We all know the tragic story of former WWE World Heavyweight Champion Chris Benoit.

"The Crippler" began his professional wrestling career back in 1985 when he started doing work for the Stampede Wrestling promotion. He also did some work for New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) before being signed by World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1992, where he would go on to win the company's world championship. 

Benoit then signed with the WWE in 2000 where he, Perry Saturn, Eddie Guerrero, and Dean Malenko became known as The Radicalz. He began his singles career in 2002 where he would go on to win WWE Intercontinental, United States, Tag Team, and World Heavyweight Championships. He also won the Royal Rumble in 2004.

Unfortunately, the years of trauma to Benoit's head took a tremendous toll on him, as he had a brain that resembled one of an 85-year-old Alzheimer's patient, and he and his family were found dead in their Georgia home in June of 2007. An investigation into the matter revealed that Benoit had killed his wife and 7-year-old son before taking his own life.

Despite the monstrous actions of Benoit, many WWE Superstars stated that the Canadian's actions did not reflect the person they knew, who has a nice and quiet colleague that seemed to love his family very much.

Current WWE Superstar Natalya recently spoke about Benoit on an episode of former WWE Superstars Edge and Christian's podcast, E&C's Pod Of Awesomeness, and revealed that Benoit actually helped her and her husband, Tyson Kidd, get hired by the WWE (quotes via Wrestling Inc.):

"I don't know if you want to include this or not, I was lucky enough that there were people in the industry at this time, when I got hired, Bret still wasn't talking to WWE. They weren't on good terms or they just weren't talking at all.

"And everybody knows the history between Bret and WWE, and the Montreal Screwjob, so it was a tricky time for the Harts to get hired, so Chris Benoit was a good family friend and our family helped him break into the industry.

"So Chris Benoit actually is one of the people that helped me get hired and he really pulled for myself and TJ and he put pressure on Johnny [Ace] and said, 'I want to help these two people get hired.' So I really feel like it was Chris helped us get hired."

What are your thoughts on Benoit helping get Natalya into the WWE? Have YOUR say in the comments section below and the third episode of GiveMeSport’s WWE podcast is here!

Check it out via this link. https://soundcloud.com/user-818579649/gms-wwe-podcast-all-the-fallout-from-wwe-payback