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What's the story?
Bruce Pritchard had an interesting story to tell on his podcast Something To Wrestle With, which was transcribed by Still Real To Us. It concerned the legendary pairing between Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman, and Pritchard recounted the story of how it all began.
In case you didn't know...
Brock Lesnar made his WWE debut way back in 2002 with Paul Heyman by his side. With Heyman as his mouthpiece, Lesnar tore through the WWE during his first run, beating The Rock at WWE Backlash for the WWE Championship before leaving in 2004.
Lesnar returned in 2012, after a run in NJPW and a successful MMA run with the UFC. He won the WWE Universal Championship last April at WrestleMania 33 when he beat Goldberg.
The heart of the matter
Pritchard said that Heyman had been angling to become Brock's manager, long before the duo had debuted on WWE television.
“Paul was a big advocate of Brock Lesnar then — behind the scenes it was, hell it was a meal ticket number one for him."
Pritchard added that the concerns were raised early regarding Lesnar's promo ability and it fell perfectly for Heyman.
"We didn’t think that Brock would be able to cut a good promo. We knew what we had as far as the athlete in Brock Lesnar. We knew what we had as far as the beast, we knew what we had when that bell rang, Brock was gonna deliver.”
Pritchard also tried to explain why two personalities as different as Heyman and the clean-cut Lesnar matched up so well together.
"So you take an All-American kid and you put him with a sleazy manager like Paul Heyman — the last person that you think he would connect with. And they mad a great pair.”
What's next?
Brock Lesnar will be defending the WWE Universal Championship at WWE SummerSlam in a Fatal-4-Way match against Braun Strowman, Samoa Joe and Roman Reigns.
With speculation of Lesnar's UFC return looming, the match also has the stipulation that if Brock loses, he will leave WWE.
Author's take
Lesnar and Heyman are an iconic pairing. It doesn't matter how Heyman became Lesnar's advocate, it just matters that the decision to bring them together created one of the most iconic duos in modern wrestling history.
