What if Brock had never left?

**Evil Vito** · 01-31-2020, 09:22 PM

Just a hypothetical discussion here. Brock was obviously pushed to the moon straight out of the gate in 2002, won the belt within 5 months of his debut, headlined WrestleMania, and was more or less the face of SmackDown throughout 2003.

WrestleMania 20 rolls around, he's facing Goldberg in one of the more surreal Mania matches ever, with the crowd that knew both guys were on the way out taking a big heaping dump on both guys long before that was a common occurrence in wrestling.

He has a bitter divorce from the company, leaves for the NFL, tries to get back into wrestling but has an ugly legal battle with WWE which sees him effectively banned from wrestling in the US, goes to New Japan and immediately wins the IWGP Title, wrestles occasionally for a few years, goes to UFC, and finally returns to WWE in 2012 where he's been booked as a legitimate attraction ever since.

So what happens if he eschews the NFL opportunity in favor of sticking around with WWE in 2004? How does this change the course of the company? Is he still wrestling in 2020 with more years tacked on as a full-timer? Does he have anything close to the same mystique?

01-31-2020, 09:22 PM	#1
Evil Vito President of Freedonia Posts: 58,167	What if Brock had never left? Just a hypothetical discussion here. Brock was obviously pushed to the moon straight out of the gate in 2002, won the belt within 5 months of his debut, headlined WrestleMania, and was more or less the face of SmackDown throughout 2003. WrestleMania 20 rolls around, he's facing Goldberg in one of the more surreal Mania matches ever, with the crowd that knew both guys were on the way out taking a big heaping dump on both guys long before that was a common occurrence in wrestling. He has a bitter divorce from the company, leaves for the NFL, tries to get back into wrestling but has an ugly legal battle with WWE which sees him effectively banned from wrestling in the US, goes to New Japan and immediately wins the IWGP Title, wrestles occasionally for a few years, goes to UFC, and finally returns to WWE in 2012 where he's been booked as a legitimate attraction ever since. So what happens if he eschews the NFL opportunity in favor of sticking around with WWE in 2004? How does this change the course of the company? Is he still wrestling in 2020 with more years tacked on as a full-timer? Does he have anything close to the same mystique?