Athletes - Shelton Benjamin

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	Athletes - Shelton Benjamin

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, and is currently its Intercontinental Champion.

Career

Ohio Valley Wrestling

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. Shelton did compete on some episodes of WWE Sunday Night HEAT before becoming an official member of the WWE roster.

WWE SmackDown!

He joined WWE as a heel along with Charlie Haas in 2003 to form Team Angle, with former Olympic gold-medallist wrestler Kurt Angle as their mentor. The team would soon win the WWE Tag Team Championship.

After splitting with Angle, the two referred to themselves as The World's Greatest Tag Team. They soon won the Tag Team Championship for the second time. The team was separated when Benjamin was moved to the company's show, RAW. Shelton's singles career would begin to take off after the move.

WWE RAW

Upon arriving on RAW, Benjamin was immediately confronted by the show's top heel, Triple H. Triple H accused him of laughing at him when he was transferred to SmackDown! via the Draft Lottery before being traded 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 Jericho for the belt.

On November 22, 2004 Benjamin appeared in a comedy vignette with Trish Stratus and Vince McMahon which parodied a controversial Monday Night Football skit 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 aware 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, defeated challengers such as Christian, Maven and Gene Snitsky even successfully retaining the title at Backlash in a return match with Chris Jericho. With this victory over Jericho, Benjamin eclipsed the length of Randy Orton's reign as Intercontinental Champion. Benjamin would lose his title to Carlito on June 20, 2005, when Carlito held the ropes to get the pinfall.

During his reign, Benjamin also participated in a special "Money In The Bank" Ladder Match at WrestleMania 21 for a shot at the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Despite not winning the match, Benjamin was credited by many for "stealing the show". Benjamin also had a memorable match with Shawn Michaels on RAW, which ended incredibly with Benjamin jumping off the top rope right into Shawn Michaels' Sweet Chin Music. Michaels would later say that Benjamin was the greatest young superstar he had seen in the last 20 years.

Benjamin later appeared in an Angle Invitational match, losing to Kurt Angle. Benjamin then entered a feud with Kerwin White which led to a match at Unforgiven 2005 where Benjamin defeated White. A few weeks later, Shelton teamed up with Matt Striker to face off against Kerwin and his caddy Nick Nemeth. Striker abandoned Benjamin in the middle of the match, igniting a brief feud between the two.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Shelton Benjamin ]

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