All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2003: Lesnar vs. Benoit VS. Honda vs. Kobashi

Brock Lesnar vs. Chris Benoit WWE Smackdown 12/4/03

This match has been recommended a couple times as a contender for the 2003 crown, and it's notable to me because of my personal connection to the match, and for how entirely different it may be viewed in 2020. Outside of WCW TV, we really haven't written up many Benoit matches since 2007, and I don't anticipate that changing. He was a favorite of mine for many years, and he's decidedly not a favorite of mine now, and that's only partly related to him being a child murderer. His style hasn't aged well for me in the past 13 years, similar to the Christopher Daniels effect. Daniels was one of my very favorite live workers and favorite workers period around '99/'00, and then a few years later I aged out of being interested in Daniels. In going back and watching Benoit matches, they don't hit me the same way they did when I was there experiencing them in real time. His limitations seem more glaring now, in the same way Daniels' limitations seemed obvious even by 2003. Also, to my knowledge Christopher Daniels is an upstanding citizen who has yet to kill his family.

Not by accident, Phil has reviewed at most four Chris Benoit matches since 2007, and I'm not about to ask him to start reviewing more now. But this match was suggested as a 2003 challenger, and it's an extremely important match to me and my pro wrestling fandom, so it felt appropriate that I would review it alone. This was actually the first big wrestling show I ever attended. When I was younger my parents wouldn't allow me to attend wrestling shows, so I didn't start seeing live wrestling until I turned 18 and began attending Bay Area APW shows. My dad actually went with me and friends to my first wrestling show (APW 1/16/99) right after my 18th birthday. He hated it, but wouldn't say so. He used to attend Cow Palace shows when he was a youth so was not yet fully ashamed at my level of wrestling fandom. The only name he really remembered was Pat Patterson, because he and his buddies had all called him "Fat Pat" while heckling.

In college, a friend of mine had a WWF ticket connection through the radio station, but that connection dried up from '99-'02 due to the insane demand. By 2003 demand had lessened enough that he was finally able to get us some comped seats. WWF's west coast ticket guy was Will McCoy, and he hooked up a tiny little college radio station with some great seats for several years - long past the time any of us were still attending college - and for that I am still thankful. When we showed up in San Jose to get our Smackdown tickets, one thing we were not expecting was Will McCoy hooking us up with 2nd row ringside seats. Radio giveaway tickets were always good, but nowhere near this good. Typically they would be lower bowl, same side as camera. Those were the less desirable seats, as it meant your unfunny sign had zero chance of ending up on camera. And yet here we were walking closer and closer to the ring, until we found our seats directly to the left of the announce tables. My god, was I excited.

At that point in time, my favorite wrestler in the world was Brock Lesnar. First run Brock Lesnar is STILL among my favorite wrestlers in the world, and by that point I was watching enough Japan and Mexico footage to be confident that Brock was the best wrestler in the world, period. And whenever I go back and watch footage I'm reminded of how undoubtedly inarguably correct I was. Plus, we all knew that due to the battle royal the prior week, we were guaranteed either a Brock/Benoit or Brock/Cena main event, both of which sounded great. We were all rooting for it to be Brock/Benoit, as Benoit had been a favorite of ours for far longer than Brock had been, the pairing seemed like a natural fit, and - this is big - it was a singles match that hadn't yet happened on TV. Midway through the show, once Benoit beat Cena, we knew we were guaranteed what probably would have been my literal dream match at that point in time. Three months later I got to see my next dream match, Brock vs. Eddie, but on 12/2/03 Brock vs. Benoit was the match I wanted to see more than any other. I was so excited that early in the match when they brawled near us on the floor, my friend Sean turned to me and asked "pretty into this one, huh?" When I asked how he could tell, he informed me that I had been jumping up and down with my arms in the air the entire time they brawled on the floor. I did not realize I was doing this, but I can say 17 years later that you can clearly see an idiot 22 year old near-sighted goober pogoing in place, arms lifted directly above my head, nearly the entire time they brawled on the floor. I was that excited to be seeing this match.

When we left we all thought it was one of the greatest matches any of us had ever seen live. Two months prior a couple of us had driven down to Tijuana to see El Hijo Del Santo vs. Super Parka, Mascara contra Mascara. The live atmosphere for that couldn't be beat (and I still hold out hope that Roy Lucier is going to randomly throw that match up on his YouTube channel some day, as I have not seen it since), but Brock vs. Benoit was the match I had been dying to see for months at this point, and we all felt so lucky that the match had been given every opportunity to live up to its on-paper potential. I watched the match on TV a couple days later, loved it again, and haven't seen it since.

