Shelton Benjamin discusses signing with AEW.
WWE released Benjamin in a round of cuts in September 2023. He returned to action on the independent scene, and he landed in AEW, as he made his debut on the October 2 episode of AEW Dynamite. There, he reunited with MVP.
Speaking on Gabby AF, Shelton Benjamin discussed signing with AEW.
“I really thought long and hard about where I wanted to go,” Benjamin said. “IMPACT was a very tempting place to go, but it just boils down to, I want the biggest possible audience. Outside of WWE, there’s no one bigger than AEW. So for me, I don’t have as much time as a lot of guys, as far as in-ring and things like that.
“Don’t get me wrong, not that I’m going to retire any time soon, but for the time I have left, I want to reach the biggest possible audience I can. What better place than AEW? There is no better place. That’s where the best wrestle. They have so many studs in that company, I’m amazed.”
Shelton Benjamin On Seeing Familiar Faces
Benjamin continued by noting that he was amazed at the amount of people that he knew when he arrived in AEW.
“I will say, I was amazed at how many people that I knew going on the door,” he said. “Obviously, I knew there were a lot of guys there, but once I was actually there, there were a lot of talent there that I was like, ‘I didn’t know you were here.’ Because you don’t always see everything.
“I don’t watch a lot of wrestling, I’ll be honest. I watch wrestling when I have to, but I don’t watch a lot. So there’s a lot of people out there that I missed, or I just didn’t realize they were under contract with AEW. So it was a very pleasant surprise to see a lot of faces that were very familiar, both talent-wise and in production.”
The video can be seen here:
Benjamin will face Sammy Guevara on the October 23 episode of AEW Dynamite.
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