Brock Lesnar is one of the most formidable world champions in wrestling history. He’s a great big powerhouse with a killer look. He has alarming athleticism and speed, particularly for someone of his size and age. He has real life NCAA championship level amateur wrestling skills behind him. He’s lone guy to cross from pro wrestling to the highest level of mixed martial arts in UFC, and emerge a World Heavyweight Champion. Even putting aside these component pieces, Lesnar and WWE have created an aura of specialness and borderline invincibility around Lesnar. In video game parlance, he’s the ultimate final boss, more imposing than any other threat a hero has to overcome.

When Lesnar first returned from MMA to WWE, he was a megastar and put on some legitimately great matches opposite John Cena, Triple H, and CM Punk. He went from being a monster heel to the definitive monster heel, though when he ended The Undertaker’s WrestleMania undefeated streak and transitioned from that milestone to positively squashing John Cena in the main event of SummerSlam 2015. It’s telling that since that time, only The Undertaker, Seth Rollins, and Goldberg have technically beaten Lesnar, and The Dead Man and the King Slayer each needed underhanded tactics to do so. While Goldberg did beat him clean, Lesnar got his win back when they blew off their rivalry at WrestleMania 33, which would mark the start of over a year of Lesnar holding the Universal Championship.

The conventional wisdom suggested Roman Reigns would take the title off Lesnar at WrestleMania 34, and when that happened, most pegged him to capture the gold at The Greatest Royal Rumble event in Saudi Arabia. While Reigns was protected in the latter case, with a convoluted finish, he nonetheless failed in his quest again.

The smart money is probably still very much on Reigns to unseat The Beast Incarnate. But what if WWE were to finally throw in the towel on making Reigns the guy, or at least for this particular tittle transition, went in a different direction? This article takes a look at fifteen other candidates to win the Universal Championship off of Lesnar.

15 Braun Strowman

via stillrealtous.com

Braun Strowman is probably the most obvious choice for someone other than Roman Reigns to beat Brock Lesnar. The Monster Among Men has the size to believable throw hands with The Beast Incarnate, and all the more importantly, has gotten himself over with the fans. WWE has built the guy nicely in single handedly winning the Raw Tag Team Championships at WrestleMania, winning the Greatest Royal Rumble Match, and mostly dominating the field in February’s men’s Elimination Chamber Match.

Strowman has feuded with Lesnar before, in Fatal Four Way, one-on-one, and Triple Threat scenarios. To be fair, all but the original four man match at last year’s SummerSlam were flops that came across as clunky and anticlimactic. By the same token, Lesnar’s current title reign has not been about putting on great matches, but rather violent spectacles with awesome displays of power, and Strowman could more than live up to that level of expectations in delivering a smash mouth hoss battle to send Lesnar packing.

The most compelling piece of the Strowman scenario is that, unlike many of the entries on this countdown, it would require minimal build or changes to slot him in this position.

On the contrary, Strowman is already a credible threat, and his most recent challenge to Lesnar at the Royal Rumble show in January kept him protected, leaving him a perfectly viable challenger.

14 Bobby Lashley

via wwe.com

When the rumor mill started up about Bobby Lashley being done wit Impact Wrestling and potentially returning to WWE, the first dream match up fans gravitated toward was Lashley vs. Lesnar. It’s that rare match up between two wrestlers with significant career overlap that has simply never come together on account of Lashley debuting with WWE after Lesnar had finished up his first run, and having left the company himself before Lesnar came back from UFC. Nonetheless, this pairing would offer up a dream match of sorts between two guys of comparable builds and stature, each with approximately the same combination of power and agility, each with real life amateur wrestling and MMA pedigrees.

In the real world, Lesnar’s credentials, particularly as an MMA fighter, making him more imposing than Lashley, but in a WWE ring Lashley is that rare guy who looks like he could believably stand up to Lesnar. Moreover, Lashley was booked as a top guy on the rise before his first WWE departure, and has been well protected since coming back, meaning that he could quite reasonably be slotted as a world title contender in a matter of weeks, if not days. Finally, on a more philosophical note, Lashley works a more WWE-friendly style than Lesnar—a bit less brutal, a bit more built on showing off feats of strength like his delayed vertical suplex. He’d make a lot of sense as at least the guy to unseat Lesnar, if not the new standard bearer for Raw.

13 The Undertaker

via wwe.com

The Undertaker’s return to the ring at WrestleMania 34, paired with his subsequent match at the Greatest Royal Rumble show put widely rumored retirement and reasserted the Dead Man as a potential figure to resurface on the WWE landscape as the company needs him. Should Vince McMahon give up on pushing Roman Reigns on top, at least in the short term, The Dead Man is one of the very, very few big names who could be ushered back into the mix for a short spell on top.

