AEW star says he shocked by major title change; expected Batista to take his place
A popular AEW star recently looked back at a shocking moment in his career as he assumed that WWE legend Batista was going to have that moment. He revealed that this was something he found out at the last minute. This would be Shelton Benjamin.
Back in 2004, during the WWE Taboo Tuesday pay-per-view, the Standard of Excellence challenged Jericho for the Intercontinental Championship. This event had a unique format, as the matches were determined by popular fan vote. Y2J was set to defend his title that night, and Shelton ended up being the one chosen by the fans to compete against him. He also ended up winning the match.
During his appearance on the AEW Unrestricted podcast, Shelton Benjamin revealed that he did not expect to be chosen for that match. To give him a better chance, he appeared in some segments, but in the end, it was all up to the fans. He revealed that he expected Batista to be the fans' choice, so he did not think too much about it at the time.
“Number one, I 100% was not expecting to be in that match. I know that leading up to it, they gave me a little push and rub and I actually had a little thing I did with Mr. McMahon just to help bring in the votes. But when we got to the building, and I’ve said this over and over, I expected Batista to be working Jericho that night. So I really didn’t put much thought into it.”
The AEW star continued, as he spoke about his first singles title win.
“Because of what I’d watched in wrestling before, I hadn’t seen a lot of Black Intercontinental Champions. I’d seen Black tag team champions. So in my head, that’s all I was thinking about. By that time, I’d already won the tag team championship twice. So for me, when I won the IC Title, I’m officially overachieving my original goals in getting into the business, but it was also a culmination of all the guys who had taught me how to just go in the ring and listen.” [H/T - ITRWrestling]
Former AEW World Champion Chris Jericho had huge impact in a popular segment
During his appearance on WWE Retrospective, Kevin Owens looked back at important moments in his career. One of those he mentioned was the "Festival of Friendship" segment he had with Chris Jericho back in 2017. This was the moment that saw the end of their friendship, with KO turning yet again on another ally.
He mentioned how the former AEW World Champion was the mastermind behind the Vegas feel of the segment. This ended up being a highly talked about segment by the fans since, and many continue to bring this up to this day.
"This is still something people talk about to this day. We put a lot of work into it; we put our minds into it; we thought about this specific segment for a long time. Chris [Jericho] was the one who wanted to make it like this Vegas spectacle. That was his idea. We had people in the back helping us, and it was a real collective effort to try to make this as memorable as possible, and it really worked. A lot of people to this day still talk about it as one of the most memorable moments of the last 10-15 years." [18:53-19:28]
Jericho is going to end up being one of those names in the business whose impact will be etched in the history of pro wrestling. To this day, he continues to remain a major name both in AEW and ROH.