AEW’s Matt Hardy has spoken about the shock the WWE locker room felt when they were informed about the death of Chris Benoit.
In June 2007, Benoit, his wife Nancy, and their son Daniel were found dead in their home, after Chris had missed the Vengeance: Night of Champions pay-per-view event.
Speaking on his The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, Matt recalled being brought into a roster-wide meeting but could tell what had happened before he was told. He said,
“They had this talent meeting, they call everyone together. I’ll never forget I saw ‘Taker coming out slowly, walking out to where all the crowd was gathered around. I saw Michelle McCool like, crying. I remember turning to Ken Kennedy and going, ‘Chris is dead.’ I saw Undertaker and Michelle coming and Undertaker would’ve been given the heads up and Michelle’s just so upset, I thought ‘he’s gotta be dead.’”
Matt had replaced Benoit at WWE live events, which Hardy said he found strange at the time, as it was not like Benoit to miss any shows.
The June 25th episode of RAW, which served as a Benoit tribute show, had initially been a kayfabe memorial show for Mr. McMahon, who had been ‘killed’ in a limousine explosion weeks earlier. Hardy said,
“Keep in mind, we’ve been walking around all day long. There’s caskets in several different places for shots they’re going to do about Vince. There’s all these wreaths everywhere. There’s flowers everywhere, like it’s really like a funeral home.
“It was a super eerie day and even having walking around all day seeing that funeral stuff, it was just a weird, creepy day. Corpus Christi, Texas. I’ll never forget it. I remember it like it was yesterday and how shocking it just was.”
Less than 24 hours after the Benoit tribute RAW, it was revealed that the former WWE World Champion had killed his wife and son before taking his own life.
Jon Alba, Hardy’s co-host on the podcast, said that they will never do an episode dedicated specifically to Benoit.
