Jim Ross knew Brock Lesnar would be a star before debuting in WWE.
The Beast Incarnate Brock Lesnar had done just about everything in WWE. From winning the WWE Championship multiple times to snapping The Undertaker’s WrestleMania streak, Lesnar’s dominance in the company will be talked about for years to come. One WWE Hall of Famer saw Lesnar’s potential before The Beast Incarnate even arrived on the scene.
On the latest Grilling JR Podcast, AEW commentator Jim Ross discussed how even when Lesnar was still at the University of Minnesota; he saw someone that could be “The Next Big Thing” in the company:
“I knew Brock Lesnar was going to be a major star when he was walking around the campus of the University of Minnesota. You don’t get a guy that’s six three and runs a 4 6 40, weighs 280 and is the greatest heavyweight in America in D1 amateur wrestling national champion All American, what else does he need to prove to you?”
“The only thing left out there that’s in the unknown would be How’s he going to be on the road? How’s his social skills going to interact with everybody else? Is he going to be a good in locker room, all those intangible things that I’ve always thought were important to sell and to buy were prevalent. But, you know, you just, you got to get him out there to find out that.”
“As far as bell to bell, and how fast he was improving, I had never seen anything quite like it. To be honest with you, physically speaking, he had no limits, just a phenomenon quite frankly. And as long as he kept working to get better, and that’s what you get when you get an amateur like Brock. And one of the reasons I’ve always been high on recruiting amateur wrestlers, is they’re competitive, and they like to win.”
“Not just win in the sense of getting their hand raised in the sense of improving their game and becoming a more seasoned talented guy where the veterans want to work with because they know that you got something.”
“So I think that’s kind where we were there with Brock. He just, he was a natural. I never, never had one day, thought one day that he wasn’t gonna be great. You know, and he’s been books in a variety of ways. He’s come through it. He’s, he says over now he’s ever been seems to me like, so Yeah, he was. He was a can’t miss guy, just like Rock. Can’t miss guy.”
Lesnar defeated The Rock for the WWE Championship at SummerSlam in 2002. He’s currently set to face The Rock’s cousin, Roman Reigns, for the WWE Undisputed Universal Championship at this year’s SummerSlam in Nashville, Tennessee. Lighting may strike twice for The Beast Incarnate.
H/t – Grilling JR