The Canadian Crippler
Real Name: Chris Benoit
Nickname: The Rabbid Wolverine, The Canadian Crippler
Birthday: 5/21/67
Wrestling Debut: 1986
Height: 5' 10"
Weight: 220 lbs
Titles Held:WCW Title, WWE World Champion, WCW TV Champion, WCW US Champion, WWE IC Champion, WWE Tag Champion, WCW Tag Champion, ECW Tag Champion, WWE Euopean Champion, IWGP Lighweight Champion
Signature Moves: The Crippler Cross Face, Swan Dive
Biography
Before going pro, Chris Michael Benoit was an amateur wrestler and bodybuilder.
Benoit got his start in the Stampede Wrestling organization in Calgary, Alberta where he trained under the legendary Stu Hart, father of Bret and Owen. He enrolled in the Dungeon in late 1985 and debuted in Stampede in August 1986.
Benoit's idol was the Dynamite Kid, and his wrestling style often reflects that to an eerie extent right down to using DK's finisher, the flying headbutt, as his own.
He also trained at the New Japan dojo and went on to wrestle in New Japan Pro Wrestling, debuting on 1/2/87 against Yuki Funaki [currently Masakatsu Funaki of Pancrase]. After Stampede folded, he worked for a couple years in New Japan as "Dynamite" Chris Benoit; he then redebuted 2/10/90 under a mask as "Pegasus Kid" at a New Japan/All Japan joint card at the Tokyo Dome, teaming with Naoki Sano against Jushin "Thunder" Liger and Akira Nogami.
Benoit would then go on to win and lose the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title against Jushin Liger later on that year. He also worked for the UWA in Mexico, which at the time had a working relationship with NJ. The following year, Liger took Pegasus' mask on July 4, 1991 in Fukuoka, but he worked under the name of "Pegasus Kid" in Japan for a while after that, and even continued to work under the mask in Mexico until losing it in a 2 of 3 falls match to Villano III on Nov. 3, 1991. During this time, he also worked in Europe and held the CWA World Tag Team Titles with Dave Taylor.
Benoit began calling himself "Wild Pegasus" around the time of the G1 series in August of 1993, and works under that name in Japan to this day, continually earning his reputation as a great worker in a country with more than its share of great workers.
Benoit participated in "Top of/Best of Super Junior" tourneys from 1991-1996 as well as the first Super J Cup. He won BOSJ tourneys in 1993 (as "Pegasus Kid," beating El Samurai) and 1995 (as "Wild Pegasus" beating Shinjiro Ohtani). On 4/16/94, he won the Super J Cup, which was a NJPW 14 entrant (2 byes) tournament with all matches held in one night tournament [yes, Dakota, there was also a "Super Junior" tourney in 1994, and a later Super J Cup sponsored by the WAR promotion, but the New Japan Super J Cup format was only held that one time], beating The Great Sasuke in what many have called the greatest juniors match of all time.
During this same period, Benoit also worked in North America for WCW, teaming with Beef Wellington and Bobby Eaton, but (although his sheer talent and intensity stood out even then in matches such as his 2/93 Superbrawl bout with 2 Cold Scorpio) he never got a chance to show much in U.S. rings.
This would change during 1994-1995, as Extreme Championship Wrestling in Philadelphia brought in Benoit and fellow NJ juniors Eddy Guerrero and Dean Malenko on its way to becoming the hottest indy promotion in America. Benoit and Malenko held the ECW Tag Team Titles from 2/25/95 to 4/08/95. Then in late 1995, WCW picked up what came to be known on the Internet as the "New Japan 3" to form part of the foundation of its new Cruiserweight division. While Eddy and Dean were generally the mainstays of that division and also competed strongly at the U.S. title level, Chris' booking in WCW was wildly erratic if not downright damaging to his wrestling career.
On the one hand, he was a member of the Four Horsemen, and was involved in high-profile, long-term battles with Kevin Sullivan, Diamond Dallas Page, Raven and Booker T. The fans' respect for his intensity in the ring remained strong. One fan's comment: "I will never forget him punching out of Kevin Nash's powerbomb."
On the other hand, for over three years Benoit never officially won a title in WCW [he held the TV title briefly via house shows, 3/30/98-04/01/98 and 04/02/98-04/03/98)] partly because of real-life problems with booker Kevin Sullivan over a relationship with Sullivan's now ex-wife Nancy [aka Woman]. Benoit and Nancy eventually married, and have since had a son.
