Jim Ross gives his thoughts on the season two premiere of Dark Side of the Ring on Chris Benoit.
The two-part documentary that aired on Vice focused on Benoit’s double-murder suicide of his wife Nancy and son Daniel in 2017. Jim Ross, who appeared in the documentary, spoke on his podcast about watching the documentary and admitted that, while it was done exceptionally well, watching it opened old wounds.
Ross then shared a story of a moment he had with Benoit years before the tragedy when Benoit had to undergo neck surgery. Ross said he made the decision to have Benoit undergo surgery that would put him on the shelf for a year, which worried Benoit as he thought he wasn’t going to be paid for a whole year. Ross said he assured Benoit that no matter what, he was going to get paid while he was recovering, which led to Benoit giving the broadcaster a big hug.
“Great work by those guys. Production was good. The continuity, the writing, the editing was spectacular. Sad as hell. It opened a lot of old wounds that you’d think were healed, but really weren’t. I was very close to Chris. The hardest, tightest hug that I have ever received in my life was from Chris Benoit and he hurt his next. We were in Atlanta for TV. He was hurt, he was out. So he got the diagnosis and the specialist to see him. He got two options: I think if he had worked the front of the neck, he would be out for a year. If they went through the backside, he would be out half as long. But the second surgery was more temporary. It was a band-aid and with the way he worked, can’t band-aid that up. So I made the decision to do the surgery with a year out and he was very worried about that because he was assuming that he would not get paid. I think much to WWE’s credit, he got his check every week while he was out. We felt it was the right thing to do. It was the right thing to do and we got him fixed. [After telling him he was going to get paid every week], he grabbed me, looked like he was going to give me a belly-to-belly suplex because it was so tight… I just thought it was a well-done story,” Ross said.
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