1. Brock Lesnar
Not quite as menacing as the Beast Incarnate WWE World Heavyweight Champion we know today is he? Lesnar was born in Webster, South Dakota on July 12, 1977. He grew up on a dairy farm and was in the National Guard by the age of 17. He attended Webster High School where he developed a passion for amateur wrestling. He had a record of 33-0-0 in his senior year which caught the attention of Bismarck State College. He would win the National Junior college wrestling championship during his sophomore year before transferring to the University of Minnesota on a full wrestling scholarship for his junior and senior years of college. There, he roomed with fellow wrestler and WWE alumni Shelton Benjamin, who served as his assistant coach. Brock won the 2000 NCAA Division I heavyweight wrestling championship in his senior year after being the runner-up the year prior. He finished his amateur career as a two-time NJCAA All-American, 1998 NJCAA Heavyweight Champion, two-time NCAA All-American, two-time Big Ten Conference Champion, and the 2000 NCAA heavyweight champion with a record of 1065 overall in four years of college. Later that year, after graduating college, Lesnar signed with the World Wrestling Federation. He was sent to its developmental territory, Ohio Valley Wrestling. Lesnar was approached by Paul Heyman who became a personal mentor and who still advocates him fourteen years later. He formed a tag team known as "The Minnesota Stretching Crew" with his former college roommate, Shelton Benjamin. Lesnar and Benjamin won the OVW Southern Tag Team Championship on three separate occasions. Lesnar wrestled several dark matches in 2001 and 2002 before being called up to the main roster in 2002, debuting with Heyman on an episode of Raw.