8 Things About Shelton Benjamin's Career That Make No Sense

The career of Shelton Benjamin is in winding down, even though he has a few strong years left. Benjamin debuted almost two decades ago for WWE, with everyone having huge expectations following his developmental stint. WWE reportedly viewed Shelton on the same tier as fellow OVW prospects like Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Randy Orton and Batista.

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There were both singles and tag team pushes for Benjamin to help him get established in the early years. Unfortunately, Shelton was never able to gain the momentum needed to move up the card into a main event role. The success still makes him a potential Hall of Fame candidate when looking back at his ups and downs. Find out which moments lacked logic or made no sense for Benjamin from WWE and beyond.

8 Ending Tag Team With Charlie Haas Early

The tag team run of Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas allowed them to get over in the early stages of their careers. Kurt Angle initially had them uniting with him as Team Angle, before losing the association. Haas and Benjamin became known as World’s Greatest Tag Team to continue their tag run.

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The potential of Shelton as a singles star inspired WWE to split them up before either talent was ready. Benjamin was moved to Raw in the draft, ending their tag run after just a little over a year. WWE ending the team made little sense since they could have done so much more together, and Shelton would have been better set up when they did break up.

7 The Hurt Business Splitting Up

Another recent end to Shelton Benjamin’s time in a great team came when he and Cedric Alexander were kicked out of the Hurt Business. Bobby Lashley winning the WWE Championship made the faction even more successful with Benjamin, Alexander and MVP uniting with him.

The Hurt Business was considered the best thing on the Raw brand with many people speaking against the move to split them up. Even retired legend Batista posted a rare social media message about WWE television, complaining about it. Shelton struggled to get television time before the Hurt Business and that could be his story again, after parting ways with Alexander as well.

6 Reuniting World's Greatest Tag Team

WWE had the most forgettable reunion for a great duo, when the World’s Greatest Tag Team reunited in 2006. After spending about two years apart, Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas would end up teaming again on the Raw brand.

Haas started appearing at ringside for Benjamin’s singles matches, showing support and getting involved. The team reunited and received little momentum, despite it feeling it should have been a bigger deal. Aside from a ladder match against the Hardy Boyz, World’s Greatest Tag Team weren’t put in a place to have any noteworthy moments.

5 Never Winning MITB

Shelton Benjamin is one of the first wrestlers associated with the Money in the Bank ladder match. WWE placed Benjamin in the first two matches, where he showed off his athleticism with the memorable highlight moves.

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A total of five appearances placed Shelton in the fifth most Money in the Bank ladder matches. Benjamin has never won any of them, as WWE never felt he was the right person for the role. Given how disappointing some of the winners were, Shelton scoring at least one victory could have put him over the top in the way WWE always wanted.

4 Feud With Charlie Haas In ROH

The Ring of Honor run of Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas saw the former WWE wrestlers trying to have one more run together. Haas was vocal about wanting Benjamin to leave WWE, with the belief they could have a strong stint together in another promotion.

ROH did see the World’s Greatest Tag Team having a strong program with the Kings of Wrestling to win the ROH Tag Team Championship. However, the run as a team ended when Haas turned on Shelton to set up a match.

Benjamin was leaving ROH, but Haas was the one who ruined the feud, when released for personal issues. ROH was forced to change the match to Shelton vs. Mike Bennett ahead of the event.

3 WWE Return & Teaming With Chad Gable

WWE did a sloppy job reintroducing Shelton Benjamin to the company almost a decade after his last appearance. Benjamin re-signed with WWE in 2016, but an injury kept him out of action until 2017 when the brand split was already established.

American Alpha ended when Raw General Manager Kurt Angle wanted his long-lost son Jason Jordan on Raw. WWE brought Shelton back by claiming Angle helped Daniel Bryan sign him to Smackdown as a replacement partner for Chad Gable. The return, which saw him replacing someone in a tag team didn’t provide the impact many fans wanted.

2 Mama's Boy Gimmick

WWE started to lose faith in Shelton Benjamin when feeling his lack of charisma or mic skills would hold him back from success as a singles star. One of the most bizarre ways to confront this was having a new storyline with his overbearing mother as a character.

The actress hired for the role would embarrass Shelton in backstage segments and try to keep him focused on his matches. WWE wanted to make fans forget about Benjamin’s weaknesses, but this idea just turned him into a laughing stock, ruining his remaining momentum for a main event push.

1 On Again/Off Again Association With Brock Lesnar

The friendship between Shelton Benjamin and Brock Lesnar saw them once living together in the early stages of their wrestling careers. WWE teaming them up in developmental helped the two new prospects lean on each other when learning a new craft and profession. The bond between Benjamin and Lesnar was referenced on WWE television on a few occasions.

Shelton wrestled Rey Mysterio on behalf of Brock when the part-timer wasn’t there to keep the feud going, but they’d be detached when Lesnar was there. The 2020 Royal Rumble match gave us the moment of Lesnar betraying Benjamin. Unfortunately, WWE didn’t add the depth to that story to make it as impactful as they intended.

NEXT: 10 Backstage Stories About Brock Lesnar That We Can't Believe