Shelton Benjamin: Biography

Shelton Benjamin (born July 9, 1975 in Orangeburg, South Carolina) is an American professional wrestler and former amateur wrestler now working for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)'s RAW brand.

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Statistics

Stage names

Shelton Benjamin

Height 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)

Weight 245 lbs.

Born July 9, 1975

Hometown Orangeburg, South Carolina

Trained by Ohio Valley Wrestling

Debut 2000

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Career

Benjamin was Brock Lesnar's tag team partner (also a wrestling teammate and roommate at The University of Minnesota) in Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW). Together they were known as The Minnesota Stretching Crew and held the OVW Tag Team Titles on three occasions. After Lesnar was called up to WWE, Benjamin formed a tag team with Redd Dogg Begnaud (later known as Rodney Mack in WWE) to again hold the OVW Tag Team Titles.

He joined WWE as a heel along with Charlie Haas in 2003 as Team Angle, with former Olympic gold-medallist wrestler and former WWE Champion Kurt Angle as their mentor. After splitting with Angle, the two referred to themselves as The World's Greatest Tag Team until they were separated when Benjamin was moved from the company's SmackDown! show to WWE RAW.

Upon arriving on RAW, he was immediately confronted by the show's top heel, Triple H. Triple H accused him of laughing when he was transferred to SmackDown! via the Draft Lottery (a subsequent trade sent Triple H back to RAW the following day). Triple H attacked Benjamin backstage, which led to a match in which Benjamin scored a tremendous upset by pinning the former World Heavyweight Champion. Two more victories followed, and Benjamin quickly became a face singles star.

Benjamin defeated Ric Flair at Backlash 2004, and continued being pushed as an up-and-coming star. An injury briefly put Benjamin out of action, but he came back in the fall of 2004, shortly before the Taboo Tuesday pay-per-view. He was voted in over fourteen other superstars to get an WWE Intercontinental Championship shot against Chris Jericho, and succeeded in defeating him for the belt on October 19, 2004, holding it for eight months.

On November 22, 2004 Benjamin appeared in a comedy vignette with Trish Stratus and Vince McMahon which parodied a controversial Monday Night Football incident on November 15 featuring Desperate Housewives actress Nicolette Sheridan flashing wide receiver Terrell Owens. After Benjamin rejected Stratus' advances, McMahon appeared and asked Benjamin if he was unaware that he was an African American, as "everybody knows, African Americans are attracted to Canadian white women with broken noses."

During his reign as the Intercontinental Champion, Benjamin has been impressive, defeating challengers such as Christian and Maven, even successfully retaining the title at Backlash in a return match with Chris Jericho. With this victory over Jericho, Benjamin beat Randy Orton's record for reigning the longest as the Intercontinental Champion. Benjamin would then lost his title to Carlito on June 20, 2005, when Carlito held the ropes to get the pin.

Finishing and signature moves

T-Bone Powerslam (Exploder suplex)

Benjamin Frostkick (Sidekick)

Flying lariat

Dragon whip

Stinger Splash (Running corner body splash)

Top rope springboard bulldog

Samoan drop

Championships and accomplishments

World Wrestling Entertainment

WWE Intercontinental Champion

October 19, 2004 - June 20, 2005

WWE Tag Team Champion (2)

February 24, 2003 - May 18, 2003 (with Charlie Haas)

July 1, 2003 - September 16, 2003 (with Charlie Haas)

Ohio Valley Wrestling

OVW Tag Team Champion (4)

February 13, 2001 - April 22, 2001 (with Brock Lesnar)

May 15, 2001 - July 14, 2001 (with Brock Lesnar, vacated due to injury)

October 13, 2001 - November 7, 2001 (with Brock Lesnar)

July 17, 2002 -- (with Redd Dogg Begnaud, vacated)

Pro Wrestling Illustrated

PWI Tag Team of the Year Award, with Charlie Haas (2003)

PWI Top 500 wrestlers: ranked 9th (2005)

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The above biography has been copied in part or in whole from an article on Wikipedia.org "The Free Encyclopedia."  It has been modified under the NGU Free Document License Section 5 in the following manner: (1) All links within the article have been removed, including text links such as "[#]"; (2) The "[Edit]" text and link have been removed [if you would like to update the article, you may do so from the original page]; (3) the table of Contents links and text have been removed; and (4) all of the sections of the original article have not been copied. All of the above text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Document License.

URL of Original Article:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelton_Benjamin

Date Article Copied: September 7, 2005

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