by Jeb Tennyson Lund
CitizenScholar.net/OnlineOnslaught.com 

"He's forced down our throats. He's always in the main-event picture. When he's not on TV wrestling, he's in backstage segments; and when he's not in these, someone is cutting a promo about him, or the commentators are talking about him. His moveset, although once quite broad, is now little more than a rote progression of a few spots. His promos are dull."

That's pretty much Brock Lesnar in a nutshell.

Had I said those things about Triple H, most readers would likely nod in agreement. They would feel angry. Almost all the above comments would, if beamed back to the world of 1997, immediately apply to Rocky Maivia. Then, too, people would feel angry. Curiously, with Brock, no one seems particularly angry at all. This is pretty surprising — on both a general and a specific level.

Generally speaking, Brock's success flies in the face of one of wrestling's finest traditions: contrariness. Because being a wrestling fan is not a completely passive pastime, fans use their voices with enthusiasm and in ways that alter the structure of what they see. The simplest way to alter the story in wrestling is to say "no." To boo. And this simple response keys into the fiercely independent character of people in modern western civilization: the willingness and desire to say, "I don't want it; I won't buy it.... No."

As childish as this contrariness may seem, it is both perfectly human and endearingly independent (we should be proud that we are so willing to outright deny things). We do not like to be told what to do or like. Consequently, the fastest way to destroy a wrestler's appeal is simply to tell the fans that the wrestler is appealing. Any attempt at an end-run around the will of the people automatically results in negative reactions. It's as if the audience says, "We probably would like the guy if we were given a choice, but we're going to hate him because you never asked us our opinion before making your decision."

This attitude is best exemplified by those anti-heroes we have made into our heroes: The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin. When both enjoyed face popularity, they made decisions on an essentially contrary basis. In short, they never did what they were told, and they often interfered on behalf of wrestlers who were coerced into unpleasant positions or forced to endure some punishment. We loved them because, as stand-ins for our own frustrated ambitions, they trusted solely in themselves and were unafraid to defy even the most dangerous of edicts. They, as men and as phenomena, simply said "no" to everything we had already repudiated ourselves.

Why then, if these men are our heroes, were we willing to take Brock Lesnar at face (or heel) value? When he was a heel, we booed. Now that he is a face, we cheer. Why? In each case, we are doing what we have been instructed to do. We are quick to hate Triple H not for his hatable character but for the mythical man behind the scenes; we deplored his face character for the same specious reasons. Since early 2002, we wrestling readers and writers have found any flimsy excuse to exempt ourselves from the prescribed process of love/hate doled out by the WWE regarding Triple H. In contrast, we have accepted someone who has been, unquestionably, far more contrived and packaged. What spoonful of sugar allowed Brock Lesnar to be forced down our throats?

It is on this specific level that we should be most frustrated. Like Rocky Maivia, Brock Lesnar appeared from "nowhere" to immediately become a main-event threat and a squasher of all comers. There was no process of legitimation: he just was — as if he were an immaculate spontaneous creation. Like Rocky and the current Triple H, he was the subject of endless promos and promotion. Like Triple H, he rarely jobbed, going over older and more established wrestlers. Yet, again, we did not complain.

Do you remember Paul Heyman's original Brock Lesnar promos? I hear no retrospective dammings of these. We heard them every week. Most said this:

Brock Lesnar is the Next Big Thing. Brock Lesnar can destroy anyone. I dare anyone to challenge Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar will F-5 all comers. Brock Lesnar is the finest wrestling specimen I have ever seen. Brock Lesnar will Brock the anyone who tries to thing Lesnar the Brock, and the Big Next Brock Lesnar F-5 powerbomb Lesnar next Brock the Brock Thing Lesnar! LESNAR!!!! Brock you all very much.

(Repeat weekly, for several months, as needed.) This, of course, says nothing of real merit, but it might as well be the WWE's summation for why Brock deserves a push, what he has to offer and what he is. In Project Lesnar, the justification seems to be the person himself. It is because it is. In short, imagine this quacking: "Why Brock? Because Brock Brock Brock — Brock-Brock!"

And what exactly has Lesnar really done?
• He debuted and squashed some jobbers. Okay, right there, that makes him as good as the Big Show.
• He had Paul Heyman as his mouthpiece. (If you can't seem somewhat credible with Paul Heyman speaking for you, you must be a corpse.) So, again, this is the same territory that the Big Show currently inhabits. Nothing special here.
• He has debuted the F-5: pick up person, rotate them, let them fall. He F-5'd the Big Show. Neither one of these should make anyone a crowd favorite. Besides, Curt Hennig Perfectplexed the Big Show, and that received no clip-show, despite being a comparatively much more impressive display.
• He is an NCAA Wrestling Champion. Both Scott Steiner and Kurt Angle were also NCAA wrestlers, so this is hardly a valid criterion for judging pro-wrestling worth. It hardly seems a determinant at all.
• He has an amazing moveset. This is true, if you happen to be watching an OVW tape. There you will enjoy Shooting Star Presses and snap suplexes. In WWE tapes, you can enjoy the F-5 (remember: lift, rotate, drop), a clothesline, a suplex and a bear-hug. Replace the F-5 with a chokeslam and you have — again — the Big Show.

