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Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit and the Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry ReviewAttempting to explain to non-wrestling fans just how shocking the news that Chris Benoit had brutally exterminated his immediate family shortly before, in a gesture pregnant with symbolism, strangling himself on his weight bench is more or less an impossible task, mostly because it requires people to explain the appeal of wrestling in the first place. After all, the story arc of Benoit's entire professional career - if not his entire life - is one of the redemptive power of professional wrestling, the vector he exploited to overcome his physical and charismatic shortcomings and become a genuine favorite among fans despite decades of conditioning to reject wrestlers like him on first sight. For fans of Benoit's no-nonsense, give-%110 approach to their beloved form of entertainment, the news of his family's fate was almost Shakespearian in its tragedy; it was as if Paul McCartney were to admit to have killed his first wife Linda and eaten her corpse for Christmas dinner.Matthew Randazzo's "Ring of Hell" is simultaneously both the best possible introduction to that world for outsiders and the most intimidatingly thorough reckoning for fans yet put out. The stories it contains are wild beyond belief, but Randazzo documents his sources extensively, attributes quotes whenever possible, and demonstrates a willingness to question his own sources' credibility if journalistic responsibility demands it. The end result is a ruthlessly compelling read which nevertheless leaves the reader feeling like they've learned something - namely, that contemporary professional wrestling is a soberingly cannibalistic industry driven on the willing suicides of its stars.
"Ring of Hell" is the story of a love so absurd normal folks probably haven't ever even considered its existence - an all-consuming love for pro wrestling. As the book exhaustively documents, this singular love motivated Benoit to endure nightmarish training regimens all over the world, poison himself with performance-enabling (not, the book stresses, "-enhancing") drugs, and willingly subject himself to degenerative brutality with a regularity so reliable as to defy comprehension. Worse, Benoit's tragic compulsions are mirrored over the course of the book by dozens of figures, from functionally insane billionaires to palpably good-natured, kind-hearted fellow wrestlers. All are punished.
Randazzo explains how a climate for such behavior could even exist, let alone flourish, by relying on an treasure trove of source material, much of which comes to light for the first time in this book's pages. While the notion that pro wrestling is a dangerous, sleazy place shouldn't really be news to anyone, literally every page of "Ring of Hell" brings revelations about the depth and wicked creativity of the professional wrestling industry's inherent amorality with the potential to drop your jaw. Sometimes, these stories are cartoonishly hilarious (Japanese icon Antonio Inoki buying "Inoki Friendship Island" on the assurance of treasure being buried therein by Fidel Castro springs to mind), particularly when Randazzo lets his gift for vituperative phrase-turning loose. Others are salacious enough to stagger even the most hardened wrestling adherent; senior WWE writer Dave Lagana's sexual improprieties (and correlating abuses of power) practically cry out for a book of their own. Most, however, are just sad, all-too-believable tales of former World Champions working at Target, or speaking to sincere desires to try and fill "the empty hole in my heart with wrestling" - a bafflingly inappropriate urge even without being preceded by two hundred pages of supporting exposition.
But really, the value of all the garishly ghoulish anecdotes is dwarfed by the context Randazzo steadfastly refuses to ignore for all of the respect Benoit received - earned - over the course of his career. In laying out, in gruesome detail, the hows and the whys of Benoit's rise to prominence, Randazzo fearlessly cites contemporary accounts of not just praise for Benoit's efforts as a wrestler, but stinging critiques of behind-the-scenes forces disinterested in (or outright dismissive of) his televised death spiral. Randazzo also never neglects to remind the reader of Benoit's character, widely considered among the most unimpeachable in the history of wrestling before that weekend in June. Even in the book's first chapter, Randazzo makes a point to mention how, despite "unprecedented pressure to close ranks and demonize Benoit so as to exonerate the wrestling industry of all responsibility", the wrestler's colleagues were a unified front of praise for the man, both in wrestling terms and in terms of the character they'd always only ever seen him exhibit.
"Ring of Hell" isn't without its weaknesses; since Benoit neglected to leave a note explaining his actions and the cyclical nature of the news media guaranteed a woefully short shelf-life for the story, investigations have hit a potentially-insurmountable wall, meaning there's precious little in the way of revelations about Benoit's actual crimes (a roadbump likely to prove particularly galling to readers approaching this book first and foremost as a work of true crime). To harp on those weaknesses, however, would mean missing the point of the entire book, which announces itself as a revelatory work rather than a supplementary one from the first page. Its outspoken intent - boldly couched, relentlessly revisited - is to impress upon the reader the sheer impossibility of justifying the tunnel-visioned love for pro wrestling Chris Benoit worked his whole life to embody, and its greatest triumph might be its conclusion that he never really managed to do so until his last few hours on earth.Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit and the Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry Overview
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