Brock-Lesnar
born July 12, 1977) is an American professional wrestler, actor, former mixed martial artist, professional football player and amateur wrestler,signed with WWE.
He is also a former UFC Heavyweight Champion and an accomplished amateur wrestler, winning the 2000 NCAA heavyweight wrestling championship and placing second in 1999 after losing to Stephen Neal.Lesnar gained prominence in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) from 2002 to 2004, where he is a former three-time WWE Champion, becoming the youngest WWE Champion at age 25 with his first reign. Lesnar was the 2002 King of the Ring and the winner of the 2003 Royal Rumble.After leaving WWE, Lesnar pursued a career in the NFL.He played during the preseason for the Minnesota Vikings, but ended up being a late cut.Lesnar returned to professional wrestling at the end of 2005, and joined New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), where he won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in his first match.He was officially stripped of the title by NJPW in July 2006, and took the physical belt with him to Inoki Genome Federation (IGF), where he was still recognized as IWGP Champion until June 2007.
Lesnar started a career in MMA and won his first fight in June 2007.He then signed with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in October 2007. He lost his UFC debut against Frank Mir, but defeated Heath Herring in his sophomore fight. He subsequently captured the UFC Heavyweight Championship from Randy Couture on November 15, 2008, then avenged his loss to Mir at UFC 100 to become the Undisputed Champion. After being sidelined from fighting in late 2009 due to diverticulitis, Lesnar returned to defeat the Interim UFC Heavyweight Champion Shane Carwin at UFC 116. Lesnar lost the Heavyweight belt against Cain Velasquez at UFC 121. He was once again stricken with a bout of diverticulitis in May 2011 and had surgery to try to cope with the ailment.Lesnar returned at UFC 141 in December 2011, where he lost to Alistair Overeem and promptly retired from the UFC.In April 2012, Lesnar returned to WWE.
In June 2002, Lesnar won the King of the Ring tournament, defeating Rob Van Dam in the final round.This victory earned him a shot at the WWE Undisputed Championship at SummerSlam.On July 22, Lesnar joined the SmackDown! brand.After a quick feud with Hollywood Hulk Hogan in August 2002, Lesnar began feuding with the Undisputed Champion The Rock.Lesnar would go on to face Rob Van Dam at Vengeance, for the Intercontinental Championship. He lost the match by disqualification. At the main event of SummerSlam, Lesnar defeated The Rock, albeit with the use of a steel chair and outside interference from Paul Heyman, to become the WWE Undisputed Champion.With his victory at age 25, Lesnar became the youngest WWE Champion in history (a record that was previously held by The Rock and stands to date).With the WWE Undisputed Championship being defended on both brands, Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff expected Lesnar to be able to return to Raw the following night. However, SmackDown General Manager Stephanie McMahon announced that Lesnar's contract only required him to defend the title on SmackDown!, forcing Bischoff to establish a new world championship for his brand. With the new World Heavyweight Championship on the Raw brand, the now disputed WWE Undisputed Championship simply became known as the WWE Championship.
Lesnar's rapid rise to the top of WWE in 2002 led to a feud with The Undertaker, which involved a match at Unforgiven.It ended in a double disqualification leading to Lesnar retaining the title. The next month, at No Mercy, he faced The Undertaker again, this time in a Hell in a Cell match. Leading up to the match, Lesnar broke the Undertaker's hand with a propane tank.Despite Heyman begging McMahon not to let The Undertaker use his cast as a weapon, the request was denied and the match went on as planned.In a match that saw both wrestlers and even Heyman covered in blood, it ended when Lesnar reversed an attempted Tombstone piledriver into his finishing F-5 maneuver for the win.Six days after his Hell in a Cell match with The Undertaker, Lesnar successfully retained his WWE title in a Handicap match with Heyman at the Rebellion pay-per-view against Edge.
