Original subtitles

The greatest combat athlete of all time versus the greatest sports entertainer

of all time. The beast incarnate. Oh, my God.

Lesnar. One of the most physical and unpredictable rivalries in history.

What the hell is Lesnar doing?

Those surprises are so cool. I felt like a little kid.

I'm not a superstar.

I'm an ass kicker. That's it. After being in the ring with Brock, I don't

any human physically.

Brock Lesnar does not know what it's like to be number two. Neither does

Reigns. And only one can be number one.

When two legends collide.

Their rivalry stays pinned in our minds forever.

This is where we break down the legendary stories behind the greatest

of all time.

I'm Freddie Prinze Jr.

And this is WWE Rivals.

Brock, not scared of anything.

And Rey's going right after Lester. And the fight is on.

This rivalry is about the two alphas.

of the wwe and that's brock lesnar and roman reigns brock lesnar is the biggest

freak i've ever seen on any level in any sport i remember when i was in high

school i saw this clip online of this freak athlete doing a shooting star

in obw and it was brock lesnar

This rivalry started right around 2012.

Brock had already sort of been established as this monster from WWE.

Who in the hell will be able to stop Brock Lesnar? On the other side,

we saw what the WWE hoped was their future.

Roman Reigns, reigning over the ring.

Roman Reigns was the guy that we knew was going to be the man going forward.

this, to me, is just the perfect matchup. You've got the ordained one.

You've got this freak of nature that has walked into our business. I think it's

just a perfect setup.

See that rather large individual over there? See him?

That's Brock Lesnar.

Clearly, you look at the dude, and he's the Incredible Hulk, right? So you know

the look is there.

You put him in any era, and it's going to work.

If you put them in the 80s, yep. Put them in the 70s, yep.

60s, yeah.

50s, my God, they'd run.

There's King Kong walking into the building.

When you have someone as massive as Brock Lesnar, you see him just throwing

Henry.

You see him throwing the big show.

Being someone his size has its advantages, that's for sure.

The industry was looking for the next big thing.

Hogan's time was over. And then it was The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin and

the Attitude Era.

And the Attitude Era ran its course.

Do you realize now what position you're in, Brock?

And the next big thing was Brock Lesnar.

And The Rock takes the little time. Rock's going to have a ball. Rush in the

ring. And here we go.

The Rock and Brock colliding with the title on the line.

There's opportunities every day out there in life, but you've got to fight

them. You've got to take them because there might not be tomorrow.

And that's exactly what

I did.

I went in and beat The Rock and became the youngest WWE champion in history.

Looked like a killing machine, though.

Born to fight, fight to kill, but ready to die, but I never will.

If an alien was to come down to Earth and say, hey, listen, I'm going to ruin

this whole thing you guys got going on unless one of your people can beat me

We're sending Brock Lesnar.

That dude's the alpha male of our species.

Brock Lesnar stretched and clawed his way to the top of the mountain to become

the WWE champion.

Paul Heyman is...

one of the greatest managers, advocates, special counsels that

wrestling has ever seen.

To see Paul Heyman hitch his wagon to any superstar, you know that he's got

dollar signs in his eyes. He sees what that person's going to bring to the

table. Paul Heyman is the best.

The reason Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman made a perfect pairing was because Brock

Lesnar was the greatest athlete on the face of the planet.

Brock Lesnar's ambitions and dreams were not limited to WWE.

You know, to be able to transition the way he did from amateur to pro wrestling

to MMA.

I left the WWE because I wanted more. And I went out and challenged myself.

The guy just takes over the WWE and then he leaves out of nowhere. When you're

Brock Lesnar, you're going to go fight.

I got into the UFC, became a UFC heavyweight champion, climbed that

and here I am.

Why did I come back to the WWE?

I came back for one reason and one reason only, and that's to be the top

To be the same guy that I was eight years ago when I left.

To be the dominant wrecking machine that I am.

Brock Lesnar, he had come back.

And immediately been in the position as one of the biggest stars in the WWE.

Roman Reigns, on the other hand, had to prove all that.

If you really want to know who Roman Reigns is, you have to understand who

Anoa 'i is.

I was born and bred to be in that ring.

This is just what we come from.

Roman Reigns is a part of the Anoa 'i Samoan wrestling dynasty.

This dynasty is massive.

My family is always, obviously, super ingrained in the business.

My father, Sika. My uncle, Afa. My cousins,

Yokozuna, Rikishi, Umaga, the Usos.

The Rock's grandfather, Peter Maivia.

His dream come true, and he's making my dream and also his family proud.

The first time I ever saw Roman Reigns was in 1988 in Panama City, Florida,

his father, Sika, was wrestling for the Continental Wrestling Federation.

