What where they thinking....

[The One]

Late 2003, Chris Benoit is on a fucking roll. He beats everyone. Let's move forward to January of 2004. Chris Benoit wins the Royal Rumble from a #1 draw. His crowd reaction was HUGE. Chris Benoit rolls into WrestleMania XX...and walks out with the World Heavyweight Championship. Millions of people around the globe watch it live on Pay-Per-View...Benoit having spent 20 years in the industry, WrestleMania being 20 years old...Benoit finally walks away with the World Title after 20 years of having high star classics. Most everyone I know had tears in their eyes by the end of the event. Benoit, with his years of back story and WWE properly booking him was arguably the most over person on the roster...2 weeks later he is defending the World Title against Rhyno, a man who hadn't even warrented a place on WrestleMania, and by the end of the month Benoit and his World Heavyweight Championship are certain jerking RAW against Rob Conway.

Why? They spent MONTHS beuilding up Chris Benoit, telling his story, having him kick ass in the ring, and within a month they are treating him like Gene Snitsky. It was like as soon as they had the moment at Mania, they were done with Benoit, don't they realise he had the chance to become more? So can someone tell me, what were they thinking?

[Innovator]

I'm still trying to figure that one out myself

[Karlsberg]

They obviously were not thinking at all.

The fact that the creative team consists of hollywood writers and some moron from Nickelodeon who until recently thought that they used fake blood tells you all you need to know about how they managed to fuck up Benoit's time in the spotlight.

[Batsu]

This isn't so much unique to Benoit but he's the greatest example. Nowadays, a Steve Austin may just have met the same fate.

I think Benoit would have fared better had he stayed on SmackDown but then we wouldn't have gotten an Eddie Guerrero reign either. They were on similar paths, and seemingly fell from grace at about the same time.

Eddie is putting on the heel performance of a lifetime (well, until the lame secret came out) on SmackDown....but he's chasing no titles.

Benoit is.... well....being WCW-ed on SmacKDown right now. Not saying he should go after Batista but maybe a heel turn is in order. It's been a long time since we've seen Benoit go that route.

[The One]

Agreed, but I just can't understand how they can build up a superstar, and then drop him on his face within one month. They made him the biggest superstar in WWE, and then for no reason they left him high and dry...and more incredibly, they left the World Title on him to continue to wallow around with for a few months.

[Anybody Thrilla]

They obviously were not thinking at all.

The fact that the creative team consists of hollywood writers and some moron from Nickelodeon who until recently thought that they used fake blood tells you all you need to know about how they managed to fuck up Benoit's time in the spotlight.

This is pretty unfair to say, considering the writer from Nickelodeon was not even under the employ of the WWE at the time of Benoit's title reign.

You want to know what they were thinking? I think they were just trying to say "thank you" to Chris Benoit for all the time and effort he has put into the industry, but I really don't know if Chris Benoit is as over as some people may think he is. I think the longer a person has watched wrestling, the bigger a Benoit fan they probably are, but to the casual viewer just flipping through the channels, Chris Benoit really is nothing special.

It hurt to type that last sentence, but really, besides being amazing in the ring (which really isn't that important in the GRAND scheme of things, ask the Undertaker if you don't believe me), what else has Benoit got going for him? Mic skills? Nah. Charisma? Not so much to notice.

He's just a great guy and a great wrestler, and the whole reign was probably the WWE's way of saying "Thanks dude, you rock".

I don't have any numbers, but it would be interesting to know what kind of numbers the WWE did during his reign. Anybody have them?

[Aussie Skier]

***cough cough....HHH...cough cough**

seriously, benoit could have gone alot further with his title righn...but look at his matches.

Two awesome triple threat main events.
An average match against Kane.
A good match on PPV against HHH which was mainly made to setup HHH VS Eugene or HHH VS HBK...i forget which one.
A very good match against HHH on Raw (iron man match) which was again made to set up HHH VS Eugene
A very good match against HBK, setting up HHH VS HBK

Benoit may have been champ then, but he was still barely main eventing.


However, I might saw, when Benoit lost the title to Randy Orton, at first i was annoyed.
Then I began to mark the hell out for Randy Orton...so much so that I actually bought Unforgiven (the only non big four PPPV i have ever hired)...and WWE dropped the ball in a big way.

[Aussie Skier]

This is pretty unfair to say, considering the writer from Nickelodeon was not even under the employ of the WWE at the time of Benoit's title reign.

You want to know what they were thinking? I think they were just trying to say "thank you" to Chris Benoit for all the time and effort he has put into the industry, but I really don't know if Chris Benoit is as over as some people may think he is. I think the longer a person has watched wrestling, the bigger a Benoit fan they probably are, but to the casual viewer just flipping through the channels, Chris Benoit really is nothing special.

It hurt to type that last sentence, but really, besides being amazing in the ring (which really isn't that important in the GRAND scheme of things, ask the Undertaker if you don't believe me), what else has Benoit got going for him? Mic skills? Nah. Charisma? Not so much to notice.

He's just a great guy and a great wrestler, and the whole reign was probably the WWE's way of saying "Thanks dude, you rock".

I don't have any numbers, but it would be interesting to know what kind of numbers the WWE did during his reign. Anybody have them?

excellent post.

and i think you're right, as much I personally think Benoit is the best wrestler in the WWE, I hafta say, he was no where near as over as HHH (even as a heel), HBK or Chris Jericho at the time.

[Loose Cannon]

This is pretty unfair to say, considering the writer from Nickelodeon was not even under the employ of the WWE at the time of Benoit's title reign.

You want to know what they were thinking? I think they were just trying to say "thank you" to Chris Benoit for all the time and effort he has put into the industry, but I really don't know if Chris Benoit is as over as some people may think he is. I think the longer a person has watched wrestling, the bigger a Benoit fan they probably are, but to the casual viewer just flipping through the channels, Chris Benoit really is nothing special.

It hurt to type that last sentence, but really, besides being amazing in the ring (which really isn't that important in the GRAND scheme of things, ask the Undertaker if you don't believe me), what else has Benoit got going for him? Mic skills? Nah. Charisma? Not so much to notice.

He's just a great guy and a great wrestler, and the whole reign was probably the WWE's way of saying "Thanks dude, you rock".

I don't have any numbers, but it would be interesting to know what kind of numbers the WWE did during his reign. Anybody have them?


doesn't matter what numbers he did. HHH/HBK headlines the shows. So those shows numbers, bad or good, were more thier doing.

[Kane Knight]

Eddie is putting on the heel performance of a lifetime (well, until the lame secret came out) on SmackDown....but he's chasing no titles.
Actually, I think Eddie is selling this story as good as he can. I just think that Jesus couldn't save this storyline. Eddie's the only thing that's kept this interesting. IF this was any other wrestler, I think everyone'd be screaming bloody murder.

I felt like going on that tangent. Anyway, the WWE doesn't know what to do with their talent. What were they thinking? They really weren't thinking much. Move him to Smackdown, make him a jobber again? What the Hell? It's par for the course though.