10 Wrestling Moments That Exploited Nostalgia (And Failed)

5. That Strange Shelton Benjamin Business

Nikki Cross nWo
WWE

No, not that two-week period on SmackDown last year in which he smiled mischievously from side to side, but, incidentally, what the f*ck was all that about?

He seemed to allude to a mystery angle of some sort. What did Shelton Benjamin know that we didn't, exactly? The identity of the person who attacked Roman Reigns? A new finishing move? That WWE would pay him millions of dollars over five years just to do four-minute jobs to Eric Young on Main Event?

Almost as strange is WWE's recent use of him: he is, essentially, Brock Lesnar's old OVW tag team partner in the Minnesota Stretching Crew every 19th Monday. Whenever it's a "Brock can't be f*cked" week, but they need to run an angle to advance one of his storylines, Shelton Benjamin is unearthed, wheeled out on television, and soundly beaten up by Seth Rollins or Cain Velasquez or something. This was paid off at the Royal Rumble at least with a quality punchline - Brock naturally didn't care about Benjamin, and likely had no idea he'd even tried to soften his opponents up - but it was cute and ineffective stuff.

The vast majority of fans don't know about their old association because, beyond the odd retrospective Network doc mention, OVW was treated as a second cousin WWE had drunkenly bucked.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!