And he brought Roman into the locker room, holding his little boy by the

and you could just tell the charisma of this three -year -old.

First time I...

Laid eyes on him. Good -looking kid.

Seeker was so proud of him. So proud of him.

Joe was a big cousin, man.

Came up from the sandbox for real. Like, for real, grew up together.

Like, maybe three, four years old and met each other.

They're very close.

They help each other out. They grew up together.

That's a big cousin right there. Roman Reigns is the big dog.

Big cousin. I'm not surprised where he's at today.

There's Joe.

That was always my thing is, I'm going to play football.

D1, that's the step, and then NFL.

It didn't go that way.

From Pensacola, Florida, weighing 265 pounds, Roman Reigns!

And I did go right into the family business, but the mindset was still the

Carved my own path within the path of our family.

Powerful throwdown!

For the win!

Roman Reigns, very early on, was felt as if he had that chosen one light placed

upon him.

When I talked to Triple H, you know, he was explaining to me Roman's background.

They had their eye on him to be the guy if he could step into that mold, you

know, and find himself.

2015, all I cared about was being the last man standing.

In the Royal Rumble, every two minutes or so, another superstar enters the

match. When it comes down to it, you have to eliminate everyone.

You are the last surviving superstar in the ring. You win the Royal Rumble.

The winner goes to WrestleMania to face the WWE champion.

The crowd wasn't digging me too much that night. They

booed.

There was tension in the room, and it wasn't the good tension.

They did not want Roman to win, and the energy in the arena was just so... I

don't know, there was just something about that many people being angry at

same time.

It's not what the crowd wanted.

The last image of that Royal Rumble, though, is the show ending with The Rock

raising Roman's hand, and the crowd just booing.

To hell with the crowd.

There was a bigger plan going forward.

It was a

story about respect.

That's been my whole career.

The same night that Roman Reigns

wins the Royal Rumble, Brock Lesnar successfully,

Defends the WWE Championship.

Brock has just a completely different

aura to him. With Brock, you're about to be in a really physical match.

It's like magic watching these two.

Roman believed in himself enough, and he's solid as a rock, man.

I'm going to beat you at WrestleMania.

I'm going to take that title.

You know it.

I know it.

Everybody knows how dangerous Brock is, but Roman steps right up to him and he's

more than an equal.

He's more than an equal.

And, you know, they come at each other like two bulldozers, two pit bulls.

I don't respect you.

They both believe it.

But you will.

So I believe it.

It's funny because it started back in 2015. And we were just completely

different competitors at that point. I was still so young. I was still so fresh

on the scene.

Trying to take, earn respect.

Roman Reigns is great. Is he great enough to beat Brock Lesnar?

And if I couldn't get it from Brock that day, I knew I wasn't ever going to be

able to get it from our audience.

We're always looking for a storied rivalry.

Hogan versus Macho.

Austin versus Rock.

Roman Reigns versus Brock Lesnar.

Here we go.

Brock Lesnar. When you're in the ring with Brock.

If there's any softness about you, it's going to be exposed real quick.

Wow. And now, again, German duplex to Roman Reigns.

Lesnar wants to punish Reigns.

I don't care who my opponents are.

I got one job to do and one job only, and that's to kick ass.

I think going into it, I think we could all agree a lot of people paid a lot of

money to see Brock kick the shit out of me.

That was one of the first times I could really feel the crowd turn.

But if you were out there in the middle of that storm.

We could feel that energy change. I could feel that respect coming through

performance.

We have a little something called Money in the Bank, which allows the winner of

that match to cash in for the world championship whenever they'd like. And

this instance, it was Seth Rollins running in and making the match a triple

threat. Mr. Money in the Bank!

I'm watching Brock Lesnar beat the hell out of Roman Reigns.

Ladies and gentlemen, Seth Rollins is cashing in his Money in the Bank.

I ran in.

made their first encounter at WrestleMania a little bit better.

Taking no chances here at all.

Bring the broccoli.

There's not a lot of human beings can say that.

Sorry.

And my only goal was to be able to show that no matter the mountain, I'm willing

to climb.

Did I get the job done tonight? No.

Did I represent?

In my heart, I feel like I did.

It was hard to think like, oh, we're about to do this for a few years.

I was just extremely grateful for the opportunity.

And then the outcome, I think I saw Bret Hart later that night, and he was like,

instant classic.

I didn't know if this was going to be what it has ended up becoming, but I

off of that it was special. It was very special.

This match doesn't give you an end to their rivalry.

In fact, it's the very beginning.

I think they kind of knew that...

