Benoit Tragedy leads to steroid investigation hearings in late-September

So, you're probably aware of World Wrestling Entertainment professional wrestler Chris Benoit's double murder-suicide last June. As a self-proclaimed fanatic of the wrestling industry, I subscribe to insider news, discussion, and all the jaw-dropping tidbits associated with a business whose first duty is to gratify viewers with vicious, no-holds-barred wrestling. Their second duty is, presumably, to supply a never-ending stream of fresh, entertaining, soap-operatic storytelling.

The Benoit tragedy, obviously, was not entertaining. It's aftermath, however, was reminiscent of bad soap opera.

First, the question: why? Why commit such an atrocity against one's significant other or worse, against one's offspring? Cable news media such as CNN, MSNBC (and to larger extent, Fox News) insinuated the cause was anabolic steroids, human growth hormones, testosterone supplements, or a deadly medley of all three. The reasoning was simple: how else does a musclebound wrestler survive night after night on and off the road — traveling the highways and byways connecting America's cities — for nearly 300 days per year without vacation? Answer: by flooding one's system with a rejuvenating fusion of hormones.

It's bottled lightning: conveniently stored inside a hypodermic needle, then injected into a fleshy patch of tissue for that whiz-bang jolt of energy and thicker muscle mass.

And that renewed zing — that potent kick — is so dynamic, it's scary. For some people, it's uncontrollable. And this segues into the media's second explanation for Benoit's baffling sin: roid rage. In short, all those performance-enhancing drugs sent Benoit spiraling into an unruly fit of rage. The rage was so bad that Benoit couldn't help but strangle his wife, suffocate his son, then commit suicide.

Like bad soap opera, that wasn't the end of the story. Benoit's son might've had a rare form of autism called Fragile-X, so media pundits speculated that Benoit killed his wife, knew his son wouldn't survive while his father served life in prison, so in one last laudable deed put his son out of his misery.

This scenario morphed into countless others — each less plausible than the last — until July 17: the day the Georgia medical examiner released Benoit's toxicology report to the public. The report revealed exactly which deadly concoction remained inside Benoit's bloodstream the night he flew off the handle.

They found synthetic testosterone, a legal form of steroid. And alcohol. And painkillers. And no answers. Did they really expect to find any substance that might explain Benoit's behavior? Yes, they did. It was like bad soap opera: there was effect, but no cause. The general public needed cause. Media needed cause. Benoit's surviving family desperately needed cause.

The story dwindled to nothing for an agonizing month, leaving nothing except the whisper of a Congressional investigation inside WWE's Wellness Program — an 18-month-old agency responsible for moderating the health of active wrestlers. Here was cause, presumably: WWE knowingly allowed Benoit to inject steroids in exchange for maintaining a high caliber in-ring performance, all the while switching a blind eye to the Molotov cocktail he weekly introduced into his body.

That is, until Congress did step in. In early August, two congressional committees (House Oversight and Government Reform; Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection) issued two letters of inquiry requesting every single drug testing WWE gave employees since February 2006.

Then, the bad soap opera caught ablaze: fearing backlash, WWE fired four wrestlers and suspended 10 others. Blitzkrieged by Congress and sideswiped by the usual gang of media talking heads, WWE's house of cards collapsed. In late-September, the congressional hearings begin. The dance continues.

And all, it seems, because of Benoit. And the obsessive desire to discover the cause of why Benoit did what he did. Are other wrestlers at risk to repeat Benoit's tragic misdeed?

Stay tuned for the next episode.