"Terrible name" - Vince McMahon hated Brock Lesnar's nickname given to him by 57-year-old WWE veteran

Vince McMahon hated WWE veteran Paul Heyman's idea of calling Brock Lesnar "The Next Big Thing."

The Beast Incarnate and Paul Heyman were an unstoppable duo on WWE's main roster in mid-2002. Heyman gelled perfectly well with Lesnar as his mouthpiece while the latter did the heavy lifting in the ring.

While chatting with Rick Rubin on the Tetragrammaton podcast recently, Heyman opened up about giving Brock Lesnar the nickname. Soon after Vince McMahon caught a glimpse of Heyman's promo in which he dubbed Lesnar "The Next Big Thing," he had a chat with him:

"So the first promo that I did with him, I called Brock the next big thing. We're on the jet that night and Vince turned to me and he goes, 'What did you call him?' I said, 'I called him the next big thing. Brock Lesnar' and he said, ‘That’s terrible. Why would you call him that?' 'Well, because he's the next big thing.' 'Terrible name. Why would you stick that on him? Oh, God, people are gonna vomit all over that.' Thank God by the next week, there were signs in the crowd, the next big thing, and it caught on."

Brock Lesnar was truly "The Next Big Thing" in WWE

By the time Brock Lesnar began establishing himself as a top act, WWE was losing big names by the day. The Rock was now more focused on making it big in Hollywood. Stone Cold Steve Austin had a fallout with Vince McMahon as he wasn't keen on putting Lesnar over in a random match on weekly TV.

The young Lesnar had the perfect look of a future megastar who could carry the company on his shoulders over the next several years. The now 45-year-old had incredible rivalries against the likes of Big Show, The Undertaker, Kurt Angle, and many others over the next year or so.

Unfortunately, Lesnar had had enough of WWE's hectic schedule and his booking on the main roster by the time 2004 came around. He left WWE after his loss to Goldberg at WrestleMania XX.

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