He lost a match against both John Cena and Triple H but ‘won’ the feud.

He and Goldberg had a mini-rivalry that culminated with Lesnar winning the Universal Title for the first time off of Goldberg.

He was ultimately pinned by Roman Reigns at Summerslam after holding the Universal Title for over a year.

But between WrestleMania 34 and SummerSlam, the WWE had two other opportunities to have Roman Reigns be Universal Champion.

And both times, Reigns was ultimately fed to Lesnar.

It was for the greater good, however, as Reigns would finally wrest the belt from Lesnar, albeit only for a couple months.

While it is true that it would have to be believable for someone to beat Lesnar, the fact remains that a lot of great wrestlers have been fed to Lesnar in matches to make him look strong.

Of course, he has throttled regulars like Heath Slater, the Singh Brothers and others lower in the hierarchy of WWE, but he’s also stalled the momentum of a lot of top-tier members of the WWE roster.

Here are 7 wrestlers that have been fed to Brock Lesnar since his WWE return in 2013, listed in no particular order.

#7 The Big Show

The Big Show is usually thrust into a program with any star that’s a physical threat.

Since he’s been in the business for over 20 years, he’s in the stage of his career where he has no problem putting over the younger stars of WWE.

He’s consistently put over rising stars like Braun Strowman and Roman Reigns and even established ones like Brock Lesnar.

The two had a match at the Royal Rumble in 2014 and even another feud in the fall of 2015.

Both times, Lesnar came out with a full belly.

Big Show may be a huge human, but he’s rarely a huge threat to some of the top stars in WWE.

#6 Samoa Joe

Lesnar had just taken the Universal Championship off of Goldberg at Wrestlemania 33. As had been his modus operandi, he didn’t show up again to defend the title until July of 2017.

At the first-ever Great Balls of Fire PPV on July 9, 2017, Lesnar was slated to defend his belt for the first time against Samoa Joe.

Joe had debuted the night after the Royal Rumble when he attacked Seth Rollins on behalf of Triple H.

Joe didn’t have a marquee match at Wrestlemania 33 but would go on to win a fatal five-way at Extreme Rules in order to challenge Lesnar at Great Balls of Fire.

Joe seemed like a plausible threat to the Beast after repeatedly attacking both Lesnar and Paul Heyman.

He did it against Seth Rollins and has since done the same against both Daniel Bryan and against then-champion AJ Styles.

For a guy who was built up as such a dangerous, butt-kicking machine, Joe has been anything but after the feuds have played out.

He lost to Bryan on Smackdown and he lost four matches when challenging Styles for the WWE Championship this past year.

Against Lesnar in his Universal Title match, Joe simply lost.

He didn’t kick Lesnar’s butt or leave him in a heap; he just lost.

After building Joe up so much as a hired-gun, he’d actually turned out to be the first course in Lesnar’s first Universal Championship reign.

Joe’s now reaching the same territory as Big Show, Braun Strowman and Bray Wyatt - a threatening challenge to a champion but ultimately a threat that turns out to be empty in the long run.

How are we to take him seriously if they keep booking him to consistently fail?

#5 Kane

Kane’s days of being considered a credible threat to champions have long since past.

His last World Title reign was back in 2010 when he immediately cashed in his MITB briefcase on Rey Mysterio at Money in the Bank.

It was the first time a wrestler had won and cashed in the briefcase on the same night.

Ever since then, Kane has been a challenger whenever most of the other options have been exhausted.

He’s also been a challenger when one of the bigger wrestlers on the roster need a physically large obstacle to help ’legitimize’ their standing as champion.

Reigns, Rollins, Bryan, Cena and Lesnar have all brushed back Kane’s challenges when they were all holding gold.

Kane just isn’t a believable threat to anyone nowadays, save for maybe someone like Drake Maverick.

Kane was one of Lesnar’s meals when he challenged for the Universal Championship on two occasions.

The first was at a live event in December of 2017.

The other match was when he and Braun Strowman challenged Lesnar in a Triple Threat match at last year’s Royal Rumble.

Since Lesnar was the part-time champion and Strowman was being built as a potential future champion, Kane’s involvement in the match was apparent.

He was there to take the pin to help the other participants remain strong.

Like the Big Show, Kane has been in the role of putting over younger stars and champions.

He’s been a loyal employee for the WWE for his entire career and is fine with doing the job for other superstars.

He’s even become the mayor of Knox County, Tennessee.

Because of those obligations, is easier to understand his being fed to Brock more so than other full-time superstars.

He’s a part-timer now, but part-timers can still be on the menu for Brock.

#4 Randy Orton

Randy Orton has been at the top of or near the top of the main-event scene in WWE since the mid-2000s.

Although he’s recently taken up more of a part-time schedule, he still returns to the main event of either Raw or Smackdown when creative deems it necessary.

They consider him a tried and true challenger/champion whenever they need him to be.

This became the case when he entered into a feud with Bray Wyatt in 2016 and 2017 and eventually won the Royal Rumble in 2017.

The feud culminated with Orton winning the WWE Championship off of Wyatt at Wrestlemania 33 in one of the strangest feuds across two consecutive PPVs.

Before that even happened, WWE wanted a marquee match for Lesnar at Summerslam in 2016.

Dean Ambrose had taken the WWE Championship to Smackdown in the brand split and Finn Balor and Seth Rollins battled for the newly created Universal Championship.

