"The Gold Standard" Shelton Benjamin is one of the top wrestling stars in the world. With his bleached blond hair, his cocky swagger, and raw wrestling ability, he is like Dennis Rodman, Little Richard, and Abraham Lincoln all rolled into one. The South Carolina native won Amateur wrestling championships in high school and at the University of Minnesota where he often trained with future UFC Heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar, and boasted an impressive win-loss record. He then competed for Ohio Valley Wrestling, before being brought into WWE by Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle along with Charlie Haas as part of Team Angle.
At Angle's side, Benjamin and Haas battled The Big Show, Chris Benoit, and Los Guerreros among others, before splitting off on their own and forming The World's Greatest Tag Team. The duo held the WWE tag team championship belts under both names. The two split up when Shelton Benjamin was sent to RAW as a result of the WWE Draft.
Shelton began his singles career with momentum. He claimed victories over top RAW stars like Triple H and battled Chris Jericho, Christian, and Gene Snitsky over the Intercontinental Championship before beginning a sudden, unexpected losing streak. This prompted Shelton's Mama, an actress who played the title character in the short-lived TV sitcom Theia, to appear and accuse her son of "going soft". With Mama Benjamin in his corner, Shelton's fortunes began to turn around.
Mama Benjamin claimed to be in poor health and would sit at ringside in a wheelchair. Some speculated that her claims of poor health were exaggerated due to the fact that Shelton would sometimes wait for the referee to become distracted and then KO his opponent with Mama's large steel oxygen tank. Shelton would then finish his opponent off with his patented T-Bone Suplex much to the satisfaction of Mama Benjamin, who would then pop up out of her wheelchair for a victory dance. However, it seems that Mama Benjamin's health was truly ailing, as she departed WWE soon after.
Most recently, Shelton has been appearing on WWE's Friday Night Smackdown, fighting over the United States Championship against stars like Montel Vontavious Porter, R-Truth, and John Morrison and has become known for stealing the show with death-defying aerial attacks in WWE's Money In The Bank Ladder Match, which has become an annual part of Wrestlemania.
No comments:
Post a Comment