Brock Lesnar returned to the WWE for the first time in over a year at SummerSlam and looks to be challenging Roman Reigns in the future. People were really happy to see him! I’ve decided to take a look back at some of the best wrestling matches from his return the night after mania in 2012 to his last match at Mania 2020 night 2, because contrary to popular belief that he is lazy and doesn’t put any effort in these five matches greatly dispute that, as when motivated he can have an incredible match.
Just to be clear I will only be looking at one on one matches of ‘The Beast’, no multi-man matches.
5 | Brock Lesnar Vs CM Punk – SummerSlam 2013 (No DQ):
What’s that? CM Punk had a great match with Brock Lesnar? Well, yes, he did, arguably the last great match of Punk’s WWE career, unless you really like his second Hell in a Cell match with Ryback… This is also one of the last few old-style Lesnar matches, as this was pre-Suplex City, so Brock sold like a lot more, but it was still Lesnar dominating huge chunks of the match.
Punk being a fantastic babyface in peril, then firing up and getting very close to pinning and making the beast submit on several occasions, while the Heyman interference brings it down a bit, it isn’t enough to stop this from easily being one of the must-see matches amongst Lesnar’s catalogue.
4 | Brock Lesnar Vs AJ Styles – Survivor Series 2017:
This match is excellent, and it was a last-minute change as it was originally intended to be Jinder Mahal vs Brock Lesnar (I can think of a fantasy worst match featuring Brock Lesnar), but believe me, when I say this, AJ and Lesnar had an incredible match, AJ being the baby in peril, up until he had his incredible comeback, it wasn’t just AJ working.
Lesnar sold his leg so well and when he was put in the calf crusher near the end he sold like AJ was going to snap his leg in two. In the end, Lesnar won, but he did an excellent job of making AJ look like a man who could slay the beast.
3 | Brock Lesnar Vs Daniel Bryan – Survivor Series 2018:
Another year, another survivor series, you’ll be surprised to know that Brock and Bryan also had an incredible match, Daniel Bryan was technically the heel in this match, he’d turned heel a few days ago, but god did this crowd pop when he made his comeback.
Lesnar again threw the smaller man around like he was a small child, including a scary german suplex where Bryan landed on his head and neck…
When Bryan hit the low blow and made his comeback this crowd bought all of Bryans offence, and up until the last few moments fans bought that he was going to make Brock tap, of course, Lesnar’s selling again comes into play, say what you want about Lesnar when he’s invested, he goes all in.
2 | Brock Lesnar Vs Seth Rollins – Summerslam 2019:
While the story of this match made no sense, as a match of Quality it was excellent, The story was, can Seth beat Brock Lesnar with several (Kayfabe) injured ribs (He beat him at the prior Mania, but ignore that). He wouldn’t make it easy, after just over two minutes Lesnar had hit Seth with the F5 leaving Seth in a crumpled heap.
This was after Seth had hit a curb stomp on Lesnar who basically walked it off. Also, this match has a fantastic spot with Brock playing merry go round after grabbing Seth’s rib tape, the rest of the match was Brock completely crushing Seth for a huge portion of the match with numerous Suplexes, with Seth’s only hope being to hurt Lesnar enough that he can hit a Curb Stomp and hoping he stayed down. At the time of writing this was Lesnar’s last truly excellent match, he would have a good match later in the year, but not in the same universe as this one.
Honourable Mentions;
Vs The Undertaker Summerslam 2015 and Hell in a Cell 2015.
Vs Finn Balor – Royal Rumble 2019.
Vs John Cena – Extreme Rules 2012.
Vs Triple H – Wrestlemania 29.
Vs Goldberg – Wrestlemania 33.
1 | Brock Lesnar Vs John Cena – Summerslam 2014:
What some would call the greatest squash of all time, Lesnar hit Cena with an F5 in the first minute of this match, after that it was 99% Brock. Did you know Suplex city was founded on this day with Lesnar as the Mayor, as Lesnar hit 16 German suplexes?
Lesnar steamrolled Cena, he basically no-sold a desperation AA from Cena, before pounding Cena into the dirt and pinning him after with a second F5.
A competitive match between the two could’ve been excellent, this match needed to be a squash to galvanise Brock as the biggest part-time star in the company and prove that Lesnar taking the legendary streak from the undertaker at 2014s Wrestlemania wasn’t a waste, believe me when I say, you need to watch this match.
There you go, Five Lesnar matches post-2012 that are must-watch, there are other match’s that are incredible, but these are in my opinion his greatest career matches of the last 9 years.