5 best Brock Lesnar moments on SmackDown
Over the years, SmackDown has gone from being the certified ‘B show’, to the better of the two brands, back to being a forgettable ‘secondary’ brand, go back to being true competition for RAW. The star power on SmackDown changed considerably over the years, but there was a time when the blue brand was more important and worth watching than RAW.
One of the highlights of this period was when Brock Lesnar, WWE’s resident “Beast Incarnate” was a SmackDown-exclusive star and ran roughshod over that roster. Lesnar’s initial run from 2002-2004 featured him appearing almost exclusively on SmackDown, which helped him in a significant way. Lesnar was able to work with a wide variety of opponents, all of whom helped him improve as a performer overall.
Lesnar was so exciting to watch on SmackDown that the brand eclipsed RAW in many metrics during that period. In fact, many of SmackDown’s greatest moments involved Brock Lesnar in one way or another.
Below, we’ll look back at Brock Lesnar’s five greatest moments while he was a performer on the SmackDown brand.
#5 Beating Chris Benoit at his own game
Before he became persona non grata in WWE and his legacy was forever tarnished, Chris Benoit was well-known as one of WWE’s best submission wrestlers. He knew how to target a body part and use a variety of excellent holds that would gradually wear down his opponents. This made Benoit a dangerous force in any match where submissions were allowed, and usually spelled disaster for his opponents, as he had a huge advantage over them in such an environment.
Then there’s Brock Lesnar, who always seems to find a way to beat his opponents at their own game. Lesnar faced Benoit in a much-anticipated singles match which was centered on Benoit using his wide array of submission holds to wear down “The Beast”. But in the end, it was Benoit that lost, as Lesnar introduced his new submission hold finisher, the Bock Lock, also known as a Stretch Muffler.
This was a huge deal for Lesnar, as he was mostly known as a power-based wrestler at the time. So for him to beat a certified submission specialist with a submission hold of his own proved just how good of a wrestler Brock Lesnar really was.