taking so many pills sets in very easily. “First you think, I’m going to take it when I get hurt,” says Joe Laurinaitis, the living half of the legendary ’80s tag team the Road Warriors. “Then you start to think, Maybe I should take it before a match, so I won’t get hurt. And then maybe it’s wearing off before you go out to dinner, so you take another one. And that’s how it starts.” During one brutal stretch, Laurinaitis wrestled on 79 consecutive nights.
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