Linda McMahon ‘Kicked Dirt on the Graves’ of Other Dead Wrestlers Besides Lance Cade. See ‘Benoit, Chris’ and the 2007 ‘Good Morning America’ Intervie

Seven months ago this blog ran a multi-part series on what I called Linda McMahon’s despicable June 2007 interview on ABC’s Good Morning America – which she used to spread innuendo that Chris Benoit’s 7-year-old son Daniel had a condition called Fragile X Syndrome, and that this was the key factor in the World Wrestling Entertainment star’s double murder/suicide in Georgia.

“The video should be unearthed and broadcast alongside McMahon’s expensive TV commercials for her Connecticut U.S. Senate campaign,” I wrote on February 4. “It is despicable: Linda’s female soft-shoe to husband Vince’s male tap-dance sound bite the same week that no one could have foretold that Chris Benoit was ‘a monster.’”

I now have a link to the video clip (along with the existing links to the full transcript of the interview and to audio of another similar interview):

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3325390

The focus of the Benoit story, Linda McMahon told Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts, “is really turning more to the tension that must have been happening between a husband and wife over, you know, the management and the schooling and the rearing of this child who had the mental retardation.”

Within days, WWE backed away from this statement by McMahon and similar ones by WWE lawyer Jerry McDevitt.

More recently, former WWE wrestler Chris Nowinski, of Boston’s Sports Legacy Institute, said McMahon was “kicking dirt on the grave” of another performer, Lance Cade, who died at 29 from heart failure brought on by an addiction to painkillers. Linda said she “might have met him once.” According to WWE sources, she actually had met Cade dozens of times at TV tapings and at company headquarters in Stamford.

In October 2008 WWE had gotten a jump on kicking dirt on Cade’s grave when it auctioned over the Internet, for $315, the steel chair another wrestler, Shawn Michaels, had used on television to batter Cade once on the head and 18 other times on other parts of his body.

Further reading:

“Linda McMahon and ‘Fragile X Syndrome’ (Part 1),” Introduction — http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/linda-mcmahon-and-%E2%80%98fragile-x-syndrome%E2%80%99-part-1/

“Linda McMahon and ‘Fragile X Syndrome’ (Part 2),” Chris Benoit’s Son’s Medical Condition Sets Off a Media Frenzy — http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/linda-mcmahon-and-fragile-x-syndrome-part-2/

“Linda McMahon and ‘Fragile X Syndrome’ (Part 3),” Linda McMahon Goes on “Good Morning America” — http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/linda-mcmahon-and-fragile-x-syndrome-part-3/

“Linda McMahon and ‘Fragile X Syndrome’ (Part 4),” Let’s Go to the Videotape — http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/linda-mcmahon-and-fragile-x-syndrome-part-4/

“Linda McMahon and ‘Fragile X Syndrome’ (Part 5),” The DA and WWE Back Off; What Does It All Mean? — http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/linda-mcmahon-and-fragile-x-syndrome-part-5/

“Linda McMahon’s Despicable 2007 ‘Good Morning America’ Interview,” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/linda-mcmahons-despicable-june-2007-good-morning-america-interview/

“For Linda McMahon’s WWE, Depraved Is As Depraved Does,” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/for-linda-mcmahons-wwe-depraved-is-as-depraved-does/


Irv Muchnick