Anyone who has ever wanted to be a professional wrestler has dreamed of one day main eventing WrestleMania, yet only 34 men have ever done so. It's the absolute pinnacle of the profession to be one of the men the Showcase of Immortals is centered around. Some of the best workers the business has ever seen have never received the honor. Brock Lesnar accomplished this one year into his WWE career. Once again staring across the ring at his arch-nemesis Kurt Angle, Brock was challenging for the gold this time around. The two men put on yet another masterful performance in what is one of the more underrated Mania matches in history, ending with Lesnar winning his second WWE championship. Despite the incredible wrestling, this match is more notoriously remembered for two things: Kurt Angle competed in the same fashion as he won his Olympic gold medal; "with a broken freakin' neck", and Lesnar's breathtaking attempt at a shooting star press. Fans who had seen Brock in the early stages of his career in Ohio Valley Wrestling knew that he had the ability to successfully land the high-risk maneuver. But for the audience at large, seeing this 300-pound mountain of muscle scale the turnbuckle and take flight, backflipping in mid-air was awesome. What wasn't awesome was Lesnar underestimating the distance Angle lay from the corner and missing the landing by a few feet, nearly breaking his freakin' neck as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTc2dkF98Ls The fact that he was able to maintain his whereabouts enough to F5 Angle and finish the match is a testament to how tough of a man he is. Us mere mortals would have been stretchered out and bedridden for weeks. But not Brock Lesnar. Not when there was still pain to be inflicted.
Brad Hamilton is a writer, musician and marketer/social media manager from Atlanta, Georgia. He's an undefeated freestyle rap battle champion, spends too little time being productive and defines himself as the literary version of Brock Lesnar.
