Next Big Thing: Brock Lesnar’s First WWE Run
With Brock Lesnar making such a huge impact since returning to WWE the night after Wrestlemania, it’s easy to forget just how long he had been gone. His last match was at Wrestlemania 20 in 2004, and it was eight years before he showed his face in WWE again, so a lot of current fans may not have been watching or even been born yet when he left. With that in mind, I thought it’d be a good time to take a walk down memory lane and help the uninitiated fill the blanks in on Brock’s first run in WWE.
After winning the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championship in 2000, Lesnar was recruited right out of college by WWE (then the WWF) and signed to a developmental deal. By all accounts, Lesnar was extremely gifted and likely to make an impact whenever he was eventually called up to the main roster. He did just that, running in and attacking Rikishi on an episode of Raw in March of 2002, hoisting the 400-pounder up on his shoulders to deliver what would come to be known as the F5.
Lesnar was off like a shot from there, and with his manager/agent Paul Heyman at his side, he started tearing through everyone thrown in his path. After easily annihilating both Hardy Boyz by himself, Lesnar defeated Rob Van Dam in the finals of King of the Ring 2002 (which happened to be the last PPV version of the tournament) and set his sights on winning the WWE Title. After scoring one-sided victories over both Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan, Lesnar signed to challenge the Rock for the WWE Title at Summerslam 2002. This match became infamous not only for being Lesnar’s first title win, but also for a strange scene in which the Rock (who was supposed to be the babyface) was loudly rejected by the fans in favor of Lesnar. The crowd reaction had a visible effect on the Rock, and he eventually wound up on the receiving end of the F5 as Lesnar won the WWE Title for the first time.
In addition to being an undefeated champion who claimed the title a mere four months after his TV debut, Lesnar had also set the record as the youngest WWE Champion in history at 24 years old. Given the huge push he had gotten in just a few short months, there was no doubt that Lesnar was the one whom the company planned to be THE guy going forward.
Lesnar also became the catalyst for the creation of the World Championship when Smackdown GM Stephanie McMahon announced that she had signed Lesnar exclusively to her brand in September of 2002. Raw GM Eric Bischoff responded by declaring that the title was now disputed, and he created a separate World Title that he awarded to Triple H, and the two titles have remained separate for the near-decade since.
Lesnar’s first program after the move to Smackdown was with the Undertaker, who was in the midst of his American Badass biker years. Much like the Hogan, Flair, and Rock matches, the series with the Undertaker was designed to give Lesnar a rub and make him look unbeatable by having him destroy another top star. After going to a double DQ at Unforgiven 2002, they had a rematch in Hell In A Cell the following month at No Mercy. This was Undertaker’s match, he was in the first one and had been in several since, but this didn’t stop Lesnar from obliterating the Undertaker until he was bleeding buckets. Lesnar did more damage to the Undertaker than anyone we had ever seen before, and the F5 that finished the match was almost a formality.
Things start coming unraveled when Lesnar was set to defend the title against the Big Show at Survivor Series 2002 because, with all due respect to Big Show, nobody believed for a second he was going to walk out of that match with the title. His time in WWE had seen him routinely embarrassed and jobbed out to nearly everyone on the roster, and had even been sent down to developmental for months to get his weight and attitude under control at one point. Given the way Lesnar had been plowing through main eventers, there was no reason to believe that Big Show was going to be anything but a flavor-of-the-month challenger for Brock.
However, Lesnar suffered a real, and fairly serious, injury to his ribs wrestling Big Show at a house show, and he was in such bad shape afterward that it was questionable whether he would even be able to wrestle at Survivor Series. Lesnar showed his characteristic toughness by wrestling anyway, and even though the match was only a few minutes long, he still managed to suplex Show all over the place and hit the F5. When he went for the pin, Paul Heyman pulled the referee out of the ring to stop the count, and that gave Big Show the opening he needed. Big Show hit Lesnar with several chairshots and then chokeslammed him onto the chair to hand Lesnar his first loss and claim the WWE Title against all common sense.
