If you asked any wrestlers – from any company – or wrestling fan who the most legitimately feared wrestler in the industry is, many would all say the same name.

For those who have never heard of Brock Lesnar before, he can be summed up by his accolades.

The 44-year-old current WWE Champion is a two-time National Collegiate Athletic Association champion, a seven-time WWE champion, a three-time WWE Universal champion, a 2002 WWE King of the Ring winner, he won two Royal Rumbles – in 2003 and 2022 – and he also won the New Japan Pro Wrestling IWGP Heavyweight Championship.

Oh, and on top of that, he is a former UFC Heavyweight Champion, a run which saw a cumulative total of 7.8 million PPV buys for a five win, three losses record.

He has also appeared in more than 20 different video games – including on NFL and two UFC games.

And on Sunday, April 3, at day two of Wrestlemania 38, he'll take on current WWE Universal champion Roman Reigns with both titles on the line in what is being dubbed the “biggest Wrestlemania match of all-time”.

And it is set to sell out the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas – as Lesnar remains the must-see attraction in WWE.

However, it wasn't always that way. Cast your minds back to 2004.

The summer Olympics were being held in Greece, George Bush had won his second term in office, and Facebook launched as a small site open only to students from Harvard.

In the world of wrestling, Brock Lesnar and Bill Goldberg were about to face off at Wrestlemania XX in a true clash of the titans bout.

And there was the small matter of legendary Stone Cold Steve Austin joining the duo to keep the peace as the referee for the fight.

WWE had spent around six months building up to this fight, after the two had a backstage altercation on television during the Survivor Series PPV in November 2003.

For months and months they teased going at it in the ring, and at the 2004 Royal Rumble event fuel was added to the fire.

Lesnar retained his WWE Championship, beating Hardcore Holly – which, in 2022, is a ridiculous sentence to type – and he then decided to stop Goldberg from winning that big 30-man rumble match by helping Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle dump him over the top rope for the win.

This would set fire to the road towards one of the most controversial big matches in WWE history.

The pair went back and forth, attacking each other for weeks on end, until a week before the Wrestlemania match was due to occur.

The early version of wrestling news sites – or dirt sheets, as they are affectionately known – started to report that Lesnar's contract was up and that he had decided to leave and join the NFL, to start a career in American football.

It was already known that Goldberg's contact with WWE was up and that this would be his last match – but he would go out in the dignified way of losing to help Lesnar's career.

This was, however, until the news of Lesnar's departure broke.

To say the Wrestlemania match at Madison Square Garden in New York was a shambles is an understatement.

It was terrible, and the audience booed the pair out of the building.

Goldberg won, thankfully, and both he and Lesnar – who had given the crowd the middle finger at the start of the match – were given Stone Cold Stunners by Austin to send the crowd home happy.

After the bout, WWE released a statement, saying: “Brock Lesnar has made a personal decision to put his WWE career on hold to prepare to try-out for the National Football League this season.

“Brock has wrestled his entire professional career in the WWE and we are proud of his accomplishments and wish him the best in his new endeavour.”

And Lesnar said, at the time: “This is no load of bull; it's no WWE stunt.

“I am dead serious about this.

“I ain't afraid of anything and I ain't afraid of anybody.

“I've been an underdog in athletics since I was five – I got zero college offers for wrestling – now people say I can't play football, that it's a joke.

“I say I can, I'm as good an athlete as a lot of guys in the NFL, if not better.”

Despite a pre-season injury, involving a car crash, he signed for the Minnesota Vikings on July 27 and played in several pre-season games.

But he was released on August 30, with his NFL dreams in tatters after just a few months.

He returned to WWE in 2012, confronting the legendary John Cena, and would go on to win countless titles and become the biggest name in the business for a generation.

Whether he wins is one thing, but his legacy in wrestling will remain intact, despite turning his back on the sport for period.

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