Lesnar's next opponent was The Big Show. Heyman was convinced more than anyone that Lesnar could not win, trying to talk him out of defending the title.Lesnar refused and lost the championship in Madison Square Garden at the Survivor Series pay-per-view to Big Show, Lesnar's first pinfall loss in WWE. When the champion tried to pin the 500-pounder following an F-5, he was betrayed by Heyman who pulled the referee out of the ring allowing Big Show to capitalize by chokeslamming Lesnar on a steel chair. Show went on to pin Lesnar and win the title. As a result, Lesnar became a fan favorite.Following Survivor Series, Heyman made it clear that Lesnar would not get a rematch, even going so far as to sneak a special clause in his contract.[35] In order to gain his revenge on Big Show and Heyman, Lesnar interfered in his first title defense, which came against Kurt Angle the next month at Armageddon. Lesnar hit the F-5 on the champion, which enabled Angle to pin him and win the title. On the next edition of SmackDown, however, Angle introduced Heyman as his manager and, despite promising Lesnar a match for his title earlier in the evening, declared that Lesnar still would not get a title shot. Lesnar was then beaten down by Big Show and Angle following the main event, but the former champion got his revenge after the show went off the air. While getting attacked again and berated by Heyman, Lesnar recovered and began to fight off both men. He eventually clotheslined Big Show out of the ring and then knocked him out with a steel chair when he returned, leaving Angle alone with Lesnar. Lesnar then chased the champion, who had escaped to the outside, and resumed his assault that culminated when Lesnar used the F-5 to propel Angle's right knee into the steel ringpost. As paramedics tended to a screaming Angle, Lesnar finished off the assault with a kneebreaker on the ringside barricade, (kayfabe) breaking the champion's leg.
With Angle temporarily put out of action, Lesnar's rivalry with Heyman and the Big Show resumed, which culminated in a match at the Royal Rumble in January 2003. A spot in the Royal Rumble match was on the line, and winning the match would be Lesnar's only hope for a potential title shot. Lesnar defeated Big Show to gain entry into the match and entered at #29, the second to last competitor to enter the match. He eliminated Matt Hardy and Team Angle, which was composed of the debuting (at the time) Charlie Haas and his former OVW teammate, Shelton Benjamin who were mentored by the WWE champion. Lesnar made it to the final two, with the only remaining entry being a returning Undertaker who entered the match last. Lesnar went on to win the match by eliminating Undertaker, which now guaranteed him a title match which he would receive at WrestleMania XIX.
Lesnar suffered a concussion after botching a shooting star press at WrestleMania XIX.
After the Royal Rumble, Lesnar's feud with Angle, Heyman, and their allies continued as Angle retained the title at the Rumble by defeating Chris Benoit. Lesnar and Benoit faced off against Angle, Haas, and Benjamin at No Way Out the following month and Lesnar's team won the match. This helped to forward the feud leading into the main event at WrestleMania.[34] During the match, Lesnar attempted and botched a shooting star press, a move typically done by cruiserweights but a move Lesnar knew how to perform, having done so in developmental matches. However, Lesnar overestimated the distance he could jump to execute the move. As a result, he did not get enough rotation on his leap and instead of landing with his body on top of Angle's, Lesnar jammed his head and neck by hitting Angle's side and ribcage. This stunned Lesnar and forced Angle to improvise the finish of the match. Lesnar suffered a severe concussion from the botched move, but still managed to pin Angle after an F-5 to win his second WWE Championship.The rivalry ended after this, as Angle was forced to undergo neck surgery and missed several months.
After WrestleMania Lesnar turned his attention to John Cena, who had returned from injury in February 2003 and who had been F-5'd into a ringpost in the same manner Angle had been. Cena claimed Lesnar nearly ended his career and even named his new finishing move the "FU" as a jab at the new champion.The feud ended relatively quickly in a match at Backlash when Lesnar defeated Cena. On the following SmackDown, Lesnar returned to his rivalry with Big Show after he injured Rey Mysterio badly during their match at Backlash. Show's attack resulted in Mysterio being carried out on a stretcher and back board and Big Show took Mysterio off the stretcher and swung the back board into the ringpost, compounding the injury.Lesnar called out the Big Show, who demanded that Lesnar put his title on the line against him. This led to a Stretcher match at Judgment Day for the title. Lesnar successfully retained his title with help from Rey Mysterio and a forklift.During the scripted rivalry, on SmackDown!, Lesnar lifted Big Show over in a Superplex, which caused the ring to collapse on impact.
As Lesnar and Big Show continued their rivalry, Kurt Angle returned from his neck surgery and he and Lesnar began to form a more friendly rivalry, as the two were allies yet contenders for the title. At the first ever SmackDown brand-exclusive pay-per-view in July, Vengeance, Lesnar took on Angle and Big Show in a No Disqualification Triple Threat match for his title, which ended after Angle hit his Angle Slam on both Big Show and Lesnar, pinning the champion to become WWE Champion for a fourth time.
