Austin vs Lesnar WrestleMania 32: 10 Most Compelling Factors
9. Lesnar Essentially Replaced Austin
With the landscape of the wrestling business changing in the early 2000's, as well as members of the Attitude Era's injuries catching up to them, new stars were needed to ensure the future success of WWE.
The night after Wrestlemania 18 came Brock Lesnar. In his black trunks and black boots, he looked like a bigger and more athletic version of Stone Cold Steve Austin (minus the personality, add the hair). Austin by that point was frustrated with the direction of his character, and reportedly wasn't the easiest guy to please creatively. You have to think WWE thought ahead and green lighted the mega push of Brock Lesnar in case of the potential loss of Austin.
As new stars come along, old ones have to go, and that's exactly what happened here. There was only so much room at the top due to the very high level of talent in 2002. Smackdown was on fire, but it's hard to imagine Austin giving up the spotlight of Raw. A rising Brock Lesnar had much more juice than The Rattlesnake who had just come off of wrestling Scott Hall in a throwaway match at WrestleMania 18.
Admittedly, Lesnar didn't end up the long-term replacement but back then it was next man up, and that man was Brock Lesnar.