Shelton Benjamin In Talks With WWE To Return Again

Shelton Benjamin is once again in talks with WWE to return to the company, only this time he isn’t unknowingly injured while doing so.

Following the WWE Draft last July, Benjamin was advertised as returning to Smackdown LIVE but a shoulder injury derailed those plans and his deal fell through.

Benjamin, who is 41, was cleared to return to action in March. He tweeted the following month, “Let me clear this up now. I am not signed to @WWE. I never signed due to injury. While that could change, as of 4-16-2017 I am a free agent.”

According to Pro Wrestling Sheet, a deal isn’t done quite yet, but “things are heading in the right direction.” The site says he’ll more than likely appear on SmackDown LIVE once his contract is finalized and creative plans are in place.

When Benjamin went down, it was reported that WWE would be interested in using him once he recovered. Vince McMahon and Triple H are both fans of his work and feel he would give the WWE roster more depth.

Benjamin, who worked on the main roster from 2002 to 2010, initially came up on SmackDown with Charlie Haas as Team Angle, underlings for Kurt Angle. The pair eventually split from Angle, rechristening themselves The World’s Greatest Tag Team. During their run, they held the WWE Tag Team Championship twice.

In the 2004 WWE Draft, Benjamin was sent to Raw. He quickly got a singles push, scoring a win over Triple H, but would not capitalize on the momentum. Benjamin would go on to win the Intercontinental Championship on three occasions and the United States Championship once before being released in April 2010. He was also named Most Underrated Wrestler by readers of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter in 2005, 2006, and 2007.