10 Big Money Matches WWE Needs To Make

With the exception of Hulk Hogan in 1984, no other wrestler has received an immediate stratospheric push to the top like Brock Lesnar. He debuted on WWE television in March 2002, had his first match a month or so later, and five months after first showing up on TV - after running through people like Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan on his way up - Lesnar was lifting the WWE Undisputed Championship in the main event of SummerSlam.

The man he took the title from? The Rock. They’d met only once before in the ring - two weeks earlier, at the massive Global Warning event in Melbourne, Australia, where Rocky had retained the title in a triple threat match main event against Lesnar and Triple H (the Game was the man pinned). The Rock took another movie-making sabbatical shortly afterwards, and never received a rematch for the title.

Fast forward fourteen years, and The Rock is the biggest movie star on the planet and occasional sports entertainer, while Brock Lesnar is… well, Brock Lesnar, only more so. Lesnar doesn’t quite have Dwayne Johnson’s household name status outside of fight circles, but there’s no denying the cachet his legitimate reputation as a UFC fighter brings WWE, quite apart from his worked rep as the Beast Incarnate.

It’s quite likely that there are no two men in wrestling who could attract attention as a headline bout better than Brock Lesnar and The Rock. Back in ‘02, it was billed as ROCK VS. BROCK. Kismet like that demands rewarding: Lesnar even delivered a Rock Bottom of his own to the Great One purely so that Taz on commentary could immediately dub it the Brock Bottom.

Rock Vs. Brock II? It’s a no brainer, a guaranteed box office smash. The Rock may be a bigger mainstream star now than he was back then (and certainly a bigger guy, what with all that 4am ‘clanging n’ banging’ he does), but Lesnar was just a freakishly strong and fast prodigy back then, the Next Big Thing. He wasn’t the Beast Incarnate he is today - back then, Lesnar’s matches were often competitive, not the one-sided beatdowns we’re familiar with today.

If Rocky can avoid blowing up or getting pulverised by a careless German suplex, it’s got the potential to be a proper thriller too... assuming that WWE stray a little from Lesnar’s current dreary formula and allow some exciting things to happen.