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I dunno, Lesnar was definitely a special kind of performer. Putting aside his popularity now due to the WWE/UFC crossover, I remember watching him in 2002 and 2003 and liking him far more than any of his opponents, bearing in mind that he was a heel for a fair amount of this time. He was so incredibly athletic and intimidating. Against the Rock, I cheered him, even 12 year old me knew that the Rock was fucking off to make movies. Against Undertaker, I mean Taker was badass, but Brock just killed him. And Angle was never a great face, apart from a really brief period in 2001 and against Cena, so Lesnar wins there.

 

Batista did get over big, but for me his only two memorable feuds were HHH and Taker. Lesnar delivered way better work in a shorter stretch of time. He never did become that mega face, but when he had such a short space of time, with his most prominent work as a heel, it's a big ask of him. Look how long it's taken Orton to finally catch on as a face.

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For the first two and a half years, no one cared much about Batista. Because of the way he was booked, everyone cared about Lesnar when he came in. Not only that, he had Heyman as a mouthpiece at the start and, for performing moves, was more impressive than Batista.

 

I'm unsure how you could measure it, but Lesnar's two years are more memorable for me than Batista's career. He became a star with the push from Triple H and he started to excel towards the end of his run but I think maybe you're forgetting some of the guff huffing and puffing matches of his. If you're in any doubt of his potential to be a star, perhaps look at his UFC career? By nature of his push, his run probably wasn't going to last too long but it could have lasted longer and if it had he may have been up there with the greats.

 

Fuck, are you kidding me?

 

- Superplex on Big Show

- Dancing to Latin music before...

- WWE title match against Eddie Guerrero

- Showing off amazing strength against Big Show at Survivor Series

- Shooting Star Press botch - it's memorable even if it's a botch and is a WrestleMania moment in an odd way. He's hit it correctly plenty of times before.

- Bearhugging a bleeding Hogan

- Hell In A Cell with Taker

- Throwing Rock around at SummerSlam before winning the title

- Throwing Mark Henry, Rikishi and A-Train around like nothing

They're off the top of my head.

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What's any of that got to do with who the bigger star was? People's eyes were pissing tears when Batista dropped the belt. Fans who hadnt watched wrestling for years watched Batista turn babyface in one of the highest rated segments they've done in the last decade. And the funny thing is, everything you listed is in spite of what your actual point is. Batista didnt have Rock, Hogan and Undertaker to put him over and Paul Heyman cutting promos for him. Maybe if he did he could have became an instant success as well? Lesnar was pampered as fuck the minute he walked in the doors and groomed to be the next big thing (they even give that as his nickname). The fans turned Batista and they stuck with him throughout his tenure. People just loved him. All that stuff your listing isnt relevant to who was the bigger star. Just because he was the better wrestler doesnt mean he was the bigger star. Benoit was better than both of them, he wasnt the bigger star though.

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But the fact he had those guys there helped elevate him to be a bigger star than Batista. It doesn't matter how he was pushed to be the bigger star, just that he was.

 

All of the things I listed helped elevate him as a bigger star. Throwing people around like nothing you'd seen before made people sit up and pay attention. It was hard not to pay attention anyway considering his intensity and size. In fact, being at high school from 2003 - 2007 there were much more kids wanting to emulate Lesnar than Batista. People were far more interested in him and ex-wrestling fans who saw it as 'uncool' now they were all grown up were tuning back in to see what he'd do next.

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I liked Brock, I liked the way he performed movez.

 

I enjoyed this moment

And this one

And this one

X100000

 

 

That's all fine. Doesn't change the fact that Batista was a bigger star though.

 

But look at UFC's buyrates, he's a megastar.

 

 

UFC shows with Lesnar on draw mega-money, it can't be argued. Just like Lesnars WWE run DIDN'T draw mega-money.

 

They're not the same thing.

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Wrestlemania 19, Brock Lesnar's one WM main event v Angle, got 560,000 buys (undercard included Austin, The Rock and Hogan)

 

Wrestlemania 21, headlined by Batista v HHH, got 1,085,000 buys (undercard included JBL and HBK).

 

I absolutely loved Lesnar, but he was never as big a draw as Batista ended up being. What he'd do NOW, of course... different matter.

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It's too hard to draw a comparison between the two because of the lengths of their runs. But in my eyes, Lesnar had a more memorable run. No one could say whether he'd be more successful than Batista if he didn't leave though I suspect that Batista might have had a tougher time as the 'freakishly muscly bastard' role would have already been filled by Lesnar.

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Batista didnt have Rock, Hogan and Undertaker to put him over and Paul Heyman cutting promos for him. Maybe if he did he could have became an instant success as well? Lesnar was pampered as fuck the minute he walked in the doors and groomed to be the next big thing (they even give that as his nickname). The fans turned Batista and they stuck with him throughout his tenure. People just loved him. All that stuff your listing isnt relevant to who was the bigger star. Just because he was the better wrestler doesnt mean he was the bigger star. Benoit was better than both of them, he wasnt the bigger star though.

 

He was put into WWE's biggest faction and had Triple H & Ric Flair doing his talking for him at first, The fans did turn Batista but it was'nt like the WWE did'nt plan this and it was firstly reserved for Randy Orton but they fucked that up.

 

Brock got the huge monster push and that can work but so does the slow burning will he, wont he push that Batista got with the Triple H feud.

 

Lesner would have been a huge star had he stuck around as well.

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Its pretty tough to be a face in WWE, they tend not to work the crowd very much like clapping hands, decent promo's without looking like a sap.

 

Morrison he could be a top 'hbk' type face but thanks to how he's booked with awkward promo's partly his fault but the words he's saying are crap,

 

Cena knows he's never gonna be a 'cool' face but he's over as hell so thats something.

 

Orton looks better with beard hes got a Beckham look about him now and he seems more at ease on SD!.

 

Punk to me when he was a face was kinda like an updated Bret Hart (not in ring) just a good face that stood for values and what he believed in, just a shame that wwe didnt think he could 'cut it' cause he was over.

 

I think Sheamus will be a great face, hes got decent moves that'll get a face pop.

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It seems he drew more. You can't lay all of the blame at Lesnar though as that feud wasn't booked very well and Hogan/Vince seemed to get more promotion than that match. Triple H/Booker T was also badly booked. Triple H/Batista was booked very well though. That's not to say Lesnar wasn't booked well before but as I say, he petered out a bit after Survivor Series and the run up to Wrestlemania for him and Angle was pretty shit and they gave McMahon/Hogan precedence.

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It took Triple H's finest work and some excellent fine writing to get Batista over to the extent it did in 2005. As much as I grew to like him as a heel before he left, I never bought into him as a face like others did. I will give him this despite lousy workrate up until the Taker feud in 2007 and crap mic skills, he did look the part and his facials were world class, so he wasn

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On the subject of who was the bigger star, Brock took a mountain of viewers who either still watched or used to watch Pro Wrestling to MMA, Dave Meltzer did research and said that over half of the 850k who bought the first Lesnar UFC fight had never ordered a UFC PPV before. Wrestling fans seemed to really care about Brock Lesnar and what he was doing and a lot of these fans had become fed up with the Cena/Orton/Batista era in WWE, one of which was me even though I was a UFC fan already at that point.

 

Come on now, let's stop pretending Brock was some sort of star.

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