I’m not sure the decision to take the title off of Lesnar like that seems any smarter to me now than it did back then, but the idea was that now they would build to Lesnar getting the title back at Wrestlemania. It wouldn’t be from Show, however, because he lost the title at the following month’s PPV to Kurt Angle, aligning us for what looked on paper to be far better than a Show/Lesnar rematch. Both Lesnar and Angle had well documented amateur wrestling careers and were excellent performers to boot, so it was expected that they’d probably cross paths at some point. They had been teasing the match for months by having Lesnar and Angle bump into each other backstage and have tense staredowns, and now it looked like it was going to happen at the biggest show of the year.
Lesnar needed to win the Royal Rumble to get that title shot, but first he would have to beat Big Show earlier on the PPV to even earn a spot in the Rumble match. We didn’t see a repeat of Survivor Series, because Lesnar dusted Big Show in just a few minutes and then went on to win the Royal Rumble and earn his Wrestlemania title shot.
Lesnar vs Angle was now on as the main event of Wrestlemania 19, and while it was an excellent match, it was also infamous for a scary moment where Lesnar tried to do a shooting star press as the finish. It didn’t seem like the kind of move a guy his size should be able to pull off, but he had done it in developmental and it made sense that he’d save it for this match. Unfortunately, he either didn’t position Angle close enough to the corner he was coming off of, or he didn’t get enough rotation, or whatever it was, because he went up in the air and came right down on top of his head and knocked himself out.
Incredibly, Lesnar finished the match and beat Angle as planned, but he didn’t remember anything afterward, and you could see from the look on his face when they handed him the belt that the lights were on, but nobody was home. The doctors checked him out the instant he came backstage, and they said that anybody else would have broken their neck doing that, but Lesnar was so muscular that it actually saved him. He didn’t come away completely unscathed and needed a few weeks off, but amazingly suffered no long-term damage from the incident.
Angle, on the other hand, was suffering from a neck that needed surgery and would not be around to continue the program with Lesnar for another few months. Lesnar would have to find challengers elsewhere, and we’ll pick his story back up tomorrow as he defends his title against a man he would see again nearly a decade later, John Cena. Cena was on his way up, but wasn’t close to where he would be a few years later. Though Cena created a new finishing move called the FU to play off of Lesnar’s F5, Lesnar came out on top.
The next month at Judgment Day, Lesnar found himself back in the ring with the Big Show, in a Stretcher Match, with the WWE Title again on the line. The big question in this one wasn’t whether Lesnar could beat Big Show, but whether he’d be able to get Big Show onto a stretcher and wheel him across the line to score the win. Lesnar showed surprising resourcefulness by using a forklift to pick up an unconscious Big Show and dump him onto the stretcher, after which he was easily able to push him over the line to victory.
Kurt Angle returned to the ring a few weeks later, and Smackdown GM Stephanie McMahon decided that the best way to make a bang with the first Smackdown-only PPV, Vengeance 2003, was to headline it with a Triple Threat Match for the WWE Title, featuring the three men who had dominated the title picture for the last year: Brock Lesnar, Big Show, and Kurt Angle. Angle hit both men with Angle Slams and then pinned Lesnar to regain the WWE Title, proving that his time wasn’t over and that he could beat Brock.
Unfortunately for Angle, Brock didn’t see it that way, and the loss made him snap and resort to the vicious tactics he used to eliminate the competition on his way up the ladder. After one incident where Lesnar used an F5 into the ringpost to destroy the one remaining knee of Zach Gowen, Lesnar rolled into Summerslam to face Angle for the title. Even though Lesnar came in armed with a new vicious streak in addition to his already overwhelming skills, Angle became the first man to make Lesnar tap out when he put him in the anklelock and Lesnar was unable to make it to the ropes.
Lesnar and Angle had each beaten the other in a singles match for the WWE Title, so it was decided that the only way to settle the feud was in a one hour Ironman Match on an episode of Smackdown in September of 2003. Lesnar again showed an ability to think outside the box by hitting Angle with a chair to give up a fall by DQ, but that left Angle in bad enough shape that Lesnar was able to score a couple of easy pinfalls in a row. Lesnar’s strategy put him several falls ahead of Angle, so even though Angle was able to score some falls of his own as they approached the time limit, he wasn’t able to make up the difference and Lesnar walked out a three-time WWE Champion.
