Topic for Blog: Assuming Benoit *doesn't* go batshit crazy... what was in his future? 1 yr, 5 yrs, ..10 years? HOF?
Immediate plans were winning the ECW title at that PPV, and then he was going to be phased into a role as a trainer and agent. Obviously with the years of surgeries and injuries, WWE and Benoit himself had to know that his time was coming to an end one way or another. You could make a pretty strong argument, and I recall doing so at the time, that he should have been moved into that part-timer role long before that even for his own good. That being said, given what we know about his personality, I don't feel like he'd make that kind of transition as gracefully as someone like William Regal has done, because he was such a hyper-competitive guy. But especially with the Wellness Policy weeding out medical problems like it was, I think his in-ring WWE career would have come to an end, whether or not by his own choice, very soon after that last title win. I don't know whether they would have put him in the Hall, but he would have been as good a choice as anyone.