Since he wasn’t featured in either feud and was a part-timer, they still needed a credible challenger for the Beast at one of the biggest PPVs in the calendar year.

They deemed it would be Orton vs. Lesnar at Summerslam.

The match actually turned out to be more of a mauling by Lesnar as he would leave Orton a bloody mess before the match concluded.

It was seen as a move that blurred the lines between kayfabe and reality and it even angered longtime locker room leader Chris Jericho.

Luckily, Jericho wasn’t fed to Lesnar as Orton had been.

For WWE to sacrifice someone like Orton to Lesnar seemed a bit odd, but it helped justify Lesnar as the Beast.

Orton didn’t lose anything by being brutalized as he was already a made man in WWE.

Someone like Bray Wyatt, however, wouldn’t be able to overcome a beating like that.

#3 Daniel Bryan/AJ Styles

These two matches have been some of the most recent examples of top stars making a meal for Lesnar.

The first was at last year’s Survivor Series when the top champions of Raw and SmackDown were pitted against each other.

It was for brand supremacy and it led to WWE Champion AJ Styles, who had just taken the title off of Jinder Mahal, against Universal Champion Brock Lesnar.

While most fans knew that Styles had no chance, it was still presented as a credible match between champions.

Styles was known to get a good match out of anyone and with Lesnar, he did the same.

What initially started out as a blowout turned into a competitive match between the two top champions.

Styles locked in the calf crusher on Lesnar a couple times only for Lesnar to get out.

In the end, the match conclusion was never in doubt as Lesnar would claim victory over Styles.

Styles left the match on the feet but Lesnar didn’t.

Lesnar still ate Styles.

At this year’s Survivor Series, many feared for Daniel Bryan’s safety after he took the WWE Championship off of Styles on the Smackdown before Survivor Series.

It gave us a fresh matchup and one that Bryan had always dreamed of having.

The match began as we all feared it would - with Lesnar throwing Bryan all over the ring.

Lesnar suplexed Bryan for what seemed like ten minutes and appeared to brutalize Smackdown’s champ.

But Bryan was playing the long game.

He had endurance and stamina that Lesnar didn’t - he lasted for over an hour and change in the Greatest Royal Rumble.

He was playing possum and returned the beat down to Lesnar.

Like Styles before him, he nearly got Lesnar to tap out.

But like Styles before him, he ultimately fell to the beast.

While it was refreshing to see two of the top wrestler’s in WWE give the Beast a run for his money, it was just another case of popular competitor feeding Brock’s appetite.

#2 Roman Reigns:

Unlike most of the other wrestlers on this list, Roman Reigns’ constant matches with Lesnar throughout their history was for one main purpose - to get Roman over with the crowd as the top face in the company.

It failed the first time when Reigns won the Royal Rumble in 2015.

The crowd booed him mercilessly and hated the prospect of a Reigns/Lesnar match for the WWE Championship at Wrestlemania 31.

WWE called its own audible when they had Seth Rollins cash in his briefcase to become WWE Champion at Wrestlemania 31 instead.

The history was revisited again when Lesnar would be challenged for his belt by Reigns once more at Wrestlemania 34.

Everyone figured this was finally the match where Reigns would finally take the belt off of Lesnar.

It didn’t happen.

Then it was announced that the two would again battle for the title at the Greatest Royal Rumble.

Only this time, it was in a steel cage.

Lesnar won again when he ‘hit the floor first’ after a spear through the cage.

It was another ‘aww c’mon’ moment. Fans were tired of the endless quest of trying to anoint Roman Reigns. We just wanted him to win the title and get on with it already.

The next time had to be it, right?

The two faced off against each other in the main event of Summerslam in 2018.

Reigns finally bested Lesnar for the gold but had been seen as the underdog challenger throughout the feud.

That was mainly to get Reigns over with the crowd as the babyface fighting from underneath to slay the beast.

They always used that trope with John Cena in his matches and now it was Reigns always ‘fighting back after taking a beating’.

Although he did finally win the title off of Lesnar, he lost to him numerous times beforehand.

#1 Braun Strowman

Braun Strowman hasn’t been on the roster as long as Roman Reigns, but they’ve been treated as the next big thing at different points of the last few years.

Vince always loves his huge monsters and Strowman was shaping up to be the next monster heel/face champion.

He was routinely performing feats of strength like tipping over ambulances, cars or knocking over dumpsters.

He was getting the crowd behind him with his actions and was getting thrust into the title scene on Raw.

Unlike Reigns, however, he’s always come up short.

He lost in a Triple Threat match with Kane and Lesnar. He lost in singles’ matches to the Beast.

He basically jobbed to Lesnar at Crown Jewel, albeit after five F5s.

The backstage news was that it took ‘five’ to ‘make Braun still look strong.’

But to anyone watching the match, Strowman came off as a less than a challenger for a major title.

He basically got jobbed out to Lesnar after Corbin attacked him from behind.

Roman eventually won the belt off of Lesnar. Strowman hasn’t.

He’s been fed to Brock in every title match the two have had and will probably be fed to the Beast once again if he’s ready for the Royal Rumble match.

It’s a shame because he was really on fire for a while but the WWE failed to capitalize on it in order to keep Lesnar and Reigns both looking strong.

While Strowman may always be considered a monster threat by WWE, the truth is he’s only been a monster challenger who’s always failed to be a monster champion.

That might change at the Royal Rumble, but I have my doubts.

0 votes