Former WCW valet AnnMarie "Midnight" Crooks speaks about Chris Benoit
Performing as a valet under the name Midnight, AnnMarie Crooks worked for one year in World Championship Wrestling at the same time as Chris Benoit. Now a real-estate agent and owner of a “mid-century furnishing and accessories store” in the Fort Lauderdale, Fla. area, Crooks recently sent me an email with her thoughts on the Benoit murder-suicide. Here are her thoughts:
“Professional wrestling does not control my life, so I can say what I want unlike others who fear of losing their jobs.
“I knew Chris for about a year and this is not in the man’s character at all. Most wrestlers I knew were cocky, womanizing, etc. He was a true worker. He was low-key, soft-spoken and just a nice guy.”
“All this media speculation about ’roid rage is crap. How about just plain old ‘Fed up with WWE’ rage? I am not saying he wasn’t using steroids. I don’t know and frankly don’t care. It is insignificant, in my opinion, to what caused Chris to do what he did.
“The media is always so quick to start drawing conclusions before the whole story is known. They don’t know how these wrestlers live for this job, how so many can’t leave because they don’t know how to live outside of the public’s eye or can’t ever move on because they don’t have any other skills. How these promoters own them, manipulate them and control their destinies through storylines that sometimes involve their personal lives off-stage!
“Why do you think old wrestlers like Ric Flair won’t just retire and accept his age and limitations? It’s not for the money! He has more than enough, a successful gym, and other business enterprises. It’s part of the wrestler mentality. I know of what I speak.
“Who knows what was going on behind the scenes with WWE and Chris? I know how quickly [promotions] can change your life, income and destroy dreams. I also know of several other ex-wrestlers who are hooked on drugs, doing anything to make ends meet and just plain unhappy. They couldn’t accept the end of that lifestyle and career. I can’t help but wonder what actions and/or conversations within WWE involving Chris caused this?
“I consider myself lucky for being released long before I sunk to the levels necessary to play the game and hang on to your contract. I thank God and my family for the strength to move on and to have the ambition to find new doorways of opportunities and new business ventures.
“When lesser known wrestlers pass away, we never hear about it; but now it’s just too much. Eddie Guerrero was the beginning of the doors to the lies and secret of this business opening. And now we must add Chris Benoit’s name to what I am sure will be an ever-growing list of wrestlers who die before their time. I am disgusted that yet another wrestler and human being was so overwhelmed with life and issues that he felt he couldn’t control, that he felt this was the only way to a solution.
“I am deeply saddened by this tragedy. WWE’s claim that he just tested clean on his last test … All I can say to that is spare me your media-ready statements.
“I can’t speak for WWE’s drug-testing policies. But I know when I was in WCW, they passed who the hell they wanted to pass and failed who they want to fail. It’s all politics, just like the sport itself.
“I think there is much more behind this story that led him to snap. And from my brief and disgusting stint in the professional wrestling biz, I am sure Vince McMahon knows what caused this to happen. I hope he will find it in his heart to look past the money he makes off these wrestlers and do the right thing. He was so quick to air a special memorial show to Chris – let’s see how quick he is in changing protocol and telling the FACTS and the TRUTH, because its only then will things begin to change.
“Lies beget lies; the truth can change things! This whole thing stinks of a cover-up of the entire truth – to save WWE being connected with this in any way. But it’s like the postal worker who comes back with the loaded gun and kills everyone in the building … Incredible frustration and stress from a job spiraling out of control.
“Every action has a reaction, and though WWE is not to blame for the decisions Chris made, if they were catalysts – stand up and state so!”