Full Career Retrospective and Greatest Moments for Shelton Benjamin

Every so many years, a superb athlete will enter the world of professional wrestling who, simply put, can do what no other wrestler can.

Former WWE Intercontinental, United States and Tag Team champion Shelton Benjamin was one of those athletes.

A former two-time All-American wrestling champion at the University of Minnesota, he understandably caught the eye of WWE officials. In 2000, he signed a developmental contract with the company and set out on a journey that would last a decade.

During his time in Ohio Valley Wrestling (WWE developmental territory), Benjamin was primarily a tag team wrestler who scored championship gold on four separate occasions with two different partners. Three of those reigns came with Brock Lesnar as part of the Minnesota Stretching Crew team. The other was with Red Dog Begnaud, who would later compete on the main WWE roster as Rodney Mack.

On December 26, 2002, Benjamin made his long-awaited debut on the main roster, joining the SmackDown roster along with new partner Charlie Haas in WWE champion Kurt Angle's Team Angle faction. Benjamin and Haas would target some of SmackDown's top babyfaces, including Lesnar, Chris Benoit and Edge.

From there, Benjamin and Haas would win the WWE Tag Team titles and wage war with the likes of Los Guerreros and the team of Rey Mysterio and Billy Kidman. They underwent a name change following a split with Angle, becoming known as the World's Greatest Tag Team. For over a year, they were the best tag team in WWE.

On March 22, 2004, however, their run came to an end when Benjamin was drafted from SmackDown to Raw. WWE realized his potential as a singles star and pushed him right out of the gate.

Benjamin scored three victories over Triple H to really put him over as one of the future cornerstones of the company. He would feud with Evolution throughout the spring of 2004, even challenging Randy Orton for the Intercontinental title at June's Bad Blood pay-per-view.

It looked like Benjamin was well on his way to becoming a breakout star for the company.

Then injury struck and Benjamin was sidelined for nearly four months.

In October of 2004, he returned to action, defeating Chris Jericho for the Intercontinental Championship at the Taboo Tuesday event. He would be a fighting champion, regularly defending, until he lost it the following June. It would be the longest Intercontinental title reign of the decade.

Benjamin would become synonymous with the WWE's midcard, never really breaking through the proverbial glass ceiling. His matches were often some of the best on any given show. Case in point, his May 2, 2005 match against Shawn Michaels on Raw was one of the best of the year.

Unfortunately, every great performance Benjamin delivered only highlighted the fact that his substandard promo skills were holding him back from achieving the success he could have.

Benjamin would lean on his wrestling skills en route to a United States title reign in 2008. He would move between Raw, SmackDown and ECW but never improved his standing on the roster. 

He even reunited with Haas for a short time, but the duo failed to recapture the glory they enjoyed early in their careers.

In December of 2009, he competed in his last really good match, losing to ECW champion Christian in a ladder match at the first-ever TLC pay-per-view.

Unfortunately, Benjamin's WWE tenure came to an end on April 22, 2010 when he was released from his WWE contract.

While some may look at Benjamin's career as one of great potential that never truly reached the heights it could have, those same fans and critics would be wise to look back at Superstars such as Tito Santana and Don Muraco, both of whom delivered outstanding performances for WWE for years but never really rose to main event status.

Those Superstars were outstanding workers who served as reliable utility players for the promotion's midcard.

They were highly respected for their skills, despite never winning the big one.

Benjamin was the modern-day equivalent of those men. He was relied heavily upon to deliver great matches further down the card to adequately set the table for the main events. There is no dishonor in that.

The Orangeburg, S.C. native would go on to compete in Japan and with Ring of Honor.

To this day, four years after his release, fans of the man once known as the "Gold Standard" await his return to WWE.