FOX Covering Sherri's Death, Benoit/Wikipedia Update
The Fox News Channel is now reporting on the death of former WWE manager Sherri Martel. It's currently a front page headline on their website, with a big graphic posted as well. Furthermore, they just mentioned the story on Studio B With Shepard Smith. There doesn't appear to be any new details regarding her death, although they are mentioning that there was a backstage incident involving Martel and the then-Nancy Sullivan in early 1996. Reports of the incident say that an argument between the two escalated with Martel spitting on Nancy Sullivan. Martel reportedly was later fired. Fox News is getting all this information from the Pro Wrestling Torch, which is what they were reporting at the time. While that incident may have happened, in actuality, according to Dave Meltzer is she was let go by WCW in early 1996 because she "showed up in condition to work" at a TV taping. That also explains why her feud with Madusa, who crashed Sherri's "wedding" with Col. Robert Parker, was suddenly cut off. In July 1996, Sherri was brought back to manage Harlem Heat again, but she was let go again a year later for reasons undisclosed. Fox News is also saying that Kevin Sullivan, then married to Nancy, tried to pair Martel up with Ric Flair as a play on the Nicole Brown/O.J. Simpson story at the time. That seems to be incorrect as Sherri herself said during her WWE Hall of Fame induction last year that she was going to be paired up with Ron Simmons. She said the storyline was nixed by the people at Turner because it would have been too controversial.
Fox News is reporting that an anonymous user out of Stamford, CT edited Chris Benoit's entry on Wikipedia to feature the comments, "However, Chris Benoit was replaced by Johnny Nitro for the ECW Championship match at Vengeance, as Benoit was not there due to personal issues, stemming from the death of his wife Nancy." The comments led to Wikipedia volunteers contacting Fayetteville, Georgia authorities.
However, the I.P. address in question also made a series of other edits to different entries, including former WWE Diva Stacy Keibler, WWE star Chavo Guerrero, NBA player Ron Artest and the HBO series The Sopranos. Many of the edits were misspelled or explicit in nature, leading one to believe that the postings were made by a hoaxer.
Even though the IP address is being traced back to Stamford, CT, it's also entirely conceivable that the user was concealing his true IP address. One person who knows a lot about internet technology said, "They have software out there that you install on your computer that will change your IP address and location or origin that people will see on the Internet. IP spoofing is a little more technical so with this user, based on the grammar, looks to be someone young using a software program of that nature."
More than likely, this person made a wild guess regarding the Benoit situation at the time, and this person turned out to be right.