Pretty much sums up my perspective on it too. Well said.It's obviously irrelevant looking back, but I remember actually being pretty okay with Benoit being on WWECW. After the busts of trying to build the brand around Angle and Big Show, Benoit seemed to... fit. He was a star, but not a gigantic one (while talented, let's be fair about his actual star power), and the idea of him working with a lot of the younger guys like Punk and Morrison seemed like a really good fit. Truth be told, I think the whole Benoit situation is what ultimately kneecapped the whole endeavor... sure, it was already downhill, but then it had to survive on the back of Punk/Morrison match-ups. It sort of set the tone for the rest of WWECW, and I'll always wonder the 'what if?' of where it would have gone had we gotten a summer of Punk/Benoit matches instead. Maybe nowhere, but still.
I think the Benoit tragedy was also a little tougher because, for fans like us, we weren't just into his technical skills, but his story. The years of work, the years of toiling in WCW, the injuries, the being told he would never be 'the guy'. WM20 was such aing MOMENT. Him and Eddie in the ring was just...
Just my take on it, six years later.
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