Professional wrestling legend and WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross who is currently working of the color commentator in the AEW recently talked about WWE star Shelton Benjamin and discussed why WWE did not push him on the same level of John Cena and Brock Lesnar.
Shelton Benjamin started his professional wrestling career back in 2000 at the Ohio Valley Wrestling which was the development Territory of WWE back then. He started his career along with the likes of John Cena, Randy Orton, and Brock Lesnar. A very few people knows that Brock Lesnar was his Tag Team partner at the Ohio Valley Wrestling and they won the OVW Tag Team Championship three times together.
Jim Ross Discusses Why Shelton Benjamin Was Not Pushed As A Top Star
In 2002, he was promoted to the main roster and he teamed up with Charlie Haas. Together they were working as the side kicks of Kurt Angle. They had been pretty famous as a tag team in Friday Night Smackdown as they won the WWE Tag Team Championship two times together on SmackDown. They work as a tag team till 2004 and they were one of the top tag teams of the division during their time.
In 2004 he was drafted to Monday Night RAW and he started his singles run. On the very first night of his Monday Night RAW debut, he set an instant impact when he defeated Triple H. He defeated Triple H on three back to back weeks which made it pretty clear that WWE has high hopes for the young professional wrestler.
He went on to win the WWE Intercontinental championship three times in total. But unfortunately he could never be anything more than just another mid card. In 2010 he was released by WWE and he went to the independent circuit and also worked in other professional wrestling promotions.
In 2017, he made his return to WWE, but this time WWE gave up all hopes in him. This time he was nothing more than a jobber in WWE. He did win some Tag Team Championship gold but for most of the time he was treated as a jobber. He is still active in WWE but his status did not change enough.
Jim Ross who is currently working of the color commentator in the AEW recently spoke on his Grilling JR podcast where he talked about WWE star Shelton Benjamin and discussed why WWE did not push him on the same level of John Cena and Brock Lesnar. He said;
“I liked it. I liked them a lot. Shelton was in that one all-star class that we signed that included Lesnar and Batista and Cena, and Orton. Shelton by far [was] the best pure athlete of the group that caught it quicker, that got it, so to speak, was Shelton. Shelton’s issues were always the fact that he, charisma-wise, just didn’t directly connect to the audience. But athletically speaking, you know, Shelton needed a manager, Shelton needed a mouthpiece to help him move, move the needle a little bit.”
“So, Shelton finally got a little break there, which I was very happy for. You know, Charlie Haas is an Oklahoma kid from Edmond Oklahoma. And so I have a special place in my heart for him. And, of course, Kurt was one of our signees.
“I just thought that pairing had a lot of chemistry and had a lot of symmetry and had a lot of credibility. So I enjoyed that presentation a great deal for many different reasons.”
Quotes via Inside The Ropes