Slow Down Beast
Here’s a thought. Brock Lesnar’s original run Was he given too much too soon? Think about it. By the end of his rookie year he won every major honour in WWE, debuted on Wrestlemania X8 fallout, and was gone after Wrestlemania XX. Subsequent returns have been hit or miss depending on perspective.
You mean there might be something else wrong with Lesnar?
Pretty much, yeah. The thing about Lesnar was that his major characteristics were athleticism and power. That can take you a long way, but Lesnar didn’t have the charisma to back it up. Sure he had Heyman for a little while, but that was gone only three months after he lost the title. The Wrestlemania spot, which should have been his crowning glory, didn’t work either so there wasn’t much left.
The problem with Lesnar was he didn’t really have a character. He’s an athletic freak and a once in a lifetime talent, but that’s not what really matters. Compare him to the other guy with an amazing rookie year in Kurt Angle. Kurt was an athletic freak in his own right but could talk with the best of them, which gave him a lot of staying power. He could work face or heel and make it effective, because the talking could compliment his wrestling skills perfectly well.
That’s where Lesnar fell short. Once you see him do these cool moves, it stops having the same impact. It’s just something you saw him do recently and it’s not as impressive the second time around. Compare that to someone like Ricochet. Sure he has spots, but you know he’s saving the big ones (the double moonsault and the 630) for the moments that matter most. You want to see them do those big moves and they’re built up instead of just seeing them every time.
The same thing is true with the modern Lesnar. His character is a little better because he’s gone Mega Beast, but the very impressive suplexes have lost their impact from him doing the same things over and over again. If you do those suplexes and F5’s again and again, they can be as cool as possible but they’re going to get dull after awhile. Hence the mantra of DO SOMETHING ELSE that you so often hear during Lesnar matches.
So yeah, Lesnar was too much too soon, because he didn’t have the charisma or character depth to handle it. That was always going to happen, because the talking/character stuff is more important than anything you can do in the ring.
Brock Lesnar in the early 2000s was the physical embodiment of Vince McMahon’s ideal pro wrestler. The man won the WWE Championship for the first time within three months of his WWE television debut, so it’s fair to say that Vince was basically in love with Lesnar.
That’s not to say that Lesnar didn’t have the goods as the guy was an athletic dynamo in the ring and had been involved in some of the best matches in company history, especially his matches with Kurt Angle. However, it wasn’t just the fact that Lesnar had so much success, it’s the fact that that success came with a price. I’m sure Lesnar loved all the money and fame that came his way, what he didn’t care much for was the fact that he was constantly having to work his ass off in order to keep getting it. Lesnar simply didn’t have the heart for it, he didn’t want to make WWE the central aspect of his life in which everything else had to revolve around.
1 more thing in Lesners defence if you win everything in your rookie year Where’s the motivation to stay for long to be the face of the company when there’s nothing left for you to acomplish?