The X-Factor: Darkest hours Submitted by Victor Mariscal on 05/26/2020 at 04:23 AM
The first episode(s) of Dark Side of the Ring I watched was the two-parter of Chris Benoit. It was called pro-wrestling’s darkest hour which is an apt description. Chris Jericho’s take is that it almost killed the business.
It’s still surreal to think about. Can you separate the man he really was from the killer the CTE made him into? He was the greatest technician next to Bret Hart. Was WWE wrong to erase him from history? Not even the NFL did it to OJ Simpson. The debate will never go away.
There was some hope at the end of Part 2. Nancy Benoit’s sister Sandra and David Benoit were brought together again thanks to Chris Jericho. Sandra admits she may forgive him one day.
Forgiveness has often seemed impossible in this biz, but it’s happened. If you were say, Martha Hart, could you forgive? It boggles the mind to think that the WWF didn’t take a bigger hit from what happened that night. The ratings kept getting bigger, the money was coming in, and the buy rates were big.
Many have bashed Martha Hart for keeping Owen Hart out of WWE’s HOF which her kids Oje and Athena support. She did have a right to get justice for Owen. We just didn’t know the whole story. I knew that most of the Hart family didn’t support her but I didn’t know some of them tried to undercut her in the lawsuit. There’s a ton of grey area here. The Hart family was thinking about their livelihoods. WCW was getting their asses kicked and they had no desire to alienate the only other big game in town.
Martha says she’s forgiven the Hart family and they’ve exchanged nice words, but she has no relationship with them. She’s all about honoring her husband with the Owen Hart Foundation yet she’s dishonoring him. The King of Harts was all about family. What we’ve learned about him says he wouldn’t want a divide between his kids and the rest of his kin.
