5 Shortest WWE Superstars who defeated Brock Lesnar
It is official: Brock Lesnar will defend his WWE Championship against Rey Mysterio at the Survivor Series pay-per-view on November 24.
The rivalry between the two men began on the September 30 episode of RAW, where “The Beast” viciously attacked Mysterio and his son, Dominik, whose godfather happens to be one of Lesnar’s greatest UFC rivals, Cain Velasquez.
Paul Heyman’s client went on to defeat Kofi Kingston in a nine-second match on the first episode of SmackDown on FOX on October 4, prompting Mysterio to introduce Velasquez as WWE’s newest signing.
Four weeks later, Lesnar convincingly defeated Velasquez in a two-minute match at Crown Jewel, while it quickly became apparent that the storyline would continue when Mysterio attacked the WWE Champion post-match at Crown Jewel and on the November 4 episode of RAW.
As usual, Mysterio is the ultimate underdog heading into this match, not only because of Lesnar’s tendency to sweep aside his opponents in quick fashion but, at 5ft 6in, he is one of the shortest Superstars on the roster.
With that in mind – and to give Mysterio fans some Survivor Series hope – let’s take a look at the five shortest WWE Superstars who were able to pick up victories over Lesnar.
#5 Zach Gowen - 5ft 11in
The summer of 2003 was a very interesting time for Vince McMahon’s evil Mr. McMahon character.
After losing a Street Fight to Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania XIX, McMahon became involved in a storyline with a masked Hogan, known as Mr. America, before making one-legged wrestler Zach Gowen his next target.
Gowen was unable to defeat McMahon in three matches (two SmackDown arm-wrestles and a singles match at Vengeance), while he also lost one-on-one encounters against Shannon Moore and John Cena.
At the time, McMahon had become allies with Brock Lesnar, who made a promise to his boss that he would break Gowen’s leg in front of his family at ringside during their match on SmackDown.
Lesnar didn’t quite do that, but he did strike Gowen across the head with a steel chair to cause a disqualification, meaning the youngster picked up an unlikely victory over “The Next Big Thing”.
At 5ft 11in, Gowen is hardly short when you consider the height of Superstars in WWE these days, but it just goes to show how rare Lesnar losses are that he makes it into the top five.