There's legs to this. This isn't going to be the end of the story. This is

to be the beginning of these are our two guys, right? We got Brock.

We got Roman.

We're probably going to have a 10 -year story here they're going to go after.

In the years that followed their match at WrestleMania 31, both Brock Lesnar

Roman Reigns continued to grow.

Roman Reigns beating some of the top superstars in the WWE.

Brock Lesnar becoming the Universal Champion.

beating guys like Goldberg.

But even with all this going on, you knew in the back of your head that these

two were bound to meet again.

Brock Lesnar is an entitled piece of crap.

My family and my bloodline is this business.

I don't respect Brock Lesnar.

And I damn sure don't fear that bitch.

You take a guy like Brock, Who had done it all.

He brought so much knowledge and experience with him.

You put me with somebody like that.

Give it to me. Give me it all. You know what I mean? I'm going to take a lot of

it. At WrestleMania, Roman Reigns isn't man enough to take the

universal title away from the reigning, defending

heavyweight champion.

Oh, my God. He's here.

Roman Reigns is here.

At the end of the day, I knew this is my time. You know what I mean? I've done

everything the right way.

This is my time.

And Reigns and Lester just clean Reigns' clock.

Oh, and Reigns driving Lester face first into the pub.

And this time it's a five!

Ripped first to the death!

It comes down to this.

It is WrestleMania.

Will it be Reigns?

Or will it be Lesnar?

Tonight is the biggest night of the year because this is WrestleMania.

I'm not here to be lost in the mix.

I'm here to make a statement.

You can't help but to get excited.

The rivalry gets halted for a few years, then comes back full speed at the

biggest stage, WrestleMania 34.

Where, yet again, Roman Reigns is able to get to the top of the mountain, but

there's one guy there and there's only room for one.

Oh, there was a lot of tension going into WrestleMania 34.

Brock, with UFC calling, beckoning for his return.

Roman Reigns, with the entire WWE Universe watching him.

The following contest is for the Universal Championship!

It comes down to that in the locker room as well.

Like, is Brock going to win the title and then just disappear for six months?

Is he going to be a part -time guy that wants to go do UFC fight?

But when it comes to Roman, anticipation is there. Can

this kid deliver against one of the best?

That might have been one of the most critical days of my career.

To be able to handle that adversity.

I've always found.

In every Brock match, there's just a different feeling.

I don't know what it is. There's just a certain element of danger that he brings

to the show and a match in general. You just don't know what can happen.

What is Brock going to do next?

Oh, my God.

Brock Lesnar used his elbow and cut the head open of Roman Reigns.

What happens out there with Brock, he's a big old boy.

Sometimes he gets split open.

Everyone

thought

Roman Reigns was finally going to slay the beast, that he was finally going to

win the Universal Championship.

And it didn't happen. The reign continues!

That was one of those really tough days.

Every inch of you physically, every fiber of you mentally,

that's the only way to get to the top and stay on top.

And that's why I do what I do, and I'm not going to stop.

I'm not going to stop until I've earned that respect.

Four years that Roman Reigns has tried to shake this burden. No, that's Brock

Lesnar.

It's time for Brock Lesnar to go.

I'm sick of hearing about him. I'm sick of talking about him. I'm sick of

looking at him. I'm tired of it. So it ends this Sunday at SummerSlam.

Welcome, everybody, to SummerSlam.

He's sacrificed enough blood, enough sweat, enough tears on that canvas.

And it's time for him to get the championship over the man he's never

How do you achieve the impossible?

How do you beat the beast?

How do you take what belongs to Brock Lesnar?

Brock is stunned.

Brock's in trouble.

And Reigns is a spear to the champion.

Reigns did it. Roman Reigns did it. Reigns is a champion.

I can't believe it.

Roman Reigns finally did it.

This really was that career defining moment.

And it was that culmination of the fans finally getting on board with Roman

Reigns and really having that full circle moment.

Those times where I was like, why did I do that? Why did I put my body through

that? Why do I continue to abuse myself?

This is why.

As crazy as it sounds, man, outside of my health, my family, this is

the biggest thing in my world.

Just that moment.

Highest of highs.

So none of this crap really matters anymore.

Real life is happening now.

And we're kicking things off with the universal champion.

At that time, he is essentially the guy, right? And no idea anything was wrong.

And then just in a blink of an eye, just shows how quickly things can change.

I feel like I owe everybody an apology.

Come out here and spoke as Roman reign.

That's all lie.

My real name is Joe.

And I've been living with leukemia for 11 years.

And unfortunately, it's back.

This story gets halted in the most brutal way possible.

As on national TV, Roman comes out and he has that infamous promo where he

I'm just a guy named Joe.

And he tells the world that he has leukemia.

