25 July 2007

The first exploitive look at the Chris Benoit murder/suicide hitting in the fall

It was announced on Publishers Weekly web site that the first book about WWE wrestler Chris Benoit -who last month murdered his wife Nancy and his 7-year-old son Daniel before taking his own life - will bow in October.

Toronto-based publisher ECW will release Benoit: Wrestling with the Horror that Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport by four veteran professional wrestling writers: Steven Johnson, Greg Oliver, Irvin Muchnick, and Heath McCoy.

Senior editor Michael Holmes says that the book is intended to look at what might’ve happened to Benoit, it also takes a look at the steroid use within wrestling itself. He told PW that “we’re trying to actually do something good with this book and not do something that’s a crash title, that exploits a hot-button issue."

But, in reality, this is what the book is really about. Wrap it up as a “serious” look into steroid use, but frame it with an exploitive take on what “might’ve” happened to Benoit and the gruesome way the family died.

This will be the book version of that horrible shrew Nancy Grace show on CNN. And while these tomes have a short shelf life, the sad aspect that some people will buy this crap -they are also the same folks who think People Magazine and US Weekly is technically reading.

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