AEW's Shelton Benjamin Recalls Massive Payday For This WWE PLE Performance

One of the final Premium Live Event appearances for Shelton Benjamin in WWE came at the 2020 Royal Rumble, where he had a brief reunion with his former Minnesota Wrecking Crew tag team partner Brock Lesnar. Benjamin agreed to give Lesnar a helping hand in the match, but Lesnar thought better of it and eliminated his long-time friend from the match. The current AEW Tag Team Champion went over how the interaction with Lesnar came about during a special appearance on former WWE Superstar Maven's YouTube channel.

"This whole thing, they originally wanted us to just go at it," Benjamin said. "[Lesnar] decided he didn't want to do that. He said 'let me just...let's do this.' This whole thing was his idea, and I wasn't really on board with it, only because I'm like 'well this makes me look stupid.' So I was just kind of like 'you know what? He's got 30 other guys he's got to worry about, like just give him the breather.'" Benjamin admitted that he didn't expect the fans to not only like the idea of him and Lesnar work together, but actually want to see it, something Benjamin would have loved to have done in WWE given their history.

Despite being eliminated from the Rumble match, Benjamin got his own reward from Vince McMahon just over a week later. "I had just signed a new contract with WWE, he, Vince, I guess had kind of went back and rewatched, maybe a week or so later, he went and rewatched the Rumble. Because of this spot, Vince enjoyed it so much he immediately had talent relations call me in, and they gave me a six figure raise. Off of that...it's one of those 'man, I'm glad I didn't fight it."

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