When the Radicalz jumped over the WWE in 2000, it was Benoit who was touted as the prize asset of the 4, he was signed to the highest contract and had the most name value. (Though Eddie would likely become more valuable due to his personality).
Eddie was a very talented wrestler- but as this post is about in ring performance- and not about character, Benoit was a wrestling machine.
Benoit may not have won the world title straight away.... but the likes of Rock, Triple H and Kurt Angle were queuing up to work with him from the get go, as they knew they'd have a great match.
Yet another STUPID statement... Chris Benoit as a human being was not better or worse than anyone else until the last 3 days of his life and there is enough medical evidence now to show that he was not in posession of his full faculties. At worst that makes him a sick human being in the medical sense, not a nutjob, not evil, not psychopathic or he'd have exhibited it elsewhere. So please stop "judging" where there is no judgement to make. Had the man lived he would have been given insanity/locked away rather than a trial... but until that weekend he was as normal as anyone else in the crazy world of pro-wrestling so give him that courtesy.
As to the topic... a lot will say Benoit was the better wrestler but arguably he had to work harder for his push than Eddie did and not for the reasons you'd expect. A lot of clues were in Y2J's podcast with Vickie last week.
Eddie was going to WWE regardless, even if the other guys didn't go too. While many would say Eddie was an "unlikely" World Champ he had a far better chance in WWE than in WCW cos he clearly had that personality and ability that he'd first shown with Los Gringos Locos back with Art Barr. Once WWE got hold of him with that talent, even with mishaps he was always a "likely to succeed", if not to the World title than to one step below it.
In many ways the best thing that happened to Eddie was the injury right after his debut. It took him out of the Radicalz but he had already excited the fans. So when he came back with "Latino Heat" he was "his own man" rather than part of the group.
Benoit was a tougher proposition, he didn't have those charisma skills but in WCW was given "the push" and rejected it. While some in WWE would respect that, others would view that with disdain. Remember too Benoit had rejected WWE in 1995 for WCW to begin with, so that too would have made it harder for him to get to the title in WWE and indeed he did have to pay a lot of dues to get there. His injury was perhaps the most untimely and hindered his career, when he and Jericho were facing Austin and Trips, you knew one was getting the push and at the time it seemed to be Benoit first. Then his neck was screwed and it fell into place with Jericho.
When Benoit finally got that Rumble push, it was still dubious that they would actually go all the way. It seemed more a response to "the same guys always winning" the Rumble than actually designed to get the belt on him. It's arguable that the fans reaction to Eddie winning made their mind up rather than Benoit's own efforts. When he did win and the two were "the guys" in the business, it was an emotional moment for sure, but just a moment... both guys lost their belts relatively quickly and Benoit the most cheaply. Orton was un-proven, didn't hold onto the belt and Benoits career never recovered. Eddie losing to a veteran, albiet one with their first push in JBL made sense, while he never got the belt again, Eddie was able to grow from it via the Rey feud.
To be honest they're the same coin... taking the last 3 days out of the equation, I always liked Benoit more cos he really HAD to fight for it, where as Eddie had more natural gifts for the WWE style and a family name that Vince would always respect. But stop making it about their deaths, especially Chris... just do as all his friends had to... the guy they knew, the wrestler died 3 days earlier...
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