Shelton Benjamin Dedicates his WWE Raw Tag Team Championship Win to Shad Gaspard

Shelton Benjamin captured the Raw Tag Team Championships alongside Cedric Alexander at the TLC pay-per-view on Sunday night, giving “The Gold Standard” his first tag team title reign in WWE since The World’s Greatest Tag Team’s last reign in 2003. Shortly after the match Benjamin took to Instagram to dedicate the victory to Shad Gaspard, a former WWE star who tragically passed away at the age of 39 earlier this year.

“This ones for you Shad,” Benjamin wrote, posting an old photo of himself with Gaspard.

On Monday WWE posted an emotional interview with Benjamin regarding Gaspard.

“Knowing that I’d gone in there, dedicating this win, this moment to Shad,” Benjamin said. “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 got a chance to wear the titles — I made a point that, no matter what title it was going to be, it was going to be dedicated to Shad. So I won this title and there was no question. I never dedicated a title win to anybody, and I think this was so significant just for him and his son. I want his son to know just how great a guy that his dad was, what a big influence and what a big impact he had on myself and the world.

Gaspard died off the coast of Venice Beach back in May when he and his young son were pulled out into open waters by a riptide. The rescue team managed to save Gaspard’s son first at his request, but the former WWE star submerged before the team could reach him again.

Benjamin said that, had Gaspard been there to see the win, he probably would’ve cracked jokes about this being a “young man’s game” and that Benjamin should give the title to him.