I was disappointed by WWECW because WWE had always hyped ECW as this crazy hardcore promotion with amazing talent and when they said it as coming back I got excited as I was too young to experience it in it’s heyday. Then when they showed it, it was just regular wrestling and I could tell it was completely different.
I was 11 at the time. Back in the good old runescape days I found out message boards were a thing. I didn’t actually buy the PPV. I only really had my parents budget for like one every few months. Mania was the last one I watched live. ANYWAY I remember like it was summertime. Spent all day playing out outside. Ate dinner and was super ready for RAW. The opening graphic played and then the graphic of Benoit was shown. He was my favorite wrestler. Like his world title run was the best thing to me when I was a kid. I just remember watching the show in silence. Certain parts made me cry a lot but other than that it was shock. I watched ECW when Vince said they would not mention him again that night and to heal and then I watched Smackdown where everything seemed back to normal.
When I woke up Tuesday morning my mom told me that he did it all. I mean I went to bed thinking they were all murdered. All day Tuesday I watched the news. Just sat on my couch from 11 am to 9 pm watching the news station because I couldn’t believe it. I mean I guess when you’re a child and your so called Hero kills 2 people and himself, those 2 people being his own wife and son, your view on anything may be different. That’s basically how I found out that it wasn’t real and I just didn’t want to watch anymore
People stupidly joke about the word “surreal” around here nowadays, but this is truly a surreal moment in hindsight. Knowing that we would’ve had a match of this caliber will always make me wonder “what if?”
Knowing that it would’ve been Benoit’s return to the world title scene makes me think it would’ve introduced a new really great time in wrestling again. I’m sure a couple weeks or a couple months later, Benoit would’ve eventually put over Punk and launched his WWE career into the stratosphere, possibly more powerfully than it did feuding against Nitro.
But hey, who knows.
