Backyard wrestling

But after nearly 18 years in this highly physical form of sports entertainment, the 36-year-old, Edmonton-born "Canadian Crippler" who stands 1.78 metres and tops the scales at a chiselled 104 kilograms knows where to draw the line between the illusion created in the ring for television viewers and the reality of getting through a match safely.

Admired by his young male fans for his technical abilities in the squared circle, Benoit is disturbed by the emergence of hundreds of backyard and basement wrestling federations in Canada and the United States that find adolescent and young adult gladiators attempting to replicate the moves they see their pro-wrestling heroes perform.

The idea of boys hitting each other over the head with chairs, deliberately cutting and sometimes setting themselves on fire led Benoit, a married father of three children who is also known as the "Wolverine," to appear in the WWE's "Don't try this at home" campaign that discourages kids from "re-enacting the athletic moves" of professional performers.

In the autumn edition of the Canada Safety Council's quarterly magazine, Living Safety, Benoit talks about his passion for professional wrestling and how its sheer physicality requires proper training in order for a performer like him to be at the top of his game.

The story, written by Ottawa-based journalist Christopher Guly, also looks at the great divide that separates young backyard wrestlers emulating what they think they see occur in arenas and on TV - with some of their stunts readily seen in still photographs and streaming video over the Internet - and what actually happens behind the scenes and in the ring at the WWE.

While Benoit and his fellow WWE pro grapplers regularly visit schools across Canada and the U.S. to emphasize safety in sports and recreation along with the importance of getting an education, setting goals and possessing strong values, the WWE has a bottom line when it comes to backyard wrestlers hoping to make it into the big leagues.

Any audition videotapes capturing their hi-jinks the company receives at its headquarters in Stamford, Conn. are returned without ever being viewed.

As World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. spokesman Gary Davis explains: "If they're willing to put themselves at risk without the proper training and do these outlandish stunts that will cause themselves or their partners injury and scar them for life, they are showing they don't have respect for the people they are doing these activities with and don't have respect for themselves. They are not the people that we would be looking for."

Benoit adds: "If - and it's a big if - they ever get the opportunity to show themselves to the WWE by the time they're 20 or 25 years old, their bodies may be totally shot."

August 5, 2003

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