5 WWE Superstars you did not expect would ever tap out

3: Brock Lesnar

There isn’t much intricacy in the yarns spun for a Superstar who not only brushes shoulders with the topmost performers within a few months of his television debut but also manages to win the WWE Undisputed Championship in such a short length of time. Rather, it is quite plain and simple. Brock Lesnar’s meteoric rise can be attributed to his fierce athleticism and proclivity to dominate while being legitimized by his immensely successful collegiate wrestling background. Needless to say,” The Next Big Thing” seamlessly fit into the scheme of things as they stood in the Ruthless Aggression Era where a shift in focus to wrestling technique and ring brutality was paramount.

Lesnar had gone for over eight months without getting pinned even once in singles competition. The first blemish came in the form of a betrayal from his erstwhile manager Paul Heyman at Survivor Series 2002, where he lost his WWE Championship to the Big Show. Previously, Lesnar had earned a blood crusted victory against the Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell match at No Mercy, 2002. His character had gradually snowballed into an indestructible brawler whose lethal finisher leveled any and all that stood in his way. However, in August 2003, the WWE Champion Brock Lesnar, having schemed with Mr.Mcmahon, turned full heel by beating Kurt Angle senseless with a steel chair after tricking the Olympian into a ruse.

This feud reached its head at Summerslam, 2003 in a standard wrestling match for the WWE Championship. Several minutes into the match, a frustrated Lesnar had tried to walk away from his more talented competitor, only to be dragged back into the ring by Angle. His heel act was accentuated by Mr.Mcmahon’s interference, breaking an Ankle Lock on Lesnar with a chair shot to Angle’s back. Desperate to wean a victory out of this situation, Lesnar went for an F5 after missing a pinfall. Angle however, slipped through Lesnar’s carry position and reversed it into an Ankle Lock. Dreading the worst, the champion squirmed around the ring, scrambling for the bottom ropes on three sides of the mat but to no avail. He finally tapped out to Angle’s submission as a helpless Vince looked on. Angle had wrenched retribution on a grand scale, leaving Vince and his vicious protégé to writhe in dust. In the coming days, Lesnar would go on to cement his heel persona by mercilessly attacking other Superstars. However, he would eventually win back his title from Angle in a sixty-minute Iron Man Match on September 18, 2003.

In what was described as “the most shocking result in WWE history”, Lesnar defeated the Undertaker at Wrestlemania XXX, veritably ending the Phenom’s Streak. In December 2014, Vince Mcmahon revealed in an out-of-character interview how Lesnar’s win was a step towards asserting his formidability and setting him up for the next Wrestlemania in a talent-starved roster. Taker returned at Battleground 2015, costing Lesnar his match and thus setting up a feud between the two. Lesnar, now billed as an unstoppable powerhouse faced the Deadman at Summerslam. This match was shrouded in controversy with the Undertaker’s tapping out gone unnoticed by the referee and Lesnar’s passing out from a Hell’s Gate, defiant in his resolve not to submit to the Undertaker.