10 Things You Didn’t Know About Shelton Benjamin
9. The Brock Lesnar Connection
And speaking of Benjamin’s University days, it was during
these that he of course met Brock Lesnar. There’s an absolute wealth of trivia
about the pair’s association, so I’ve rolled it all into a single slide in
this abridged history of the Lesnar/Benjamin connection.
Or Lesnamin, if you like.
The two first met at a wrestling tournament in 1997, before Lesnar would eventually succeed Benjamin on the University of Minnesota’s wrestling team. The latter then in fact stayed on as the team’s assistant coach, a position he held while Lesnar went on to win the NCAA Division 1 heavyweight championship, and the two of them then began rooming together upon signing for the WWE.
Given Lesnar’s infamous reclusiveness, that kind of history makes him and Benjamin pretty much the best of mates.
But perhaps my favourite piece of Lesnar-based Shelton Benjamin trivia is the fact that in all these years, and amongst all the accolades, Benjamin is the only man to have won tag team gold alongside the misanthropic Lesnar. Specifically, the OVW Southern Tag Team Championship back in 2001.