WWE Stars Chris Jericho And ‘Hurricane’ Helms Arrested

TMZ.com was the first to report that World Wrestling Entertainment wrestlers Chris Jericho and Gregory “Hurricane” Helms were arrested for public intoxication early Wednesday in Erlanger, Kentucky, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. The mug shots of these WWE employees — excuse me, independent contractors — can be viewed at http://www.tmz.com/2010/01/28/wwe-star-chris-jericho-arrested-in-kentucky/.

Chris Jericho was one of the late Chris Benoit’s best friends. But that didn’t keep Jericho from joining the cast of CNN’s Larry King Live to yuk it up in a pre-WrestleMania promo appearance in March 2008, nine months after Benoit murdered his wife and their seven-year-old son, and killed himself. Here’s an excerpt of the LexisNexis transcript of King’s exchange with Vince McMahon, the WWE chairman and husband of current U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon:

KING: How is the business since the death of Chris?

MCMAHON: Business wise it’s excellent.

KING: Really? You weren’t affected at all?

MCMAHON: No. Not — certainly not in the short-term. You know, it’s one of those things that will live with you forever, you know what I mean?

And it could have happened to any company. It could have happened to any sports team. It certainly happens, you know, in the post office a lot or whatever. And it’s really, really…

(LAUGHTER)

Eight days before Chris Benoit went on his rampage, he had an exchange of bawdy text messages with Greg Helms. The latter’s contribution was, “[H]ow is a woman’s pussy like a warm toilet seat? — They both feel nice but u can’t help but wonder who was there before you!”

More recently Helms has bragged on Twitter about the joys of getting shit-faced drunk.

I know, I know … tabloid trash, as John Edwards used to say.

Irv Muchnick