>>14374123You're going to get a lot of corny answers here, but he was generally well-liked and basically what you would want out of someone undersized. He was fit (shit by the end his biceps are bigger than Batista's, so you could kind of see how he died), could talk, charismatic and great in the ring. He had a gimmick that made it believable for him to be bigger guys as well because he could just fucking cheat.
His title reign ultimately failed because of his own self-conscious though. I think most people figured Benoit got the belt out of respect, but I do think Vince wanted Eddie to have a real run, and dude just broke the moment he got the thing and couldn't deal with the pressure.
It didn't help Smackdown got hard gutted the moment he won the thing as well. I don't think most people could've gotten over with the belt at the time. JBL was a terrible, but necessary champ because he can at least get heat (Which he was good at) wand having borefests kind of helped him out. Still, it killed 02-03 SD's charm.
Overall though, ignore the shitposts, he was always well-respected and over with casuals and smarks.
