TNA Wrestling star and professional wrestling legend Matt Hardy recently discussed why he believes AEW star Shelton Benjamin never reached the top in WWE during an episode of his podcast, “The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy.”
Hardy said, “I would say probably his biggest issue was just from a speaking perspective, [a] promo or character perspective. Things have changed now. Things have changed where if you go out and you’re authentic and you go out there, you can bust your ass and work circles around people, and you’re this amazing athlete, then things have changed a lot. There’s a lot of guys who never got to that next level because of those things. Because whoever was in charge thought they lacked, from a personality perspective, or from a character perspective, whatever it might be. Jerry Lynn kind of stands out which, he was a crazy talented guy.”
On the generational shift:
“Yeah, just like the specific time when he was there, and he was peaking, or in a top spot in WWE — just, that wasn’t the be-all, end-all for a character to really push you over the top and get you into that very thin oxygen area.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
