Shelton Benjamin was a recent guest on Talk Is Jericho, and the AEW star talked about a variety of subjects including Chris Benoit, meeting Chris Jericho, getting over as both The Hurt Business and The Hurt Syndicate, and his short-lived tag team with WWE workhorse Chad Gable.
Benjamin also discussed one of the main reasons he decided to leave WWE. “Things were going extremely well over in WWE,” he told Jericho. “Vince, for whatever reason, he decided that the money was with Bobby and MVP as his manager and he was just done with it, The Hurt Business. We’ve never gotten a straight answer as to why. When I initially got the news, I went to Vince and was like — I’d been there for a few years and nothing happened and I was like, I finally have something that we can actually work with and elevate me that benefits the company, especially during the pandemic era because in my opinion, the Hurt Business and Roman Reigns carried WWE during the pandemic era.”
He continued: “I felt a bit betrayed because I come here every week, I never complain, I risk my life just like everybody else. When other people wanted to stay home, you never had to question whether or not I’d come to work. So, for us to bear that burden — and mind you, obviously we’re not the only ones. We’re not the only people, but the fact that we were always willing and we were actually producing, for you to just immediately turn around and just kill it, what the f*ck man?”
Benjamin said that Vince told him, “We’ve gone as far as we can with the Hurt Business.”
“The Hurt Business was around for eight months before he pulled the plug,” Benjamin said. “When he said that, it was almost like you want to cry inside because nothing I can do for this person seems to help. Nothing’s good enough. I knew then, I don’t really have a future here. At this point, this is just a job where I’m just collecting a check. I want to care, I’ve never been a guy who wants to just sit on the bench and ride the wave that everyone else has created.”
Benjamin debuted for AEW at the end of last year and has again linked up with MVP and Bobby Lashley as The Hurt Syndicate. Benjamin and Lashley captured the AEW tag team titles from Private Party earlier this year on an episode of Dynamite.
Benjamin’s full Talk Is Jericho appearance can be heard here.
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