Brock Lesnar – A Part-Time All-Time Great?
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, one of the most divisive talents of the last decade is ‘The Beast Incarnate’ Brock Lesnar. Following years away from professional wrestling and dominating the world of mixed martial arts which saw him become the UFC Heavyweight Champion, Lesnar made one of the most memorable post-WrestleMania RAW returns in history in 2012, at a time before that became commonplace. Things would not immediately go The Beast’s way as he was thrust into a feud with John Cena immediately at a time that Cena needed to get a big win after losing to The Rock at WrestleMania 28. On top of this, Brock seemed out of his depth in terms of mic skills on his own against the former Doctor of Thuganomics. While the match the two would have at that year’s Extreme Rules is a brutal affair, WWE booking did Brock no favors by having him lose to Cena, seemingly in a way to test his ability to do business.
Brock would begin his next feud the following night on RAW with Triple H, before departing until the build to that year’s SummerSlam. WWE would remedy Brock’s mic skills issue by bringing back Paul Heyman as part of the build and Brock would win the big battle at SummerSlam culminating with him ‘breaking’ Triple H’s arm. Brock would then disappear the rest of the year, something that would soon become a common occurrence. He would return in early 2013 to build to a WrestleMania rematch with Triple H, his first ‘Mania since 2004. He would lose this effort before going onto Extreme Rules and winning the rubber match. At that year’s SummerSlam he would have one of the best matches of his career with CM Punk, another winning effort. Again he would disappear until the build for Royal Rumble 2014 where he would defeat The Big Show before a tonal shift in how Lesnar was booked and utilized would happen. Of course, we all know that at WrestleMania 30 the unthinkable would happen as Lesnar would end The Undertaker’s legendary Undefeated WrestleMania Streak. This would launch Lesnar into another stratosphere, beginning with his absolute mauling of John Cena at SummerSlam to capture the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Over the next few years he would hold both this title and the Universal Championship for an abundance of time, all while working with a wide array of talent with varying outcomes to their feuds but most notably elevating and cementing the likes of Roman Reigns and Drew McIntyre.
When speaking with fellow wrestling fans there are usually two approaches when it comes to Brock Lesnar. The first and undoubtedly more common is that he is a lazy part-timer who hogs the spotlight and championship gold while doing little to actively contribute to the business itself. The second will be from the point of view of understanding how special of a talent Lesnar truly is and how his presence affects not only the card he is on, but his opponent as well. While it cannot be said that every talent that has worked with Brock over the past 8 years has benefitted (such as Dean Ambrose or Ricochet) there is no denying the impact that Brock Lesnar has had on the careers of Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns or Drew McIntyre. Their eventual wins over The Beast Incarnate has cemented those three alone as the leaders of the new charge and the guys who will be taking the business into the next decade and maybe beyond.
So, with all of these thoughts in mind, there are certain questions that need to be asked in determining placing Brock Lesnar as one of professional wrestling’s true titans. The first guaranteed question will always be about his schedule, but is it truly a bad thing? In the modern world of WWE we see the same talent week in and week out, in some cases even more than that. Between RAW, SmackDown, NXT and the at-times weekly PPV/Network special schedule, one can easily get tired of the same talent all over their TVs. This is a far cry from the old days where one set of tapings would cover a month of more of television with talent generally only appearing on one show for that duration. So in reality, Lesnar is more of a throwback to a by-gone era and it also allows his aura to be built up so that when he does appear it has more of a special feel to it. As great as the Attitude Era was you can easily load up the Network and watch a months straight of television that is ridiculously one-note and follows the same structure with the same talent week in and week out. By no means are we that far from that but the times that we do see some talent that hasn’t been littered all over the show constantly feels like a relief. The best approximation of this I can think of in the modern era was how NXT booked their shows before moving to USA and the two-hour format. It prevents overexposure but on the flip side is the loss of momentum. Any wrestler would likely tell you that being able to build up and maintain momentum is harder than it appears (and not in the way the commentary tells you each win is building momentum going into *insert show name here*) but Brock Lesnar, beyond being a special once-in-a-generation talent has a trump card up his sleeve which leads us into our next point.
Ladies and gentlemen, his name is Paul Heyman. Not only what many of us would consider one of the greatest minds in the history of the business but an integral key to Brock Lesnar’s success over the years. We all know that the two were packaged during Brock’s initial WWE run but the relationship the two forged behind the scenes is what made their partnership over the past eight years so fruitful. Even when Brock Lesnar is not around on television the ability to rely on Paul Heyman allowed him to always be just on the periphery of whatever was happening at any given point in time. Due to the partnership being so strong as well as knowing about the deep friendship between the two this both allowed Heyman to not only handle business dealings both in and out of kayfabe for The Conqueror, in addition, to never fully allowing the halting of any momentum built up over time by Brock. One can only begin to wonder if Brock would have seen even a fraction of the success he has without having the option of Paul Heyman to handle his promos and keep him in the limelight. This may not have been as prevalent the past few years of this run, but during 2012 through 2014 when Heyman was on television each week aligned with talents like CM Punk, Curtis Axel, Ryback and Cesaro it was to the benefit of Brock, usually at the same time detracting from the aforementioned talents (Punk notwithstanding.)