After a promising start in the 1999 WCW, winning the tag titles with two different partners and a short stint with the U.S. title in Aug. 1999, Benoit's continuing troubles would come to a head during late 1999 and early 2000. With Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara, formerly writers for the WWF, now in charge of booking WCW, several younger wrestlers including Benoit were finally pushed towards the top tier of the card. Ironically enough, the day after the two were hired but several weeks before the started booking WCW, Benoit had one of the high points of his WCW career. On 10/04/99 at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Bret Hart chose Benoit as his opponent in a special tribute match to his late brother Owen Hart, whose fatal accident had occurred at Kemper. Bret and Chris worked a 27:34 minute match that was a throw back to the old Stampede wrestling style, and the match would place high on several match of the year polls for 1999. Chris would go on to lose again to Bret the following month in the finals of the WCW Heavyweight Title tournament. But Chris won the WCW U.S. Title in a ladder match against Jeff Jarrett at Starrcade 1999, and then the WCW Heavyweight Title against Sid Vicious at the next PPV, Souled Out in early Jan. 2000. It looked like finally, The Canadian Crippler had arrived.
However, Russo was in the process of being removed from power due to backstage manuevering by Sullivan and JJ Dillon, who then took over booking duties. Possibly out of support for Russo, but certainly because they felt no confidence in their treatment by the latest booking regime, several of wrestlers asked for their releases, and number one on that list was Chris Benoit.
In an ironic reminder of his "phantom" TV title reigns, Benoit fans never got the chance to see him appear live on WCW TV as the WCW heavyweight champion. On the Nitro following Souled Out 2000, Arn Anderson, who had been the special referee for the Benoit-Vicious title match, announced that he had been out of position to see Sid's foot under the ropes - thus it was as if the match simply didn't happen, and Benoit's title victory was promptly erased from the official WCW history books.
Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko and Saturn subsequently got their releases from WCW and went as a group to the WWF (joining Chris Jericho there, as he had gone from WCW to WWF in mid-1999 when his contract expired). There, less than a month later, they were introduced as a group called "The Radicals" (a play on the "Revolution" stable which three of them had been involved with during the Russo era), and within four months all had worn WWF gold: Saturn, WWF Hardcore belt; Dean, the revived WWF Lightheavyweight title twice; Eddy, WWF European Champ; and Benoit made his first appearance at Wrestlemania to win the Intercontinental championship, adding a second reign while continuing to feud with the also upwardly mobile Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle.
Benoit has never been much of a top-rope "flyer" other than the occasional superplex and of course the "diving headbutt" finisher. He excels in using fast power moves such as snappy suplexes and powerbomb variations, infusing all of them with the crispness and explosive acceleration that is his trademark.
In Japan, Benoit worked with some of the best junior-heavies in the world and thus displayed many more moves and techniques. In WCW, Benoit was used more as a "bad-ass" brawler to establish reputations of often less-talented heavyweight wrestlers, as opposed to having the advantage of working mostly with his cruiserweight peers such as Malenko, Guerrero and Ultimo Dragon. He has done some good interviews with support and coaching, but he generally is very weak on the mic, which also makes it difficult to get him over in US wrestling which is very promo-oriented. His WWF tenure to date has been marked by fairly short, simple matches on TV; his moveset and ability to work stiff are clearly circumscribed by the "sports entertainment" emphasis of the WWF, though there has been a trend towards returning more wrestling to the show since several good or potentially good workers have joined the company in 1999-2000.
In many ways, Benoit's greatest skill is also one of his biggest handicaps. Like Shawn Michaels, he is fantastic at making other guys look good (for example, Benoit is one of the few people ever to have a good match with Sid Vicious), and so people want to work with him-- but WCW stars, many of whom had creative control over their storylines, didn't always return the favor by putting him over in turn as was done for Michaels in the WWF.
While the WWF has clearly used Chris to put over their current stars (HHH, Rock, Jericho, Angle), they are keeping him at a fairly high level of visibility while trying to develop him into an overall top contender. Unlike the "many chiefs, no braves" atmosphere of WCW where established stars and internal politics routinely sabotaged the development of new talent and the entertainment product, the ultimate creative control over the WWF rests in one person. Whatever his other faults, even his critics would allow that Vince McMahon generally works hard to develop talent and to provide a product crafted to appeal to many different types of "sports entertainment" fans. Benoit provides a special challenge for the WWF "sports entertainment" franchise; he has a highly loyal fanbase who have stayed with him throughout his career because of his wrestling skill, and who are now hoping that the WWF, who was able to develop stars out of previous WCW failures (Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Steve Austin) can make Benoit a bonafide "WWF Superstar" without losing Benoit the wrestler in the process.
However, if you want to see what he is truly capable of in the ring, watching the versatile Wild Pegasus stretch his wings with other athletic Japanese workers such as Ohtani, El Samurai or The Great Sasuke will show you why so many people think he is one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.
RAW, which was airing live from his hometown of Edmonton. Since returning, Benoit has once again reclaimed WWE gold in the form of the Intercontinental Title which he won from Rob Van Dam. And after winning the Royal Rumble as the number entry went on to WrestleMania XX and Won The World Title for the 1st time in his 19 year career, making triple H tap out.
