Why the Brock Lesnar face turn in 02?

[Kill Dat Noize]

i took a break from watching wrestling at that point in time so i'm getting caught up on the network.

holy shyt was brock a fukkin monster. i mean good god. first i saw him beat rock at summerslam, then taker with the dq finish, and then the hell in a cell match where brock won. what a fukkin run this guy was having. all great matches too.

but i was fukkin markin out man. they had a nikka thinkin "wow who can beat this guy". perfect booking on how to create a new star. the guy was dominant but it felt so real and so believable because all the parties involved did their part.

but then i'm watchin survivor series and fukkin heyman turned on him to help big show in.

i dunno maybe it's cause i didn't see the raws or the smackdowns leading up to the match but imo it really didn't make much sense to me and i thought it completely killed all the momentum they had built. i mean yea it came out nowhere so i wasn't expecting it at all (which i guess could be viewed as a good thing).... but i was really hoping that the brock monster angle would have played out a bit longer. i think there was a lot more left to squeeze from a dominant heel run.

so why turn him face so soon? maybe they just didn't have any credible challengers after that? was that their only play?

 

[Sonny Corinthos]

The Heyman turn always made no sense to me and then putting the belt on Big Show

It didnt affect him much , dude acted the same way face or heel. He was really bland personality wise when he first started, dude clearly just has that aura around him.

It's great to see him comfortable now being the bully meathead a$$hole now.

 

[Heelish]

That was the last time I cared about Big Show. He was booked well back then

 

[Silkk]

They had to build to WM

 

[Kill Dat Noize]

That was the last time I cared about Big Show. He was booked well back then

i'm with you 100%. i wouldn't even have been mad if show won. he seemed like a credible challenger to me. i just thought the swerve was a bit anti climactic and didn't really benefit anyone involved. it was definitely unexpected though i'll give them that much. totally didn't see it coming.

me personally i guess i would have just waited longer before i turned brock face. i'm of the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality. but like i said maybe from their point of view they just figured they didn't really have anyone left to throw at him and thought by turning him face that would give them some breathing room for the next few months.

 

[Kill Dat Noize]

They had to build to WM

were you watching at that point? you think could he have gone in as a heel?

 

[Paper Boi]

he was supposed to beat Hogan at Survivor Series. Hogan wanted to go over. they changed their plans to the face turn.

 

[Silkk]

were you watching at that point? you think could he have gone in as a heel?

He could have but They wanted him as the babyface of the company going over in the main event

 

[Kill Dat Noize]

He could have but They wanted him as the babyface of the company going over in the main event

fair enough.

curious though for storyline purposes do you remember why heyman turned on brock? was it ever revealed?

 

[Silkk]

fair enough.

curious though for storyline purposes do you remember why heyman turned on brock? was it ever revealed?

It was but i forgot. Promo should be on youtube or dailymotion tho

 

[THEREALBRAND]

fair enough.

curious though for storyline purposes do you remember why heyman turned on brock? was it ever revealed?

From what I remember Brock was starting to think on his own, and Paul didn't like that. Granted this all from memory, but I recall in the weeks leading up to Survivor Series Brock started making decisions on his own without Paul and that led to Paul turning on Brock. Going into the PPV it was pretty obvious that's where they were going with it.

As far as the face turn goes, Brock was at the point where fans were naturally starting to cheer him because he was such a bad ass. So it made sense to turn him fully into a face.

 

[TrueEpic08]

From what I remember Brock was starting to think on his own, and Paul didn't like that. Granted this all from memory, but I recall in the weeks leading up to Survivor Series Brock started making decisions on his own without Paul and that led to Paul turning on Brock. Going into the PPV it was pretty obvious that's where they were going with it.

As far as the face turn goes, Brock was at the point where fans were naturally starting to cheer him because he was such a bad ass. So it made sense to turn him fully into a face.

This.

I'd have to check the WON archives, but I'd imagine that they figured that they were doing Lesnar/Angle at WM with Lesnar going over around Survivor Series, and it just made more sense overall to have Brock win as a face (Rock going over Austin, Hunter going over Booker ). Thus, they started having Brock show face tendencies in the lead up to the match (thinking for himself, persevering through his rib injury), beat him and purposefully kept him away from the title (for the most part) until WrestleMania XIX. They followed that up with the swerve at Armageddon where Angle won the belt as a big babyface, then aligned himself with Heyman on the very next SmackDown.

If you can @Kill Dat Noize, do try to watch the SmackDowns from the build to Survivor Series 2002 to WrestleMania XIX. The build to Brock's win was tremendously well booked and made him look like an absolute world beater by the time he won it.

Oh, and if you're still unsure about how well this went over, consider that, by Meltzer's calculations, Brock Lesnar was the biggest draw in wrestling in 2003. That says something about how well people bought into the turn and the storyline.

 

[Kidd Dibiase]

Big Show was destroying people on Smackdown and called out Lesnar, Lesnar jumped at the opportunity without Heyman at his side and led to Lesnar being chokeslammed through a table. Following weeks, Heyman kept telling Lesnar he can't beat Big Show because he's not like everyone else, Big Show due to his size can't be man handled like the rest of his opponents..Lesnar calls out Big Show to prove Heyman wrong, ends up doing a belly to belly and an F5 to prove a point...then Survivor Series happened

 

[The G.O.D II]

were you watching at that point? you think could he have gone in as a heel?

It was obvious they wanted Angle in the ME at mania but he really isn't a good face tbh

 

[The G.O.D II]

And the only reason Show got the title at that survivor series was because he injured Brock at a house show