What's next for The Hurt Syndicate?

Is The Hurt Syndicate still in business?

After less than a dozen television appearances this year, and most recently working the pre-show of All In London in August, The Hurt Syndicate made its return to AEW this week, winning a three-on-two handicapped match on Collision.

The stable's comeback to the organization reignited speculation that the reason that they haven't been featured on TV too often this year, and in a smaller role when they were booked, was based on the notion that they won't lose to certain members of the roster, which MVP, manager for the faction, has completely denied online.

That being said, regardless of the reason, there's no doubt that the package of the former WWE champion, Bobby Lashley, and the stellar Shelton Benjamin has been underutilized in the Khan-owned organization. You could make the same case for their tenure as a group in the WWE, despite the fact that Lashley was used in a main event role for a relatively brief period of time.

The Hurt Syndicate, a slight spinoff of the name of the faction in WWE, has been under the AEW umbrella for just over two years, but in the grand scheme of things, they have very little to show for their stint in the organization.

As we know, Lashley returned to the WWE in 2018 after several years away from the promotion and he was initially involved in some absolute drek, including when he was tasked with singing on the mic and the horrendous angle with Rusev. The bottom line is, Lashley is an incredible athlete and a genetic wonder with how he seemingly hasn't aged for at least the past 15 years, but he simply isn't someone that can cut consistently solid promos on the mic so it made sense that he was eventually paired with MVP to act as a mouthpiece for him.

He had a six-month run with the WWE championship and then a shorter reign that only lasted a few weeks, but despite the push in 2021, he wasn't kept around the main event picture for any truly extended period of time. It makes you wonder if his tenure at the top of the card was based more on getting another credible opponent for Brock Lesnar at the time than anything else. The Hurt Business as a stable enhanced Lashley's presence as a superstar, and it gave a firm direction for Shelton Benjamin and Cedric Alexander as well.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the office slowly dismantled the faction so there wasn't really a payoff or direction for any of them to take from there. MVP claimed later that the group was dissolved to make room for The Bloodline, but who knows if that has merit or is pure speculation? One thing is for sure, when Shelton Benjamin got released during a round of cuts to the roster in September of  2023, it was clear that the office didn't have any major plans for any members of The Hurt Business. Yes, management tried to re-create the group with The Street Profits the following year, but those efforts were minimal and usually half-hearted attempts to spotlight them. The writing was more or less on the wall that WWE brass didn't see Lashley as the top guy that he was just a few years before so he left when his contract expired in August 2024.

He debuted in AEW the following month with MVP and was eventually joined by Shelton Benjamin to form the previously mentioned Hurt Syndicate. They had the tag belts for just over six months last year, but they weren't a part of a featured storyline during that time.

For them to end up on the pre-show of a stadium event seems like a misuse of their talent and name value, but that's a part of the structure or lack thereof in the promotion. The puzzling part of all of this is that with their ages, it's not as though The Hurt Syndicate have time to spare in terms of their in-ring careers. Granted, with the shape that Lashley and Benjamin are in, it might be possible that they could wrestle at 60, but what are the odds of that realistically being what they decide to do?

I wouldn't be completely shocked if MVP or the group itself spoke up about being resistant to putting some of the roster over, mostly because we've seen it happen before with former WWE stars such as Malakai Black and Rusev, but at the same time, it's equally as possible that Tony Khan more or less forget about them so they got lost in the shuffle since we've seen that happen with numerous talent as well. Still, it's somewhat odd that their television appearances have been so sparse this year, and one bout on Collision definitely can't be taken as an indication that they will be back in the fold on a regular basis.

I will say that it's interesting to note that The Hurt Syndicate haven't worked with The Young Bucks or any of the Elite stable that founded the organization in  2019. The reality is, Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin look like,  carry themselves like, and work like bigger stars than the majority of the All Elite roster. That's not a knock on the extremely talented guys that are there, but rather to point out that the line-up became so homogenized since Tony signed countless wrestlers with the high spot style that it makes The Hurt Syndicate standout even more. The amount of attempted comedy spots that the promotion does is other aspect that unintentionally spotlights Bobby and Shelton as more credible stars than some of the other wrestlers there.

If The Young Bucks wanted to work as baby faces, which it looks like is their current goal since they were booked for the TLC tribute match on pay-per-view recently, wouldn't it suit them well if Lashley tossed them around the ring? Matt and Nick Jackson working a feud against the no-nonsense Hurt Syndicate automatically puts them in the underdog role to give the audience a chance to rally behind them. Considering The Bucks' track record with CM Punk behind the scenes, and FTR on-screen, is it possible that they don't want to be mad to look secondary to another WWE tag team? Keep in mind, while The Bucks vs. FTR eventually happened, it wasn't what many thought it would or could be when FTR originally arrived in the promotion.

Aside from The Young Bucks, it's possible that The Hurt Syndicate isn't against putting others over, but maybe they just aren't willing to do anything foolish in the process. If this is their last major run with a national organization, it might be a situation where they don't want something illogically associated with the latter stages of their careers. On the flip side, if this is a scenario where Tony Khan doesn't have anything for them to do then you can't blame them for staying home to collect the check.

That's where there's a point within the whole process that instead of trying to get something meaningful scripted for your characters that it just becomes easier to get paid from the billionaire to stay home. If Tony Khan doesn't see the value in using Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin on his show, despite the name recognition that they have, you can't blame the talent for deciding to take the cash not to wrestle Unless, there's a major part of the story that hasn't come to light yet, and that's a possibility, it seems like a waste of talent and money for The Hurt Syndicate not to be a fixture of the tag team division before they retire. When you take into account that Ric Flair has been under contract to All Elite Wrestling for years and gets paid to do nothing, it's at least possible that the same thing happened with The Hurt Syndicate for the majority of their AEW career.