All of this is not to say that Brock is without fault. While his incredibly physical in-ring style is hard to match, following the rise of his ‘Suplex City’ mantra it could easily be argued that he became very one-note. Many of his matches can simply be reduced to several German suplexes and a couple of F5s. There would obviously be deviations from this formula, most notably in his superb matches against AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan, many talents were not so lucky to get Brock wearing his working boots. Several of his matches with both Reigns and Rollins were hampered by this style, as were outings with Samoa Joe and Braun Strowman. In retrospect, the only two great matches that followed the ‘Suplex City’ style were the match against John Cena at SummerSlam ’14, which took place a good 6 months before the term would enter the lexicon and the match against Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 31 in which the term itself was coined. While I would argue it hurt him more than it helped him, there’s an old saying that you can’t argue with money and the amount of Suplex City shirts sold over the years will surely put up one hell of an argument.
But despite some poor outings and some great ones you simply cannot deny that Lesnar had a number of great moments over the past eight years, and while it would take too long to list them all, I thought it wise to throw together just a short list.
SummerSlam 2013 against CM Punk – In Punk’s last great wrestling match, both guys just beat the everloving hell out of one another.
WrestleMania 30 against The Undertaker – The moment that changed everything and as much as it breaks my heart to include here, it was too huge of a moment not to include.
SummerSlam 2014 against John Cena – The day where John Cena became a glorified jobber, getting absolutely gutted and squashed by Lesnar.
Royal Rumble 2015 against Seth Rollins & John Cena – Arguably one of the greatest triple threat matches in history and the lone bright spot of a horrific show. Also the night Seth Rollins showed he could truly be the guy.
WrestleMania 31 against Roman Reigns (and then Seth Rollins too!) – When people look back at this match they usually only remember the final moments, but I urge you to go back and watch one hell of a brutal beatdown between Lesnar and Reigns before Rollins even enters the fray.
Hell In A Cell 2015 against The Undertaker – The match we should have got at Mania 30, this was the best Undertaker outing in years and Brock came to work. Not as good as their 2002 Hell In A Cell match but criminally overlooked as well.
Survivor Series 2017 against AJ Styles – The night that Brock showed he could still put on one hell of a match and helped cement AJ Styles as a top guy in the company.
Survivor Series 2018 against Daniel Bryan – The first truly great match of Daniel Bryan’s career following his emotional return earlier in the year. The fact that both he and Brock made it seem that Bryan would win speaks volumes for both guys.
Finally, if we are going to look at everything all around to determine Brock Lesnar as an all-time great, we must look at his initial run with the company from 2002-2004 and determine whether he has exceeded that run. While the number of dates in that two-year run likely exceeds the amount he would work in his second eight-year run with the company we must also consider that we are looking at two completely different athletes. In his initial run, Brock was a powerhouse yes but he was still promoted mainly as an amateur wrestler. Following his return, Brock was booked and promoted as a bruising, ultimate fighting beast. In his second run there are so many stand-out matches and opponents compared to his first run. In fact, as I sit here writing this there are only four names that come to mind as either truly elevating or being elevated by Brock in his initial run, two of which he only faced off with once. While we fondly remember the torch passing from The Rock and Brock helping solidify Eddie Guerrero as ‘the guy’ they all only worked together briefly. The only two men that he worked extended programs with that are memorable are Kurt Angle and The Undertaker. While many are likely to look at the Brock/Taker matches in his second run due to their historical significance, the matches they had back in 2002 and 2003 were vastly superior. And we all know how damned good his matches with Kurt Angle were, giving us one of the best WrestleMania main events and arguably the best WWE Iron Man match ever. You’d be hard pressed to find any hardcore wrestling fan who wouldn’t want to watch those two square off every night of the week.
Suffice all of this to say, whichever side of the aisle you may fall on regarding some of these metrics, it is foolish not to consider Brock Lesnar not only one of the greatest to ever do it. Love him or hate him, one simply cannot argue with the body of work the man has put forth even if he did it on a heavily part-time basis. The sheer amount of talent he has worked with, the respect he has garnered not only in the world of professional wrestling but combat sports as a whole and that of his peers. Yes, a lot of people have and will continue to ridicule the price tag and ability to dictate his own dates, but in reality, a lot of those same people would be chomping at the bit to be in Brock’s position. At this point in time, we may have seen the last of Brock Lesnar in a WWE ring but I have no doubt whatsoever that we will see him in the WWE Hall Of Fame one day.
