The SmarK Rant for RUTHLESS AGGRESSION – S01 E04 “The Next Big Thing”

The SmarK Rant for RUTHLESS AGGRESSION – S01 E04

“The Next Big Thing”

Man, I hope they’re paying the people who come up with the episode titles a premium. The originality on display with these is right up there with the Untitled Goose Game. Which is a fantastic game that I started playing today, by the way.

This episode…not so fantastic.

Paul Heyman leads off by reminding us that Brock was only around from 2002 – 2004 but he did some stuff in that time.

Back to college times, as Jim Ross and Jim Cornette recruit this kid named Brock Lesnar out of the NCAA championships and we get footage of him destroying guys in OVW. One day he saw someone doing a shooting star press, so he started doing it, too! But then Brock got tired of developmental and told WWE to either move him up or he’d walk. Once he got there, Heyman points out that all these agents were giving him bullshit advice like “Just stand there and don’t move so fast”, so Heyman personally told Vince to watch Brock’s dark match, and he ended up on RAW basically the next day.

Brian Gewirtz talks about going through the rosters and picking three people every year that they were going make into top stars. And obviously Brock was on that list from day one. We zoom ahead to King of the Ring 2002, with Brock destroying the field to win the Kingship. But before Brock got his title shot, he decided to rid WWE of Hulkamania first. WITH A BEARHUG. Gewirtz points out that audiences crave new and fresh, so why not pull the trigger right away?

Off to Summerslam, and Bruce claims that Rock insisted on putting him over. Which is exactly what happened. But then he didn’t really like being the champion and all the outside attention that came with it. The guys all talk about how Brock is a super-private person who only used wrestling to make money (HOT TAKES EVERYWHERE!), and we get some footage of him on his farm. So we kind of skip over the Undertaker feud that kind of derailed him a bit and move to his babyface turn at Survivor Series, as Heyman turned on him in favor of Big Show. Then he wins the Royal Rumble and gets a shot at Kurt Angle. Then we COMPLETELY skip all the fascinating backstory with Angle’s career-ending neck injury and miracle recovery and just go to the match. Instead the main talking point is Brock trying the shooting star press and missing, knocking himself silly. Heyman dismisses it as more bad advice being given by veterans who should have known better.

Bruce talks about how Brock wanted to work once a month if possible and just never wanted to get used to life on the road. So Brock bought his own airplane and hired a pilot to fly him around the country so he wouldn’t have to fly commercially anymore. Then we skip the entirety of 2003 and move to Brock quitting in 2004 because he was miserable all the time.

This brings us to Wrestlemania XX in his last match, against Goldberg. The guys talk about how the INTERNET influenced the crowd reactions of the match and how everyone was shocked by this. They actually do talk about how much the crowd crapped on the match and turned on both guys. Everything gets boiled down “His heart wasn’t in it, so he left”. Well that’s a pretty diluted and simplistic version of things.

Next up, Brock tried out for the Vikings and got cut before the main season, and then we jump ahead 4 years to his UFC career. We even get a soundbite from Dana White! And then they sum up that entire 4 years with “Brock conquered UFC and it was on to the next challenge”. And then we jump to 2012 with Brock’s WWE return. And everything is great again!

That’s it? Are you fucking kidding me? Nothing about the lawsuits or Sable or the Bob Holly match or I DON’T KNOW THE PLANE RIDE FROM HELL?

Like, I wasn’t expecting ESPN 30 for 30 or whatever, but how do you take one of the most fascinating and batshit crazy life stories in wrestling history and turn it into a shallow and boring 40 minute show? Here’s their literal summation: “Brock was a great amateur wrestler. We all knew he’d be a big star. Then he was a big star. Then he got tired of it and left and did well in UFC. Then he came back and dominated again.” Was he literally standing over the editor’s shoulder and demanding they cut out anything the least bit controversial? I hated this episode, almost as much as the first one in some ways. I mean, Evolution was way up HHH’s ass for the whole hour but at least they were honest about most things. This was just WWE’s white-washed version of “history” presented like a documentary and a complete waste of time.