The match benefitted from a strong, concise TV build. Benoit tapped Brock at Survivor Series, and Brock was pelted with You Tapped Out chants every time he appeared in the ring afterward. Brock was so dynamite on the mic during this era. I think people forget how often Brock cut promos, since Paul Heyman has been used almost exclusively as his mouthpiece for the past decade while Brock hops around behind him. In 2003 Brock was one of the most confident mic workers of all time, able to expertly manipulate and taunt crowds while coming off intense and unscripted. He knew how to shut down chants, while also showing a small amount of ass for those chants. The crowd saw Benoit tap Brock, and they wanted him to do it again, and Brock saying boastful hyperbolic things like "I will NEVER tap out to anything EVER again" was said with such undercutting pride that it thread the needle of "he's definitely going to tap" and "maybe he really WON'T ever tap again". In addition to Brock's jock hubris, we got very effective segments backstage from other wrestlers. The best job of selling this match may have actually been done by A-Train. There was a running gag during this era where Nunzio, assisted by Chuck Palumbo and Johnny Stamboli, was running a backstage gambling ring. Nunzio laid the odds at 3:2 Brock, because while Benoit had tapped Brock, Benoit had also worked a match against Cena already that night. We got a great shot of the chalkboard with every wrestler's laid bets, and A-Train comes into the room wanting to drop 10 grand on the match. And we got this simple, but perfect exchange:

Nunzio: "Alright boys, put 10 G's on Brock!"
A-Train: "No. I'm putting it on Benoit."

That's the kind of easy attention to detail that is completely absent from modern WWE programming. Portraying wrestlers with no allegiances to either guy, actually expressing interest in who wins and who loses. A-Train was aligned with Brock at this point, was on his team at Survivor Series, and this simple action of betting against the odds - and against his own interests - is the kind of moment I would be stunned to see on TV in 2020.


The match itself delivered exactly what I wanted, and watching it back it's still a testament to how great a talent Brock Lesnar was in 2003. Brock is obviously still a guy I am going out of my way to watch, and has been in some of the best matches of the decade since his return. But in 2003 he was even better, and he was doing it full time, and it was incredible. In hindsight this came off like an incredible Brock performance, and I get the sense he could have done this same match with Edge, Test, Shelton Benjamin, Rodney Mack, honestly anyone on the roster at that time. Benoit brought an intensity that others on the roster couldn't, a toughness that many others didn't project, and - most importantly - the fans believed he could beat Brock. For his part Benoit went at Brock like there wasn't a massive size difference, attacking with chops, a couple of big Germans, and a brutal diving headbutt. But Brock was The Terminator here. He came at Benoit with big swinging arms, brutal kneelifts, and threw him around at will (including a wicked hotshot on the announce table, and a German suplex that whipped Benoit's head disgustingly into the mat). Where Brock excels as more than just a great smashing machine, was his attention to small details. Brock knows how to make a big bump mean something (check out his explosive bump into the ring steps, as I cannot imagine someone crashing harder full weight into those steps), and he connects the dots on all of his smaller moments. 

There's a moment in this match that I love, and it's a spot we've all seen hundreds of times, where someone pulls down the top rope to send a charging opponent tumbling over. And Brock did that spot here better than I've ever seen it done. Nearly every time we see that spot, we see the guy pulling down that top rope and we see the opponent clearly seeing the top rope pulled down, and yet charge over anyway. What move were any of those guys doing? What did they have planned if the rope hadn't been pulled down? Were they just planning on awkwardly colliding? Well, just like that first time you saw someone actually try to take out an opponent's legs during a drop down, here Brock does every step of the spot perfectly. It's amazing when you see a common spot executed perfectly, reminding you of what a poorly set up crutch the spot almost always is. Brock busied himself excellently while Benoit was charging, looking like a sitting duck, Benoit charging in for a lariat, and Brock yanked that top rope down at the precisely CORRECT time, when it was too late for Benoit to stop, and Benoit takes an absolute gem of a fast dangerous bump to the floor. It seems like a small thing, performing the top rope feint correctly, but it's one of those moments - of many - where you see what an excellent pro wrestling brain Lesnar has. This is a guy who truly gets it, truly understands why moves are done and what they mean.

We get the great section where Brock hoists Benoit up for the F5 and accidentally, or not, bashes swings Benoit hard directly into ref Brian Hebner, and the fans get that visual tap out as Brock taps repeatedly to the Crossface while the ref is down. Brock survives, the ref doesn't see, Brock gets a chair, and wastes Benoit's knee. We then get treated to the debut of the Brock Lock, the greatest main event submission during an era where WWE was giving their main event guys submissions. This is an absolutely body damaging submission, with Brock not only bending that damaged leg around his traps, but sitting back into it so deeply that Benoit's body gets as contorted as a Peking acrobat. Benoit passes out from pain, Brock retains, and in a perfect meathead moment, Brock applies the Crossface to a passed out Benoit, making Benoit's free arm tap.


Honda vs. Kobashi Review


Verdict:

ER: This is not unseating Honda vs. Kobashi, but it's a fantastic Big Match Brock performance, and remains a favorite (if tarnished) live wrestling memory for me. The stuff with the referees was inconsistent in a way I didn't remember. Hebner goes down and Hebner misses Brock tapping, but then Nick Patrick runs out the second the match is over to save Benoit. It's annoying when a ref misses a finish, but even moreso when it's made clear that another referee has been watching the match and surely saw what happened. It also could have used more of Brock bashing Benoit's knee before the Brock Lock, but the hold itself was applied so painfully that a pass out finish was totally acceptable. This is still a great match, and if anything, it cements Brock's standing as a true all time great.