The Undertaker has the credibility to beat Lesnar. The two feuded as far back as 2003, besides revisiting their issue in 2014 and 2015. Lesnar has gotten the better of most of these exchanges, as a key cog in building Lesnar into the unstoppable monster he is today. Just the same, The Phenom has been so protected for so long that he remains a credible threat in any scenario.

The Deadman would be a particularly compelling choice if WWE wants to get the title off of Lesnar quickly if, for example, the company legitimately decides not to use him anymore, or pay his purportedly exorbitant per match booking fee.

The Undertaker could handle Lesnar much like he did Cena at ‘Mania. From there, he could either drop the title in short order to return to semi-retirement, or more formally take Lesnar’s place as a part-time champion who only makes selected appearances, but is also a company man WWE can count on not to ruffle feathers.

12 Seth Rollins

via primaryignition.com

If WWE opts to push a current talent with a career making win over Brock Lesnar, there are few more compelling choices than Seth Rollins, who could very well play a 2004 Eddie Guerrero role as underdog who slays the Beast for the title. Heck, The Architect even has the frog splash in his arsenal to create some real historical symmetry.

More than just any guy WWE could push, though, Rollins has proven himself as a workhorse for WWE. His 2015 WWE Championship reign was one of the best received world title runs of the past decade. On top of that, Rollins has been in the habit of putting on great performances as of late. His recent body of work included not only his most recent series of excellent Intercontinental Championship defenses and strong matches with Finn Balor, but also record setting marathon performance in a pre-Elimination Chamber gauntlet match on Raw.

The King Slayer also benefits from having a built in storyline with Lesnar, after their series of clashes in 2015 over the WWE Championship. Back then, heel Rollins was in no way equipped to beat Lesnar heads up. But now, with another three years of high level of experience under his belt, and the fans behind him? Rollins beating Lesnar could easily be the feel good story of 2018.

11 Batista

via youtube.com

Who better to topple a part time, jacked up megastar than another part time, jacked up megastar? Batista and Brock Lesnar have never gone head to head on the WWE main roster, though there is footage available of the two big men squaring off in developmental back in the early 2000s. Each has come a long way. Lesnar grew into the role of the most credible monster heel in recent wrestling history, based in large part on his UFC work. Meanwhile, Batista became a multiple time world champion in WWE, fought a bit of MMA in his own right, and has had a surprisingly successful career as an actor, most notably stealing scenes in Marvels Guardians of the Galaxy films.

No, Batista’s most recent run in WWE didn’t go over so well, as fans saw through the attempt at pushing him as a top guy when all they wanted was to cheer Daniel Bryan in early 2014. Ever the professional, The Animal underwent a compelling heel turn that gave fans exactly what they wanted. He proceeded to put over Bryan and then The Shield, before ostensibly turning face when he cut a scathing promo against Triple H, and walked out of the company.

Batista isn’t a long term solution for WWE, but he has asserted in quite a few interviews that he’d like to have at least one more run with the company.

He’s someone with the size and WWE resume to believably challenge Lesnar, besides Batista-Lesnar offering up a first time main roster dream match.

10 Dean Ambrose

via wwe.com

When Dean Ambrose faced off against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 32, it felt like a bit of a mismatch. Ambrose hadn’t yet won a world championship, and was typically set up as, at best, a fringe main eventer and more of an upper mid card talent. The addition of a No Holds Barred Street Fight gimmick gave him more of a fighting chance, particularly for the fun storyline of hardcore legends like Mick Foley and Terry Funk spurring him on. Nonetheless, it still wasn’t a surprise when Lesnar one the match decisively.

So what could be different in 2018? Yes, Ambrose is more credible now with world title credentials of his own behind him, and a longer tenure as a WWE star. More importantly, though, he’s been out due to injury for a half year and counting, giving him time to come back and feel like a fresh face to the fans.

Ambrose has also been the subject of rumors about an impending heel turn. Particularly if he were to go rogue after beating Lesnar, he’d present all sorts of interesting booking opportunities, including but not limited to having his former Shield running buddies Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins chase him for the title.

9 Big E

via stillrealtous.com

Rumors are swirling all around about a main event level push in store for Big E. It makes sense enough that the New Day’s big man, given his remarkable size, strength, and athleticism, in combination with the personality he demonstrated while working alongside Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods. The brand of jocularity he put on display with the team won’t necessarily fit the top of the card, and in particular may not convince fans he’s a threat to someone like Brock Lesnar. If he can scale it back appropriately and pair it with putting together some big singles victories, he may well have it takes to work the top of the card in WWE.

But can Big E succeed at that level in WWE? One of the benefits of his New Day run is working with the team for over three years has largely scrubbed memories of his previous middling singles run, so that he can strike out on his own with the benefit of New Day notoriety, or potentially even with Woods and Kingston still working as his sidekicks. Sure, Big E would still need some rebuilding to make sense as someone who could actually beat Lesnar, but particularly if WWE reemphasizes his freakish strength the way they did when he first debuted, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.

