Why Brock Lesnar Was The Best Candidate To End The Streak

Yesterday was the long awaited WWE pay-per-view, Wrestlemania 30, and while it was supposed to mark 30 years of the show of shows, you would have swore the world ended due to the public backlash after the event was over.  Why was this?  The 21 year streak that The Undertaker went undefeated at Wrestlemania was broken last night by Brock Lesnar, who handed him his first Wrestlemania loss.

Granted the streak ending is something a lot of us wrestling fans hoped to never see, but in reality it was a not so distant possibility everyone could ignore.  The Undertaker is getting up there in age and every year it comes out that he is in such bad shape physically that the only match a year he wrestles is almost always a guessing game as to whether or not he can do so.  As much as we, as fans of wrestling, would love to see the streak live on forever, it just can't.  Reality is it had to end at some point and this post explains why I think last night was the right time to do so.

Before I go any further it is worth noting that this post is not meant as a dig to The Undertaker.  He is a man who cemented his legacy as one of the industry greats and he has a record that likely will never be matched, let alone topped.  The purpose of me writing this is to defend the fact that what happened last night was absolutely fine and not the great travesty and injustice it is being made out to be.

I didn't get to watch the pay-per-view last night (I didn't feel like dropping $60 for a WWE Network subscription I likely would have only used just yesterday) but I followed the live results on the internet.  Unlike most of the people watching, I was not surprised that Brock Lesnar ended The Undertaker's fabled streak.  I was shocked when I read the news, as I was on the fence as to whether or not it would happen (more on that soon), but when reality of the news sunk in, I was not surprised at all.

When it was announced a few months back that this year at Wrestlemania, The Undertaker would put his streak on the line against Brock Lesnar, for the first time in years, I saw the possibility that if the streak was going to be broken, this would be the man to do it.  Unlike the past few years worth of opponents The Undertaker faced, Brock Lesnar had credibility that he posed a legitimate threat to the streak.  

For those of you who don't know, almost a decade ago, Brock Lesnar started out in WWE.  A few years in, he left to pursue other endeavors, most notably to fight in the UFC, where he climbed the proverbial mountain and became UFC heavyweight champion.  Mixed martial arts, which is what UFC is, is a much more grueling sport than professional wrestling.  If you can hold your own in the UFC's octagon, you have every right to call yourself a legitimate bad ass.  After a loss to Alistair Overeem in 2011, Lesnar retired from the UFC.  In the spring of 2012, he ultimately returned to WWE.  Despite an initially shaky record of losing to John Cena and HHH, Lesnar slowly began to become the beast he was once known for being by decimating his competition which included the likes of a final confrontation with HHH, former fellow Paul Heyman associate CM Punk, and most recently The Big Show.  

Where am I going with this?  Lesnar established himself as a force to be reckoned with through out the years, making him a fierce competitor and someone who could believably end The Undertaker's iconic streak.  The proof lies with the brief synopsis of Lesnar's career mentioned above.

Lesnar also was the most believable of the Undertaker's recent opponents in that he even stood a chance of ending the streak.  While Shawn Michaels, who faced The Undertaker at Wrestlemania 25 & 26, had incredible matches with the man, the cockiness of his character was his downfall, for if he could not end the streak, he would retire which was exactly what happened.  HHH, who stepped up to the plate to face Undertaker at Wrestlemania 27 & 28 was primarily motivated by blind revenge, wanting to end the streak solely because the streak cost his best friend, Shawn Michaels, his career.  And last year at Wrestlemania 29, CM Punk primarily was motivated to attempt to beat the streak as a means to stay relevant after his historic 400+ title reign came to an end.  None of these men really seemed like if focused, they could end the streak, as they were too worried about something else.  Lesnar who backs up his few words by his actions, was the only one in recent memory I saw as a possible threat to the streak.

One of the common complaints I have seen so far is that Brock Lesnar had nothing to gain from beating The Streak and that it should have been an up and comer like Ryback or Bray Wyatt.  First, Lesnar did gain something last night, two things to be precise: he cemented his status as the force to be reckoned with many already saw him as.  Beating the streak proved that Brock Lesnar means business when it comes to a fight.  Secondly, as a heel (wrestling term for bad guy) he is meant to elicit an audience response of displeasure, which is exactly what he did by beating The Undertaker's iconic undefeated Wrestlemania streak.  So, Lesnar did exactly what he was supposed to do in the wrestling world and yet people slight him because of it.  There is no reason to at all.

As for those "worthy" up and comers that could have benefited from beating the streak, they lacked what I just talked about Brock Lesnar having: credibility that the streak was actually in jeopardy.  Since debuting, both Ryback & Bray Wyatt have been on a roller coaster of booking, where they no sooner look like they are people any wrestler wouldn't want to cross, it is all thrown away when their momentum comes to a screeching halt when they are "fed" to an opponent, both of which at one point were to John Cena.  If anyone on the rise currently could be seen as a potential threat to the streak, it would have been Roman Reigns of The Shield, who has been on a roll since the year started and he toppled Kane's elimination record for a single Royal Rumble as well as dominating practically every person he was in a match with.  As of last night, I would also include Antonio Cesaro on this short list as well since at this pay-per-view he finally broke off from Jack Swagger, and went on to win the Andre The Giant Memorial 30 Man Battle Royale by accomplishing the impressive feat of lifting the 400+ pound Big Show on his own and throwing him over the top rope to win.  But that was mere hours before this match.  Things like this require proper build up, which hardly anyone aside from Brock Lesnar had in their favor.

If anything, we should be grateful what happened last night did, and not race to the internet to complain.  Speaking of the internet, we live in a day and age where many things are spoiled on there before they happen.  This was a rare case that defied those odds as it was not ruined ahead of time, thus being a genuine surprise, a rarity in this day and age.  In my opinion, the time to complain about "tainting the legacy of The Undertaker" was last year, when his manager, Paul Bearer's, death was used as a means to further the build-up for his match with CM Punk.  That was distasteful and something definitely worth complaining about.  Not last night though.  We all wished the streak could have been timeless (in tact or broken, the streak cemented Undertaker's legacy and it is history that will likely never be repeated), but the reality was it just couldn't.  It had to end, and in this case it happened sooner rather than later, due to the first legitimate threat to it in years: Brock Lesnar.