Sequim author's first book looks inside professional wrestling
Author Matthew Randazzo V of Sequim holds his book, which officially goes on sale today. It chronicles the saga of professional wrestler Chris Benoit, who killed his wife and son, then hanged himself. -- Photo by Chris Tucker/Peninsula Daily News
By Brad LaBrie, Peninsula Daily News
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The 24-year-old author's first book — on professional wrestling and one wrestler's demise to drugs and brain damage — is officially available to the public today, even though it already has been showing up in bookstores and available at Amazon.com for about a week.
"My agent called me a few days ago and said he walked into a bookstore and saw my book," Randazzo said with a wide smile in an interview.
The Sequim resident displayed a smile despite battling a touch of food poisoning. He came down sick the day before after eating salmon, and even though he was advised to stay home and take care of himself by his fiancée, Melissa Huntington, he wanted to go out for interviews about his book.
"I have interviews all afternoon, including at the radio station, and I have interviews all day Monday and Tuesday," he said.
The media blitz is whirring around Randazzo because of his book's subject matter.
Ring of Hell is based on pro wrestler Chris Benoit and the shocking murder of his wife, Nancy, and 7-year-old son, Daniel, and Benoit's suicide two days after he killed his wife.
The book's release is coming out near the first anniversary of the slayings, June 25, 2007.
Promotion's name change
While the book centers on Benoit, it also includes the history of pro wrestling, which is dominated by World Wrestling Entertainment, formerly the World Wrestling Federation.
The name change came about after the World Wildlife Fund sued over commercial use of the initials WWF.
The promotion changed its initials to WWE — reflecting "entertainment" because the matches and outcomes preplanned.
But just because the matches are scripted doesn't mean there's no violence, according to Randazzo's book.
Already controversial, the book details the violent culture of the "sports entertainment," the tremendous amount of drugs used — including steroids — and how poorly the wrestlers are treated by the promoters.
Randazzo said he isn't worried about the controversy or any possible problems from WWE.
After all, Randazzo has been threatened by real Mafia goons because of another book he has written and will come out later.
"I'm the son of two corporate attorneys, and I know what I can write and what I can't write," he said.
New Orleans native
The New Orleans native grew up fascinated about true-crime stories, especially those connected to Mafia families.
"New Orleans is an outlaw city, and my interest is crime because of growing up in that city," Randazzo said.
"From an early age, I have had an intense interest in organized crime and politics."
His first three books, which have not been bought by publishers, are about the Mafia and other true crime, his favorite subject.
He has been threatened by some in the New York mob because of his book, Breakshot, the true-life story about an FBI-protected witness of the mob with the code name Breakshot.
"It's an incredible story," Randazzo said.
"It's about a California teenager who became involved with the cocaine cartels and barely escaped with his life in New York City."
His agent is negotiating with five to six publishers about buying his first books. It may be one to two years before the process is finished, the author said.
Ring of Hell is published by Phoenix Books.
And even though he has been paid enough to be a full-time writer, the process of selling those first books has been trying for the young author.
"That part has been unbelievably frustrating," Randazzo said.
"I have 3,000 rejection letters and have spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars in postage sending manuscripts out."
Ironically, the idea of Ring of Hell sold while his finished books sat gathering dust.
A good friend of Randazzo's asked the Sequim writer to help him write the book, but the friend later backed out.
Randazzo was given just three to four months to research and write the book himself.
It helped that he had a lot of contacts already.
"I have so many friends there [in the business]," he said.
But still, Randazzo had precious little time to interview several dozen sources, read countless books and watch a lot of video.
Good buzz
And so far his time and effort is paying off with a good buzz about the book, and several good reviews on Amazon.com blogs against only a couple of negative ones.
Randazzo contends in the book that Benoit was turned into the monster who killed his wife and son by the violence-and-drug culture of WWE.
Benoit was a doting and affectionate father to his son, Randazzo writes in his first chapter.
But Benoit also was an obsessive wrestler who wasn't afraid to dive head-long into the canvas or the ropes of the ring.
"Benoit's brain was so severely damaged it resembled the brain of an 85-year-old Alzheimer's patient," ABC News reported after Benoit's autopsy.
"He had brain damage in all four lobes of his brain and brain stem," ABC News reported. "He had chronic traumatic encephalopathy."
Randazzo stands behind his contention of Benoit being a good family man and loving father despite his wife, Nancy, filing for divorce in May 2003, allegedly for domestic abuse.
A restraining order was granted, but it was dismissed three months later on Nancy's request.
"By wrestling standards where broken relationships are the norm, they had an extremely happy relationship," Randazzo said.
"Nancy had a long history of being with abusive men, and she was combative herself.
"Because of extreme brain damage and drug abuse, Chris' last four or five years were in extreme decline."
So much decline that on Friday, June 22, 2007, he strangled Nancy with a cord in an upstairs room. Benoit left a Bible beside her.
The next day he murdered his beloved son, Daniel, suffocating him with his trademark wrestling hold. He also left a Bible next to Daniel.
Hangs self
It wasn't until the next day, Sunday, that Benoit hanged himself with a cord from a weight machine in the basement weight room.
"By the time he was 40, Benoit's body was in constant blinding pain, and his profoundly damaged brain was further scrambled by years of heavy amphetamine, steroids, alcohol, painkiller and psychiatric drug abuse," Randazzo writes in Chapter 1.
"For most of his life, Chris Benoit was a study in irreconcilable contrasts. In the end, Chris Benoit the mentally disturbed, self-mutilating wrestling freak show and Chris Benoit the decent family man became one: Benoit murdered his own son with a variation of his fictional character's signature wrestling hold [the Crippler Crossface]."
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Sports Editor Brad LaBrie can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at bradlabrie@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: June 16. 2008 9:00PM