8 Daniel Bryan

via si.com

By many indications, the original plan for SummerSlam 2014 would have seen Brock Lesnar crush Daniel Bryan, rather than John Cena, for the WWE Championship. The pieces were well in place with Lesnar having ended The Undertaker’s WrestleMania undefeated streak, and Bryan having emerged from the same event the conquering hero. While there was a certain satisfaction—particularly for the more cynical fans—in seeing Cena get squashed, the odds are that Bryan would have been even more compelling in the role of generating sympathy for a monster beatdown.

Bryan and Lesnar looked as though they could have been on a collision course again in the build to WrestleMania 31. While Roman Reigns was the presumptive challenger to The Beast Incarnate, Bryan came back from injury just in time to play spoiler, and certainly had a vocal segment of the fans behind him when he failed in his Royal Rumble bid, and then failed to defeat Reigns to win his way into the WrestleMania main event.

Those two close calls underscored that Bryan-Lesnar was a match that large segment of fans would have been excited to see.

When Bryan retired, it looked like this was a match we’d never get. Now that he’s back, WWE still may be reticent to put him in the ring with someone so notorious for being stiff.

Bryan-Lesnar is a possibility again, though, and Bryan is over enough as an underdog hero that most fans would accept him slaying his biggest challenge yet.

7 John Cena

via grantland.com

In the end, John Cena won, or at least pulled even with the overwhelming majority of big rivals throughout his career. Brock Lesnar stands out as the exception. Yes, Cena did beat him in Lesnar’s come back match from UFC, but even in that case Lesnar bloodied and mostly dominated The Champ before he squeezed out the win. Meanwhile, Lesnar won their first feud decisively when the both were still fresh faces to the main event scene on SmackDown in 2003 and never really got his comeuppance. He beat back Cena again when they clashed from 2014 into 2015.

It’s probably too late for Cena to really get the better of Lesnar in the big picture of their careers, but he can still get the last laugh if he were the one to take the Universal Championship off of The Beast Incarnate, and in so doing win his first Universal Championship, and his record 17th world title overall. While it may not be realistic that Cena would win an actual fight with Lesnar, he is a suitable powerhouse to look like he contend with The Conqueror, and, in the world of WWE, Cena has Mount Rushmore level credibility, and thus wouldn’t be out of place picking up this win.

6 The Rock

via wwe.com

Brock Lesnar has been the most dominant part time talent on the WWE landscape since he came back in 2012. In that time, he won two world championships and counting, with the shorter of the two reigns clocking in at nearly eight months. He has main evented two WrestleManias since coming back from MMA, and has headlined SummerSlams that included him crushing no lesser stars than John Cena and Randy Orton, besides surviving a Fatal Fourway with Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, and Samoa Joe.

The only part time talent who can really compete with Lesnar’s level of kayfabe success and level of real world notoriety? The Rock.

The Rock and Brock Lesnar wrestled way back at SummerSlam 2002, when The Rock was edging his way out of WWE for Hollywood and Lesnar was challenging for his first world title. It was a blockbuster showdown in its day, but would be even bigger match between WWE’s most credible fighter and the company’s biggest celebrity alum.

The Rock’s legacy and previous record in WWE stand up to and arguably exceed Lesnar’s, positioning him as a perfectly viable challenger. Moreover, his 2013 WWE Championship reign demonstrated his willingness to commit to the company again for a spell as a main eventer. No, it’s not realistic to expect him to ever return to WWE full time for any kind of extended stretch, but as a short term solution to beat Lesnar and then transition the belt to someone else, WWE could do a lot worse than The Great One.

5 AJ Styles

via prowrestlingunlimited.com

While many fans enjoyed the match in which Brock Lesnar won the Universal Championship—a smash mouth sprint opposite Goldberg at WrestleMania 33—the general consensus has been that his reign to follow has been a disappointment, including underwhelming efforts against Samoa Joe, Braun Strowman, Kane, and Roman Reigns. Indeed, there are only two of his bouts that have generally received positive reviews. The first was his SummerSlam 2017 Fatal Fourway, which was a team effort from all parties involved. The other was his champion vs. champion showcase match at Survivor Series, working with AJ Styles.

At barely 200 pounds, it’s tough to buy Styles as a believable challenger to Lesnar. Styles is quite arguably the best in ring performer in the world today, though, and his technical expertise, aerial ability, and underdog selling to pull off an excellent bout with The Beast Incarnate last year. Styles isn’t a clean choice to beat Lesnar now, having already lost to him, and working on the opposite brand. However, if WWE can’t assemble an altogether logical scenario for Lesnar to drop the title, Styles would likely offer the best opportunity for a great match, not to mention a feel good moment of the smaller man triumphing.

