Shelton Benjamin Details His Wrestling Background With Brock Lesnar: ‘A Beast From Day One’
(Photo by Harry How/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
Recent WWE “re-signee” Shelton Benjamin was the latest guest on Chasing Glory With Lilian Garcia and “The Gold Standard” shared an hour and a half long conversation with Lilian on several topics, including his fellow Minnesota Gopher, Brock Lesnar.
Shelton goes into great detail about how he and Brock first bonded and it all began at a wrestling tournament when they were in college:
“So my senior year was the first time we saw Brock wrestling at a tournament and me screwing up, I lost my match and Brock ended up tournament.winning that tournament and I ended up taking third in that tournament, but of course, when you see Brock it’s like, ‘holy cow.’ [University of] Minnesota coaches swarmed him…”
“I was a heavyweight. Even though I was a small heavyweight, I was a heavyweight all through high school and college, so basically me and Brock were in the same weight class. So basically, when Brock finally transferred in, I had stayed on as a coach/I still had another year of my scholarship so I was a coach/sparring partner – so there were only two guys that could give Brock a match in practice, but there was only one full-time guy. So for about, anywhere from three to four hours a day, like with practice, me and Brock would just go at it.
“First time I wrestled Brock I went to grab his leg and he just thrusted his hip and I flew halfway across the room and I was like, ‘Yeah, that ain’t going to work.’ So it started off me teaching him finer points. Like Brock he was a beast from day one, he was a sponge from day one, and like some days I would go to wrestle him and I couldn’t do anything with him, like nothing and then other days, he couldn’t do nothing with me and then other days for two and a half hours, we were just two bulls locking horns, but that was my life and I loved it.”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
A heck of a lot more from this interview as Lilian talks with Shelton about his initial leave from WWE and his eventual return to the company. You can check out the entire conversation below: