Remember Brock Lesnar....The Wrestler?!?

It's funny nowadays when I hear people talk about Brock Lesnar and his great success so far in his rise to the top in the UFC because the same folks, either wrestling or non-wrestling fans alike, seem to not know fully or often forget about his stay at the top of the WWE. When Lesnar was a main event player in the wrestling world, I thought that he had some of the best WWE Title reigns I've ever seen. His bouts with the likes of The Undertaker, Kurt Angle, and The Rock were excellent and his in-ring work and great feuds solidified him as one of the most memorable world champions in WWE history. This was truly the case for a good while until he unceremoniously decided to leave the company to pursue other venture and in turn left a very bad taste in some wrestling fans' mouths. Now with Lesnar back in the spotlight again, I wanted to look back at how he make it to the top so quickly and discuss why I think that this ascension was quickly dismissed once he left the business that first made him a huge star.

When the self-proclaimed rookie grappler dubbed "The Next Big Thing" debuted in the WWE in 2002, to many fans, he looked just like any other cookie-cutter, muscle-bounded big person whom have stepped in the ring before him. You know...the one that looks intimating and "jacked-up", but can't really wrestle worth a scrap when given the chance. So when Lesnar came on the scene, he initially fell into the many stereotypes of an overhyped "monster heel". He paired up with a manager because he couldn't really cut it on the mic (stereotype #1), he relentlessly (and sometimes questionably) squashed everyone who came in his path, including Rob Van Dam and the Hardy Boyz, (stereotype #2), and he ascended to the top of the rankings more quickly (and to a few somewhat undeservedly) than anyone would've expected by winning a number of major achievements (the King of the Ring and the WWE Title) in only his first months on TV (stereotype #3). With all of this, I personally wasn't digging Lesnar because he just seemed too "stereotypical" for my liking and I had somewhat dismissed him despite Smackdown being my favorite show to watch at the time. But that all changed when the returning Big Show came to challenge Lesnar for the title. I was now immediately interested in watching the big guy because this was the first person (with no offense to Taker, who was meant to put Brock over) to seem like a real legitimate challenge to Lesnar's crazy streak and also because it was uniquely a "heel vs. heel" match-up, which is rarely seen.

So at Survivor Series, the two giants went after each other and during the match, shockingly, Lesnar's manager Paul Heyman decided to turn his back on his client thus costing the title to Show. Not even a full week after this, due to these turn of events, Brock went from stereotypical raging heel to unstereotypical vengeful man on a mission. He automatically tuned face by default and captured the audience's (and my own) full attention by doing beating up the despised Paul Heyman and doing things like "F-5"-ing (his finisher) the almost 500lb Big Show. Eventually Brock's feud with Heyman led to an even bigger one with another former amateur wrestler, Kurt Angle. The two had an almost picture-perfect build-up to their main event Wrestlemania title bout (anyone remember the massive title shot swerve with Brock and Angle's brother Eric?) that put Brock more over than ever before. The man immediately blew up in popularity and was main-eventing every single Smackdown along with having his face and saying on the cover of a best-selling WWE video game (WWE Smackdown! Here Comes The Pain). With Lesnar having the title, he provided some pretty good matches that include his bouts against a young John Cena, rematches against a returning Kurt Angle, and another series of big man battles against Big Show, with one bout infamously known for its ending in which the entire ring collapsed after a superplex between the two. Then when it seemed like everything was going perfect with his face run, something unexpected happened. The man turned heel again

After losing his strap to a returning Kurt Angle, the company decided to take a chance and turn their number one fan favorite wrestler into a bonafided bad guy. At first, I was fearful that the switch would be a horrible mistake that would turn Brock into the initial "dumb monster heel" he once was when he initially arrived, but luckily I was dead wrong. Lesnar instead became "monster heel 2.0" going from pinheaded machine to a cunning and gunning animal. The man joined up with the ultimate bad guy himself, WWE owner Vince McMahon, and gained the WWE Title shortly back from Angle in an interesting and brutal 60 minute Iron Man match that saw Brock using some awesome old school heelish tactics to win. From that point on, Lesnar did a great job of continuing to up the ante more and more as a heel champion by doing such heat-gaining things making people tap out to various submission moves instead of his usual fan-favorite F-5 finisher, destroyed the life out of much smaller "innocent" wrestlers such as the one-legged Zach Gowen (remember the very low, but sick looking moment of Brock throwing Gowen down a flight of stairs), and screwing over Chris Benoit in a much-hyped WWE title bout and ultimately getting Benoit to "leave" Smackdown. So again like his run as a face, everything seemed to going well for the "Next Big Thing", that is until out of nowhere and unexpectedly (to us casual fans) Lesnar decided that he wanted to leave the WWE to pursue a football career in the NFL.

While from a outside (of the wrestling world) perceptive, it seemed like a reasonable decision for Brock to make at his age, it made a good number of fans very resentful towards the man with the knowledge of him wanting to leave. So despite his second to last PPV match being an excellent bout against the late, great Eddie Guerrerro (in which Guerrero finally achieved his lifelong dream of becoming world champ), his following last match for the WWE at Wrestlemania 20 against Bill Goldberg (who ironically was also leaving the same night from the company) was easily not just the worst of his short career, but to some, also one of the worst overhyped matches of all time. After literally getting booed out of Madison Square Garden and putting on a pretty below-average match, Lesnar left a sour taste in fans' mouth with his departure. A man with so much more potential left to be fully realized and tons of fans still rooting for him, it seemed like a bad move for him to leave it all behind in one fell swoop.

So this brings me to the main point of this fine trip down memory lane. I and a good number of fans (as far as I know) loved seeing Lesnar in the ring week in and week out as he improved throughout the two years he was there. But when the man decided to leave out of nowhere, go to a totally different profession, and then eventually "fail" at it (not being accepted on the Minnesota Vikings team), it definitely and somewhat rightfully pissed some fans off, including myself. Despite his minor attention with wrestling overseas and then making the shocking move to fighting in the UFC (with some pretty good success so far to say the least), some wrestling fans seem to still hold onto that bad taste in their mouth with Lesnar's initial and not give Brock the full credit he deserves for his great work while in the WWE. While he gets mentioned in a few selected Top 10 wrestling match lists, I still believe that he hasn't received the props for his crazy excellent ring work and the full impact he has had in the WWE. Brock Lesnar may not be the best grappler ever to step in the ring, but he sure as hell can be said to be one of the most unique, undeniably athletically wrestlers ever. A person who can bench-press over 500 lbs easily, is able to be almost as agile as a well-seasoned ring veteran, and could hang tough with the best that the WWE had to offer (Angle, Guerrero, Benoit, Taker, Rock), should ultimately been remembered for these skills and accomplishments as opposed to the singular way that they left the wrestling business. Lesnar may be geared up for tear up the world of UFC now in a major way, but less not we all forget where he started from and what mind-blowing skills and unforgettable moments he'd provided while in his original home of the WWE.