10 WWE Traitors Who Were More Effective After Leaving

6. Brock Lesnar

Only an idiot would call Brock Lesnar a traitor to his face, or without at least 100 miles of a head start to run away from the monstrous man! Nowadays, Lesnar is a vital part of the WWE product, his ass-kicking legitimate athlete gimmick standing tall as an excellent reason to tune in any time he's advertised. Just look at the excitement over Lesnar's squash match against Kofi Kingston recently in Japan, is there any other performer in wrestling today who could achieve such anticipation for a jobber match? In 2004, Brock was still regarded by WWE as the future of the promotion. Since he had made his main roster debut in 2002, Lesnar had been protected beyond belief, mainly because Vince McMahon viewed him as the man to build the company around. It was therefore a huge shock when the wrestler tired of the grueling schedule in WWE, and decided to leave and start a career in American Football instead. For a good few years afterwards, Lesnar's name was mud in WWE. Failing to break into the NFL, Brock went on to dominate the UFC Heavyweight division, winning the top title in the MMA league before returning to WWE in 2012. A new kind of beast, things have worked out extremely well for both parties, but would that have been the case had Lesnar stuck with WWE back in '04? Did he become more effective a commodity for WWE later, due to all the things he achieved once leaving the company the first time?