You are buying a pre-viewed, ORIGINAL World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) VHS, Hard Knocks - The Chris Benoit Story.
This tape traces the career of Chris Benoit from his roots in Edmonton, witnessing the Dynamite Kid (Tom Billington) in the ring for the first time, and how it influenced Chris to not only be a wrestler, but to pattern his style after Dynamite.
Chris talks about how he journeyed from Edmonton to Calgary, first setting up chairs in arenas, and graduating to setting up the ring, and taking falls until he could wrestle properly.
Finally, Chris was able to receive an invitation to train at The Dungeon with the legendary Hart family and freely says that he owes everything he has achieved in wrestling to Stu Hart, the Hart family patriarch, for without Stu and his guidance, Chris would not have been able to achieve what he had in wrestling.
Chris talks about travelling all across Canada, and how he finally felt like he had arrived as a real wrestler when he was asked to travel with the wrestlers.
From Canada, Benoit was invited by Bad News Allen (aka Bad News Brown) to wrestle in Japan for New Japan Pro Wrestling. Initially, Chris did not like Japan, experiencing some culture shock. However, after returning home for the holidays and talking about his experiences with the Canadian Stampede wrestlers, he realised how fortunate he was, and returned to Japan with renewed enthusiasm. It was shortly after this that Benoit would don a mask to become Pegasus Kid, and discusses his thoughts on wearing the mask, and then his feelings on removing it to become Wild Pegasus. Japan was the first time he would meet his longtime friends, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, and Chris Jericho. Benoit would form a lasting bond with them.
After winning the J-Cup tournament, he was invited to return to the United States to compete in Paul E. Dangerously's original ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling). Clips include his match with Sabu at November to Remember 1994 where Sabu would break his neck mistiming a fall after a toss from Benoit. Chris admitted he was very scared that he might have permanantly crippled Sabu, and cried about it, phoning many times to find out how Sabu was recovering. It was as a result of this that Benoit would earn the nickname "The Crippler", named by Paul E., a name he would carry with him the rest of his career. With the name would come the character, where Paul E. would recommend Benoit constantly be cupping his hands, to focus on them during his promos, which would show the intensity of Benoit's character.
Benoit would team with his friend from Japan, Dean Malenko, to capture the ECW Tag Team Championships, his first American Championship.
Benoit's final appearance with ECW was due to his being unable to secure a work visa from ECW, and without that, Benoit risked not being able to return to the U.S. for a five-year period.
After ECW, he talks about his three separate try-out matches with the World Wrestling Federation, WWF (for the record, it was against Adam Bomb, Bob Holly, and Owen Hart), and how he didn't fit in with them at the time, and since New Japan had a working agreement with WCW (World Championship Wrestling), that was where Benoit ended up. Benoit discusses his time with the Four Horsemen and what it felt like to be part of such a legendary supergroup and his feud with Kevin Sullivan and the end result of their conflict that would eventually end up with Benoit going to the WWF.
In the WWF, Benoit would pick up the Intercontinental Championship in short order, moving on to his famous WrestleMania XX match with Shawn Michaels and Triple H to pick up the World Heavyweight Championship after outlasting everyone else at the 2004 Royal Rumble, being only the second person to come into the Rumble first and win the event.
Due to the tragic muder-suicide of Chris Benoit, WWE had pulled its stock of this title from their library, and edited footage of Chris from all new releases. As a result, finding this tape, especially new, is very difficult, as many collectors have snapped up this title and are holding on to them.
This tape is an excellent remembrance of the athlete and entertainer that Chris Benoit was.
Box and tape in excellent condition from private collection.
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