Shelton Benjamin reveals more about dedicating WWE tag title win to Shad Gaspard
On Sunday night, following WWE TLC, Shelton Benjamin took to Instagram to dedicate his RAW Tag Team Championships win to the late Shad Gaspard.
It was a touching tribute between friends and made this tag title win all the more important for Benjamin and the WWE Universe as a whole.
The next day, Shelton Benjamin sat down with WWE. He went in-depth about his reason for dedicating the match to the former WWE Superstar and one half of the popular tag duo known as Cryme Tyme.
"Knowing that I had gone in there and dedicated this moment to Shad, when I attended his funeral I made a promise to myself that if I won a title, especially a tag team championship, because I know Shad and JTG worked hard even though they never actually got a chance to wear a title, I made a point then that no matter what title it was going to be, it was going to be dedicated to Shad.
"So, I wear this title, I won this title and there's no question, which I had never dedicated a title win to anybody, and I think this was so significant, so important, just for him and for his son. Part of the reason I wanted his son to know, just how great a guy that his dad was, just what a big influence and what a big impact he had on myself, and the world."
WWE RAW Tag Team Champion Shelton Benjamin calls Shad Gaspard a hero
During the interview, the unnamed WWE producer asked Benjamin what the two would say to one another if Gaspard was there right now and saw him with the title. It got a small smile and laugh out of the Hurt Business member.
"He'd probably be cracking jokes. He'd probably be like, 'You don't need that, you don't need that, this is a young man's game, you need to give me that title.' Just something funny like that, something to crack me up. If Shad was here, I mean first of all he would've been the first person to congratulate me. He would've been at the bar trying to keep me up all night, just to have fun. I'd probably be a lot sleepier than I am right now, but he would've been there to uplift me, there's no doubt in that."
Benjamin wrapped up the interview by discussing Gaspard's legacy as a person and offered a very heartfelt response.
"Shad's legacy as a person, first and foremost, a hero. He left this world doing something that I think every man, every parent, every, pretty much decent human being would do for a child, much less their own child. So, his legacy, I think he's a hero dad, first and foremost. I like to think of him as a hero."
If you haven't watched the interview embedded above, please do so. Benjamin's words have a lot of real emotion behind them. Thanks to people like Benjamin, Gaspard's legacy in WWE will live on forever.