Chris Jericho reflects on ‘intertwined’ career with Chris Benoit

Professional wrestler, Chris Jericho, reflects on ‘intertwined’ career with Chris Benoit, whose life ended tragically, ahead of Dark Side of the Ring special on VICE TV.

Professional wrestler, Chris Jericho, has a tall task ahead of him and it’s a job outside the ring which, not in, that brings all the pressure. Jericho is the narrator for Dark Side of the Ring a docuseries currently in its second season. Jericho has the task of telling the story of wrestling icon Chris Benoit who murdered his wife and son before killing himself in 2007.

“You can feel that [moment] when we were kind of talking about in the show,” Jericho told FanSided’s Mark Carman. “It’s very strange and still all these years later, hard to kind of piece together exactly what went down. That’s why I felt that it was very important to be involved with the show because it gave everybody who kind of has those feelings that are very close to Chris and Eddie [Guerrero] a chance to kind of discuss it, and go through it and talk about it. The show was done in the right way with the right people involved.”

The subject is incredibly hard to talk about but Jericho feels fans need to see and talk about Benoit for the wrestler he was before the tragedy struck. He also understands that it might be too hard for some viewers to watch and urges people to decide for themselves.

“If you didn’t know Chris Benoit or maybe weren’t a fan and involved in 2007, and you’re just discovering him now, go watch his stuff,” he said. “He definitely is one of the greatest of all time. There’s no doubt about it. It’s a lot harder for people that were involved. I mean, my career was intertwined with him in so many ways.”

As for whether or not the takeaway from the episode will be to glorify violence, Jericho thinks people are smarter than that.

“I don’t think Dark Side of the Ring is going to really get people to go, ‘You know what I want you to watch Goodfellas,’ probably the opposite because you hear more about the story that happened in the last weekend of his life.”

The show airs on Tuesday, March, 24 at 9 p.m. ET on VICE TV YouTube with the two-hour special episode on Benoit, narrated Jericho. The series, produced by VICE Studios, will air weekly on Tuesdays at 10 ET after that.