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A former WWE star who is currently wrestling on the indies recently explained why he's desperate.
When Shelton Benjamin first signed with WWE in the early 2000s, he was touted as the future. He had a lot of potential, and his athleticism in the ring garnered a lot of attention. However, he left the company after failing to live up to expectations.
Benjamin returned to the Stamford-based promotion in 2016. This time, he had a successful run in a tag team with Cedric Alexander as part of The Hurt Business. However, when the group disbanded, Benjamin once again struggled to find his footing as a singles star, and he was released from the promotion.
Following his release, Benjamin has been plying his trade across various independent promotions but is still looking for more. During a recent interview with Whatculture Wrestling, Shelton Benjamin expressed that he desperately wants to go back to Japan and wrestle again.
"I'm desperate to get back to Japan. I really, really want to go back to Japan," Benjamin said. "I spent four years over there, whether people realize it or not ... but I loved my time over there and again, the casual fan doesn't even realize there's wrestling over there, but they see these little clips of me having these matches with [Naomichi] Marufuji and [Hiroshi] Tanahashi and all these guys." [H/T WrestleInc.]
Former WWE star Shelton Benjamin highlights plans to go to Australia for an event
Since his release, Shelton Benjamin has been taking bookings for independent events and is working his way through various promotions. He recently competed against Tommy Knight at an OPW event in Australia.
During the same interview, Shelton mentioned that he would be going back down under for another event soon.
"My immediate plan is just to coast a bit and see what's out there, see what life has to offer. Because for seven years, I was with WWE and... I had a 10-year run with them before that. So for now, I'm not in any rush. I'm keeping my options open. I can't say anybody's any more of a front-runner than anything, but I defeinitely want to come back to the UK. As a matter of fact, I'm going to be going back to Australia, where I'm going to be involved in an event out there," he said. [H/T: Wrestling Inc]
It will be interesting to see if Shelton Benjamin will get his wish of wrestling in Japan again.
