Chris Benoit Ultimatum on Steroids, Marriage Sent Him Over the Edge, By: Jim Roberts

July 13, 2007

Leading up to a scene that ended with such tragedy, his wife gave Chris Benoit an ultimatum:  Back off wrestling, get off the steroids and stay home more or I’m out of here!  "It was too much for Chris.  He finally believed she was leaving, and he snapped."  Police say that over three nightmarish days, Benoit strangled his 43-year-old wife with a garrote, suffocated his son in a wrestling hold, and then hanged himself on June 24.

"Chris was under a lot of pressure,” Bryan Alvarez, a close pal of Benoit's and publisher of Figure Four Online  told the National Enquirer. "Nancy had fights with him about the steroids.  But even when he laid off wrestling for a year after surgery for a broken neck, he refused to get off them because he was afraid of losing his size and his job."

Adding to the anguish and loneliness Chris felt in private was the heart attack death of his best friend, wrestler Eddie Guerrero.  Eddie died in 2005 at the age of 38.  "Chris was devastated.  He turned to drugs, and drinking to ease his pain,” disclosed Alvarez.

As his family life crumbled and career pressures mounted, Chris grew increasingly violent at home, an insider told The Enquirer. After Eddie died, people started seeing bruises on Nancy.  He was hurting her, but she kept forgiving him.  “Finally, Nancy told him she was leaving - and that set him off.”