Matt Hardy believes fans haven’t seen the last of Brock Lesnar in WWE. The former WWE star who played a crucial role in Lesnar’s rookie year shared his prediction during a recent appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show, suggesting The Beast will return to the ring despite his emotional retirement at WrestleMania 42.
I don’t know, I think we’ll see him again. I think we’ll see him again,” Hardy said during his appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show.
Lesnar lost to Oba Femi in a squash match at WrestleMania 42. After the contest, an emotional Lesnar removed his gloves and shoes in the ring before hugging Paul Heyman.
Michael Cole confirmed on RAW after WrestleMania 42 that The Beast had officially hung up his boots.
The Hardys Built Brock Lesnar
Before Brock Lesnar was the youngest WWE Champion in history, he was a 24-year-old rookie who needed someone established to beat. Matt and Jeff Hardy were that someone.
Lesnar’s first real program out of OVW was against the Hardy Boyz, and the way WWE booked it, with referee stoppages instead of pinfalls, was the foundation of the “Next Big Thing” presentation that carried him to the top of the company in under five months.
Backlash 2002 and the TKO Template
Lesnar’s first televised match came against Jeff Hardy at Backlash on April 21, 2002. The finish was not a pinfall. Referee Teddy Long called the match when Jeff could no longer respond, giving Lesnar a knockout-style win that immediately set him apart from every other heel on the roster.
The next night on Raw, April 22, 2002, Matt Hardy got the same treatment. Another referee stoppage, another protected loss, another visual of an established star unable to continue. Two consecutive nights of TKO finishes against half of the most popular tag team of the Attitude Era is how WWE communicated, without saying it, that Lesnar was different.
The Tag Program
The feud extended into tag team matches involving Paul Heyman. At Insurrextion on May 4, 2002, the Hardy Boyz got a measure of revenge over Lesnar and Shawn Stasiak, but Lesnar and Heyman bounced back to defeat the Hardys at Judgment Day on May 19. The series gave Lesnar a babyface tandem to chase, then beat, then move past on his way to the King of the Ring tournament.
The SmackDown Rematches
Even after Lesnar moved to SmackDown and won the WWE Undisputed Championship at SummerSlam 2002, Matt Hardy remained a useful name for him to run through.
Lesnar defeated Matt on the August 29, 2002 episode of SmackDown in a non-title squash that reinforced the gap between the new champion and the rest of the roster. The two would meet again on the January 2, 2003 episode of SmackDown and on April 10, 2003, with the same result each time.
Why It Mattered
Lesnar’s rocket push is usually told through the milestones: King of the Ring win, SummerSlam main event over The Rock, the youngest WWE Champion record.
The setup work, the Hardy Boyz program, gets less credit than it deserves. Matt and Jeff were already over with the live crowd, and being beaten via TKO by an unknown rookie meant something. WWE spent that equity deliberately, and Lesnar’s first 18 months as a main eventer were built on the back of it.
Match results courtesy of Cagematch.net