Lesnar’s amazing rise to the top and dominance of the competition closely mirrored that of Bill Goldberg, who had come to WCW in 1997 and remained undefeated for over a year, winning the WCW World Title after only ten months in the business. As it happens, Goldberg came to WWE the night after Wrestlemania 19 and won the World Title from Triple H only days after Lesnar reclaimed the WWE Title from Angle. They started bumping into each other backstage in much the same way Lesnar and Angle did the year before, and with the two top titles in the company around the waists of two of the most dominant forces of the previous decade, it was immediately obvious what they would both be doing at Wrestlemania.
That was still several months away, however, and both men had a long way to go if they wanted to hold onto their titles until then. Lesnar defeated the Undertaker in yet a third PPV main event at No Mercy, this time in a chain match, but Survivor Series 2003 saw Lesnar tap out to Chris Benoit in the elimination match that opened the show. Goldberg, on the other hand, won the main event of Survivor Series by beating Triple H to retain his title. Goldberg came out looking better that night, but his celebration would turn out to be short lived, as he lost the title back to Triple H at the following month’s PPV.
Lesnar made sure to rub it in Goldberg’s face when he saw him at the Royal Rumble, and gloated about still having the WWE Title around his waist while Goldberg had nothing. Goldberg had a few choice words for Lesnar, but wound up eating them when Lesnar came out during the Royal Rumble and gave Goldberg an F5, causing him to be eliminated and miss the chance to earn another title shot.
Goldberg decided to return the favor and bought a front row ticket to watch Lesnar defend the WWE Title against Eddy Guerrero in the main event of No Way Out 2004. Just as Lesnar appeared to have Guerrero’s number after a referee bump, Goldberg jumped the rail and speared Lesnar, setting him up for Guerrero to hit the frogsplash and pin Lesnar to win the title. Now Goldberg was the one laughing, and Lesnar wanted to tear him apart and get revenge.
The match we all knew was coming was signed for Wrestlemania 20, and just to add a little more star power to the mix, Stone Cold Steve Ausitn was announced as the special referee for the match. It was well known by this point that Goldberg had signed a one year deal and would be leaving after Wrestlemania 20, so all signs pointed to Lesnar beating Goldberg and going on to a successful WWE career as Goldberg faded into obscurity.
Then a funny thing happened: PWInsider.com reported that Brock Lesnar had given WWE his notice and would be leaving the company following Wrestlemania 20 as well to try and get into the NFL instead. Though Brock was well known as a prima donna with a crappy backstage attitude, the idea that he was quitting after the push he had gotten and the plans WWE obviously had for him was something a lot of people found difficult to grasp. Regardless, it was 100% true and that certain Wrestlemania win now seemed a lot less likely than it did the day before the news of Lesnar’s departure broke.
Wrestlemania 20 became one of the most surreal scenes I can remember, because while WWE fans who knew the backstage happenings hadn’t ever really accepted Goldberg and weren’t heartbroken to see him go, they now turned on both men and showered them with “na na na na, hey hey, goodbye” chants when they came out for their match. By contrast, Steve Austin got the best reaction out of the three of them even though he was only supposed to be the referee. Both men looked less motivated than they ever had in their careers, and while the fans verbally tore both men to pieces, they went through the motions and did as little as possible until Goldberg kicked out of the F5, then hit the spear and Jackhammer for the win.
Lesnar got in Austin’s face after the match, then flipped off the booing fans who were basically telling him not to let the door hit him in the ass on the way out, but Austin brought the fans around with a kick to the gut and a Stunner that sent Lesnar packing for the next eight years. Goldberg came into the ring and shared a beer with Austin, but everyone who had ever watched Austin during his in-ring career knew what was happening next. Sure enough, Goldberg got a kick to the gut and a Stunner as well, and the true top star in WWE celebrated with a beer bash while the two failed heroes disappeared from the company.
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Lesnar’s first run in WWE a decade ago was interesting enough that you could have made a movie out of it, and despite the way he left, the impact he had on the company during his two years there was unquestionable. He had blown through every top star the company had, and had proven himself to be a top notch worker and a hell of a promo to boot. As much as it sucked to see someone burn WWE the way he had (especially given the effect we now know that decision has had on the way WWE treated up-and-coming wrestlers in the years to follow), it also felt like a huge loss to see somebody as talented as Lesnar voluntarily walk away. Even though he eventually came back as many suspected he would, it’s hard not to think about all the great matches and angles we missed out on over the last eight years, and think about how different WWE might be today if he had stuck around.