Shelton Benjamin discusses his 2006 storyline with Momma Benjamin.
After weeks of losing on WWE programming, Shelton Benjamin received a surprise visit from his “mother” in early 2006. Upon the arrival of Momma Benjamin, portrayed by actress Thea Vidale, Benjamin gradually got himself back on track. This pairing later led Shelton to reclaiming the Intercontinental Championship after Momma Benjamin pretended to have a heart problem.
Reflecting back on his run with Momma Benjamin, Shelton explained how the storyline came into fruition. While Shelton initially seemed hesitant to the idea, working with Thea Vidale turned out to be a lot of fun.
“I had a meeting with Vince and I was just like, ‘Okay right now I’m not doing anything, I want to contribute.’ I had an idea, and I don’t know where he came up with the mama thing,” Shelton told Chris Van Vliet. “So when he first approached me about it, he basically said, ‘How would you feel about having your real mama on the road?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely not. There’s no way I’m going to expose my mother to this locker room.’ Because as nice as a guy I am. I love everybody on the roster. But if one person were to say something frost to my real mom, I would have had a really short career.”
“When he said it, I was just kind of like ‘huh,’ because the only reference I had to that was Buff Bagwell and his mom. I guess Jim Cornette used to always reference his mom way back in the day. But I don’t remember her ever making a television appearance. I definitely remember the Buff stuff. So, when things started with that, and I’ve said this before, I feel like I get that whole storyline gets a bad rap. Because my mom, Thea Vidale, she’s a comedian and she’s been on TV shows. Like I said, me and Brandi have a mother in common. Me and the singer Brandi have a mother [in common]. When they brought her in, they narrowed it down to just her and one other woman. And, yeah, it was like soon as she walked in, I knew exactly who she was.”
Though the story didn’t last as long as they planned, Shelton thoroughly enjoyed his skits with Vidale. “It was me one of our producers and Vince. Ultimately, they left it down to me, but everyone agreed Thea blew it out of the water. The day she did that audition in front of us was the day she made her debut on television. We made a decision that day. She was a lot of fun to work with on camera because she is obviously way more animated than me. But it was easy to slip into that whole ‘mama’s boy’ role because she had a very domineering personality, to say the least. And I was having a lot of fun with it,” Shelton said.
“Some of the skits, particularly when I walked in with her, and Mr. McMahon with his pants down, I was having so much fun with that. But unfortunately, she has some medical problems and some other things that — I guess management wasn’t happy with [the story]. Basically, she got let go and got let go before the story could be completed story. That’s kind of a buzzword these days. Yeah, we didn’t finish the story because, as I said, I was supposed to be a mama’s boy. It’s successful, but at some point, I had to grow up and stand on my own without my mom.”
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