Lesnar and Angle after their WWE Championship match at WrestleMania XIX
Lesnar continued to chase Angle's title, however, despite their friendship. Vince McMahon found his way into the angle, at first berating Lesnar, who had involved himself in McMahon's rivalry with Zach Gowen, for losing to Angle. This all turned out to be a huge swerve that came into focus on the August 7, 2003 SmackDown in Kelowna, British Columbia. That night, Lesnar and McMahon were to face each other in a steel cage match with Angle as the special guest referee as per McMahon's orders on the previous week's program. During the course of the match, Lesnar had passed out due to a staged backstage incident and McMahon was set to pin him but Angle refused to allow McMahon to win that way. As the two men began to argue, Lesnar rose to his feet, revealing the ruse to the crowd, and F-5'd Angle. He then brutally beat Angle in the cage while McMahon watched, and celebrated with the owner of the company afterward, turning heel in the process.
At SummerSlam,Lesnar lost to Angle when Angle made Lesnar tap out to the ankle lock.After that, Lesnar began brutalizing smaller wrestlers and attacking his rivals on a more consistent basis. He returned to using the F-5 to propel his opponents' legs into the ringpost, as he did to Spanky and Gowen, and interfered in Angle's matches on two separate occasion.
On September 18, 2003, Lesnar received his third shot at Angle in as many months when he faced the champion in a sixty-minute Iron Man match for the title in what went down as one of the greatest matches in the history of SmackDown.Lesnar employed an early strategy where he assaulted the champion with a steel chair early in the match, getting himself disqualified to lose the first fall but allowing himself a chance to do a fair amount of damage. Lesnar won the next three falls by hitting Angle with the F-5 and pinning him, putting Angle's own ankle lock on him and forcing him to submit, and then getting Angle counted out after hitting a second F-5 on the floor. Angle recovered to pin the champion after an Angle Slam, but Lesnar won two additional falls by first leveling him with the championship belt while the referee's back was turned and then hitting a superplex from the top. That made it five falls to two in favor of the challenger with the match more than halfway over. In the final ten minutes of the match, Angle moved to within one fall after a pin and a submission with the ankle lock. For the final two minutes of the match, Lesnar tried to dodge Angle by leaving the ring on several occasions. Angle finally caught the champions with 1:12 left and hit a series of German suplexes, keeping Lesnar locked up for nearly 45 seconds. Lesnar, however, was able to hold on to the referee and kicked Angle below the belt with :35 left. However, since Lesnar was still holding the official he was not disqualified, and with nineteen seconds remaining Angle appeared to be out of it. However, Lesnar fell into a trap set by the champion and Angle locked in the ankle lock again. This time, Angle applied a grapevine hold to the lock, wrenching hard on Lesnar's ankle for the final fifteen seconds of the bout. However, Lesnar was able to withstand the hold for the remaining time and as a result, by a final count of five falls to four, won the match and his third WWE Championship.
With Angle finally out of his hair for the first time in nearly a year, Lesnar returned to feuding with The Undertaker. Lesnar had previously cost Undertaker the title in a match against then-champion Kurt Angle, which granted him a shot at Lesnar's title.[43] At No Mercy, Lesnar defeated Undertaker in a Biker Chain match.However, the rivalry came to an end when Undertaker instead chose to focus on McMahon.
After Paul Heyman returned to WWE as general manager of SmackDown, Lesnar aligned himself with his former manager. Since he had also since been aligning himself with his former rival The Big Show for several weeks after his betrayal of Angle, this brought Lesnar almost full circle from the year prior, where Heyman and Big Show had conspired with each other to rid Lesnar of his title. With Survivor Series coming up, Lesnar decided to challenge Angle to a traditional Survivor Series elimination tag team match, with Lesnar picking four additional wrestlers and Angle doing the same. Lesnar chose Big Show as his first pick, with Heyman adding a returning Nathan Jones and a debuting Matt Morgan to bring the team number to four. Angle, in the meantime, chose Chris Benoit and The APA to join his team. However, Faarooq was injured during a match with Lesnar and Big Show and Angle's team was forced to not only find a replacement for him, but to fill the fifth spot. Lesnar's team picked A-Train to fill that spot for them after he attacked John Cena, who refused to accept an invitation to join Lesnar's team. Cena instead joined Angle's team, and Angle added Hardcore Holly as the fifth member; Lesnar had injured Holly the year before and he hadn't wrestled since.In the climax of the match, Chris Benoit became the second person to make Lesnar tap out.
Lesnar faced Benoit in a singles bout two weeks later for the WWE Championship on SmackDown!, where Lesnar won after Benoit passed out to Lesnar's debuting Brock Lock submission hold.He then began a brief feud with Hardcore Holly, defeating him at the Royal Rumble in January 2004 to retain his title.
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