Then there is the embarrassing matter of Lesnar's promos. Most of them can be condensed to, "You say you will win? I say no. You. Are. Wrong. Even though I have not won in other matches, I will win in this one." Worse, his voice-over for the Smackdown: Shut Your Mouth commercials was baldly dull, amateurish and colorless. He sounded like Rain Man throughout it: "Bring yur allyunces. Come — with — num —burs.... Eff-fi-ive." Definitely F-5. Definitely. And you know, I find Lesnar's music oddly fitting. Think of the notes to it, then put it into words: duh, duh-duh, duh-duh-DUH.

And what exactly is The Next Big Thing? Is it a person or event? I'm not quite clear. I don't want to assume it's what I see before me every Thursday. Because that picture of what is "next," "big" and important is a little disappointing. Evidently The Next Big Thing is not a complete wrestler: it's a monumental push for the pose-able flesh agglomerated beneath giant trapezius muscles. Here comes the pain.

Regardless of the screwiness of match endings, Lesnar has — in just 11 months — defeated a reinvigorated Big Show, Kurt Angle, Hulk Hogan and The Rock. He has demonstrated a dissonant and abusive lack of talent on the mic, a rigid and simply physical persona, an unchanging and limited moveset, and a general character as compelling and urgent as a 27% interest rate credit-card offer in the mail. And he will be in a main event at WrestleMania less than a year after his debut. Yet, somehow, Triple H is still the bad guy.

WrestleMania ought to worry others, too. We have already decided that his match with Angle will be some sort of clash of wrestling gods. Has it occurred to no one that it may actually be pretty terrible, at least on one side of the competition? Lesnar has yet to really prove himself capable of telling a story in the ring. With Hogan, he had to be patient. With Big Show, it was a squash. With Rock, he took a backseat, and reacted to the flow of the match. Against Angle at WrestleMania, there needs to be an exchange of control. Both men must alternately dictate the flow of the match, and amateur wrestling will only go so far before people lose patience. What will actually happen when Brock is called upon to be the strategist in the ring?

The fact is that Brock Lesnar should be triggering alarm bells in most fans' minds. He showed up one day, out of the blue, to become a main-event wrestler. We were told he was a great amateur wrestler; yet, say what you will about Triple H, even now his moveset features more tactics than Lesnar's. Brock's potential be damned: no one has seen it yet, and no one should be compelled to spend forty dollars for a pay-per-view on the hope that Brock might opt to use the talents we have been told so much about. Additionally, it doesn't help that it seems as if Brock could lose a Lincoln-Douglas debate with a fencepost; even so, no one boos him on the mic. Finally, the guy has defeated established icons, captured a world championship and is on his way to headline WrestleMania after a year in the WWE. Why this has not sent many people into a rage is utterly baffling.

Forgetting specifics, people should also be miffed on a general level. Somehow our knee-jerk willingness to refuse what we are told to enjoy has been turned off regarding Brock Lesnar. We have been cajoled and promised "more good things to come," and thus have accepted what is an essentially decent product on the condition that it will one day morph into a stunningly excellent product. Nearly a year has passed, however, and that promise has not been fulfilled. Now, we are expected to make an investment in WrestleMania to see this fulfillment, an action analogous to buying a stripped down four-cylinder Corolla on the condition that one day it will magically become a V-6 Camry with power windows, locks, A/C and a six-speaker stereo system with CD player.

Ignore the hype and damn the machine. We don't need to be told who's incredible: we need to be shown. And if that person truly is, he will look just as good in the ring as Guerrero or Benoit, without the promotional meat-grinder shoving him (and us) along the way. If we expect this much in-ring credibility from Triple H, we should expect it from everyone. Until that day comes, however, I want to hear that chant begin: "Brocky sucks." And it should not be silenced until it is proven wrong.
 

E-MAIL JEB LUND
BROWSE JEB'S ARCHIVE

Jeb Tennyson Lund is a regular columnist for Citizen Scholar, an online
journal. If you want to read his sadly less wrestling-oriented columns, go
to www.citizenscholar.net.

All contents are Copyright 1995-2009 by OOWrestling.com.  All rights reserved.
This website is not affiliated with WWE or any other professional wrestling organization.  Privacy Statement.