WHY ROCK BEATS LESNAR
The lunacy has reigned long enough this year. Now it shall draw to a comfortable conclusion in the semi-final, and we can have two finalists deserving of their position as WZT finalists, as both Cena and Austin are fully deserving of that right, as is The Rock. Brock Lesnar is however, not worthy of a position against Cena or Austin in the WZT final not only because he is simply not proficient enough to earn such a position, but because he could not defeat The Rock in his prime.
Before I jump in to my analysis, let's dispel a triad of things I expect will be coming up from Brock supporters.
Fallacy 1: Brock Lesnar defeated The Rock at Summerslam 2002.
Indeed, he did, and for a man who had been on the roster for about 5 months at the time, that's a respectable feat. But here's the thing: this can be dispelled from both a kayfabe standpoint and a reality standpoint. In kayfabe, The Rock's best days were behind him and he didn't exactly hold the title for long, clocking in at a measly 35 days. During this time, his only non tag match victories were over Ric Flair (way past his prime), Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero (both who had not hit their primes). He also had a no-contest against Triple H, which goes to show just how bad this reign was for The Rock from a kayfabe perspective. He also lost a few tag matches as well, although I don't think he was involved in the fall, but it still counts as a blemish on his record. And Lesnar scarcely beats Rocky after all that. Keep in mind that Lesnar had been up to that point as completely unstoppable.
Let's look at this in a reality perspective. Lesnar was hand-picked to be the next big draw for WWE, and Rock was leaving to film a movie anyhow, so the title was pretty much guaranteed to change hands. Brock wins, and his only close to impressive victory is over Undertaker in a Cell match at No Mercy. Then he gets injured, loses the title to Show, and despite winning the title twice again, he never picked up the same momentum as he did in 2002. He had a good feud with Kurt Angle, but Kurt Angle is the keyword at hand. 2003 Angle was nowhere near an all-time great (unless you're talking about his in-ring work, which was divine), and yet Lesnar had considerable difficulty beating him. In short, Brock Lesnar beating The Rock in 2002 meant very little both in kayfabe and in reality terms, and he was facing The Rock when he was a shell of his former self.
Fallacy 2: Brock Lesnar won King of the Ring 2002 so he's used to the tournament enviornment.
He beat Test and RVD in one night. Test wasn't worth a damn at that point in time, and RVD had already began to stick as a main-event jobber around that time period, not regaining major momentum until 2006. Lesnar has already had much more difficulty putting Triple H away in this tournament, while Rock slid by Flair a lot more comfortably. I'm pretty sure a close match against Triple H in his prime is worth more than 2002 Test and 2002 RVD combined. So we've established Brock is weaker coming into this match than he was after winning the KOTR final, and he's against someone that is arguably even tougher than Triple H in his prime. This doesn't bode well for Lesnar, even if The Rock possesses slight injuries coming in, Lesnar's injuries are far graver and he is against arguably a stronger opponent.
Fallacy 3: Brock Lesnar broke the Streak.
This is by far the stupidest of all three arguments because it is completely counter-productive. Lesnar has wrestled 7 times in 2 years, and he happened to beat a guy that was well, well out of his prime to break something that was inevitably going to be ended someday by the skin of his teeth. Wouldn't that suggest that Brock has a significant disadvantage coming into his second match of the night, even ignoring injuries? The Brock Lesnar who ended the streak is not Brock Lesnar in his prime, so don't even try to use that in your argument, especially if you start to argue with Brock's first run in WWE at the same time.
Now that the fallacies are out of the way, let's get into the analysis itself.
Brock Lesnar is not in the same league as The Rock. There's a very good reasons why The Rock has been seeded #2 in his bracket and why Brock Lesnar has been seeded #12 in his: The Rock is considerably better than Brock, and what's more, with both men in their primes, The Rock would beat Brock in a fight, plain and simple. Now, seeding isn't always the best representation of skill, but that mostly applies to old-school wrestlers, such as Kiniski or Ed Lewis for example. Let's break this semi-final down.
First of all, Brock Lesnar was Vince McMahon's first major attempt of building a superstar artificially. Some may argue that Ultimate Warrior was also built artificially, but Warrior also had a very strong connection with the fans, something Brock failed to achieve in his time, and Warrior was given a ball to run with, and he did just that. With Brock, Vince already had plans that he was destined for greatness, and had him destroy most in his path, before finally winning the title at Summerslam 2002.
Now, how many names did Brock beat that were either not out of their prime or anything more than main-event jobbers and below during his ascension? The answer is a big, fat zero. Brock never faced anyone of huge importance or someone huge such as Hogan or Flair during their prime, and his only credible win with the title was against Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell match., aka not a singles match like we're dealing with here. Then he lost it to Big Show, and his momentum never reached the same heights again. Sure, he won the title a couple more times, but on Smackdown, he clearly was a big fish in a small pond, trading the title with Kurt Angle.
It was during this period that WWE ratings saw a dramatic decline. Gone were the days of the die-hard Attitude Era fans, and Vince had failed to live up to the standards set by Austin and, ironically enough, The Rock. I'll concede that this is mainly due to how horrific RAW was at the time, but while Smackdown was a much better product in-ring wise, it still wasn't attaining ratings of the magnitude it had been before. So in short, Vince's artificial step into the next generation failed, and it took the natural rise of Cena for Vince to get things right.
So Brock was a failure as the next big thing as he left pretty early in his main roster tenure. His competition, apart from Angle (who actually took the title from him) was nothing special, and the ratings were down. And that's all without comparing him to The Rock's prime, which I'm going to do now.
In 1999, Stone Cold Steve Austin was the hottest thing in wrestling. But then, at the end of the year, he was written off television in order to undergo much needed neck surgery. Now, WCW at this time were floundering, but with Austin gone, they might have had a chance to bounce back, right?
If anything, they were further decimated going into 2000. Granted, WCW had gotten even worse, but the WWF had gotten even better with the advent of The Rock as the top star. He took the ball and ran with it, and 2000 is often cited as one of the best years for WWF, and for good reason, because it was fucking great, from both a story and in-ring perspective. WWF proved they didn't need Austin to put on great entertainment when The Rock was in control. The WWF continued to draw big crowds during 2000, and that can be attributed to The Rock's work.
What's more, The Rock actually picked up impressive victories, such as a victory over Triple H during one of HHH's best periods ever as just one of a few examples. The Rock was a draw, he was booked against stronger competition, and the ratings thrived. He fully moved out of Austin's shadow and cemented himself as one of the greats. On the contrary, Lesnar is often remembered as one of the biggest disappointments in wrestling history, having failed to live up to expectations and having his return to wrestling being viewed by many as redemption.
One more thing to throw salt on the wound, damage passing over. You will notice that Lesnar had a closer match than The Rock did last round, which gives Lesnar the disadvantage in every conceivable way.
In short, The Rock trumps everything Brock Lesnar has to throw at him. I know they'll inevitably be some cretinous arguments, but I hope this post acts as the safety net to stop most of the shit that will try to stream into the thread.
The nonsense stops now. Vote Rock.
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