4 Aleister Black

via wwe.com

Aleister Black is the current reigning NXT Champion. He has established himself as a unique performer, combining elements of an Undertaker like macabre persona, with some of the punk rock sensibility of a CM Punk, and striking style offense that threatens to end matches suddenly. Black is lined up to defend his title soon against Lars Sullivan, and that match be more than just face champ fending off a monster heel, but rather a trial run for what the popular developmental star might do against the main card big guys.

There’s little question that Black is being pushed as NXT’s top star of the moment. While Johnny Gargano may be just as, if not more popular, it’s a part of his persona that he’s an underdog who has lost his share of matches but keeps coming back. Meanwhile, Black is the more traditional WWE top guy, consistently winning opposite stiffer competition on his way to the top.

Sure, it would be a stretch for Black to debut on the main roster tomorrow and transition directly to challenging Brock Lesnar. Out of any fresh faces coming out of developmental, though, he’s the best built to go on that kind of run, not to mention that his Black Mass finisher would be as reasonable as any big move in WWE today for helping Black steal the upset pin.

3 Kurt Angle

via stillrealtous.com

WWE has not gone so far as to even tease Kurt Angle facing Brock Lesnar since Angle’s return to the WWE fold in spring 2017. To begin with, it was unclear if Angle would be booked to wrestle again. Since he has been cleared, he has only appeared on selected occasions, out of what looks to be a combination of wanting to keep him a special attraction, and perhaps to protect the forty nine year old veteran, with a wide history of injuries.

A clash with Brock Lesnar wouldn’t be easy on Angle’s ailing neck, and a slower, slimmer Angle doesn’t necessarily come across as the most foreboding threat to The Beast Incarnate. However, if we look at Lesnar’s entire library of WWE matches, including his original main roster run from 2002 to 2004, the Olympic Hero can’t be ignored. Indeed, Angle not only worked some of Lesnar’s very best in ring matches and most heated rivalries. He also parlayed his real life Olympic credentials into being that rare guy who has beaten Lesnar cleanly—and via submission, no less!

Angle is certainly not a long term solution to carry the Universal Championship.

If WWE were to work its way into a scenario, though, in which it wants the title off Lesnar promptly, Angle is one of the few guys with the real life legitimacy, character history, and star power to get the job done.

2 Cesaro

via youtube.com

When it comes to assessing which talents in WWE are under utilized, the name that’s come up more than anyone else’s from fans, critics, and fellow wrestlers alike is Cesaro. There are reports that Vince McMahon doesn’t think he can connect with the fan base. However, the Swiss Superman became a cult favorite based on impressive feats of strength like giving The Great Khali the giant swing and body slamming The Big Show out of the original Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. Moreover, Cesaro has made the most of his every opportunity, succeeding as both a face and a heel before arriving at his peak thus far as half of The Bar with Sheamus. Over the last year, he’s further proven his toughness and commitment to craft with legendary antics like toughing out a match despite impacting his front teeth on a ring post, and chasing down a beach ball in the crowd that he felt was distracting and disrespectful to the action in the ring.

Cesaro looks great, he can talk, he’s a stellar in ring worker, and he’s even a real life friend and workout buddy to John Cena. In short, it would appear that he’s a main eventer waiting to happen.

Sure, Cesaro would take some building to become a kayfabe viable challenger to Brock Lesnar, but if WWE were to commit to him as rising face, he’d be one of the freshest and most exciting options to take the Universal Championship.

1 Cody Rhodes

via theringer.com

I’ll be the first to admit that this is the pick on this countdown furthest out of left field. Cody Rhodes isn’t even under contract to WWE at this point, and when he last was, he was thoroughly entrenched in the middle of the card, playing the eccentric Stardust character. He has never been treated like a main eventer in WWE, and his thin body make it tough to sell him winning a fight against someone like Brock Lesnar.

But might Rhodes be the answer?

Cody has a championship lineage, as the son of Dusty and the little brother to WWE mainstay Goldust. He had proven himself as a talker and a guy capable of playing diverse roles in his tenure with WWE, and in particular threatened to catch fire when he stood up to The Authority in the fall of 2013. Since leaving WWE, he has only bettered his prospects, emerging as a legit main eventer for ROH and New Japan, while further selling his personality and taking on leadership of the celebrated Bullet Club faction.

It's a stretch, but if WWE were to re-sign Cody, they could push him out of the gate as The American Dream’s son, come home to claim his birthright as the working man’s champion. While the superficial differences are marked, undersized Cody challenging the overwhelming force that is Lesnar could feel an awful lot like scrubby looking Dusty chasing down glamorous NWA Champion Ric Flair back in the day.