This was brutal for whether you loved Roman or not. You loved

what he brought to the table. And anyone you have love for when they get sick.

It hurts. It feels personal.

And it takes him away from us for quite some time while he's dealing with that.

The last thing I ever wanted to see was my white blood cell count to be over 100

,000 again.

Where I'm at now, the main thing is just to continue to take my medication.

This is a lifelong medication. It's oral chemotherapy.

I know that I'm extremely lucky.

just based off the research and the different advancements that we've made

medicine.

Whether I'm the face of the company or an integral part of this business, that

wasn't necessarily a concern. It was literally just, can I do my job again?

Can I be what I was or who I was? And most importantly, can I continue to grow

from this huge chunk of adversity that's in my way?

Anytime you have to relinquish the biggest title in our business, you're

to want that back.

And I, 100%, I wanted my stuff back, you know.

Please welcome, Rovin Reigns!

I'm probably going to say this a lot, but I'm going to start off by saying,

thank you.

When I made my announcement, I said that I was going to swing for the fences.

We did better than that, y 'all.

I'm in remission, y 'all.

And we echo the sentiments of the WWE Universe.

This is your yard.

Welcome back, Roman Reign.

We're kind of short.

We're short, right? Yeah.

Beautiful.

Nice.

When I came back, I was just floating.

You know, still the big dog, still doing my thing.

There was almost like a honeymoon phase of like, yeah, we can't go hard on this

guy. And I was just not satisfied creatively.

When he's able to come back, we then have the pandemic.

And because of a compromised immune system, he now has to step away again.

I went into the hole. I went back to the lab.

You're going to sit here and be one of the boys or you're going to be a

megastar. Let's do something that's never been done before.

There's this moment after Roman Reigns returns that the camera pans out and we

see the truth.

Believe.

Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman had been aligned for something like two decades

this point. But Paul Heyman and Roman Reigns are now working together.

Roman Reigns has won the Universal Championship.

He went from the big dog to the tribal chief.

He went from being the best of this generation to the greatest of all time.

Just like that.

Now the whole world can acknowledge me.

He doesn't want affirmation or love or respect. He wants it all.

Man, it's like putting a wild dog in a damn kennel.

Came back a different Roman, and you can see it, so you can feel it.

When he comes back, he's not the same Roman Reigns.

And he's not a Roman Reigns that wants you to cheer for him.

He's a Roman Reigns that demands your respect.

The person that helped bring this together was Paul Heyman.

As we had seen this union between Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman, Brock Lesnar was

nowhere in sight.

Having Paul Heyman in my corner is a 100 % advantage for me.

I'm tough enough to deal with by myself.

You put us... There ain't nobody back here that has a chance.

The man who's on a different level, the tribal chief.

Roman Reigns with a spin.

And just like that, Roman Reigns will repay the championship.

Roman Reigns took John Cena's best shot.

What?

Oh, my God.

What? Oh, my God. Are you kidding me?

Brock. Brock. Brock is here.

Yeah.

He's back!

It's WWE!

The alpha male of our species!

At SummerSlam, after Roman Reigns defeated me, I'm sitting there and I

Brock's music play.

Like, he's not supposed to be here, and you can hear it in the audience, too.

That was awesome.

I mean, what a moment that I'll never, ever forget.

But I had no idea that was happening. Almost passed out in that moment when it

happened. I was like, oh my, like, losing my mind.

That stare down was a different one than I had ever experienced

with him before.

It was finally like, respect, I know exactly who you are, what you've done,

where you come from, but like, I'm the man now.

This rivalry was back on.

and bigger than it had ever been.

It somehow got even grander when Brock Lesnar went to the day one event.

And Brock Lesnar, now a part of the Fatal 5 -Way, here live tonight.

And captured the WWE Championship.

Brock gets the WWE Championship.

Roman Reigns is in possession of the Universal Championship.

And now we have two champions, and it sets up the perfect match, which is a

unification match.

Why don't we give everybody what they want?

Title versus title.

During that time, Brock comes out, and he loves the people.

He loves that they're screaming his name. He's got the samurai knot.

He's got the cowboy hat. He's smiling. He's feeling good.

Newsflash, Paul.

Brock Lesnar is doing just fine without Paul Heyman.

For years, he was just this mute beast that Heyman would bring out. And because

Heyman then switched sides, we got to see what Brock was really like. And it

gave him new life.

At this point in his career, Brock felt it appropriate to let people in on what

he's like at home.

And it's a whole lot different than the beast that we've all come to know in the

past 20 years.

Real -life Brock Lesnar is just a flannel -wearing, jean -wearing, cowboy

-wearing guy that loves to go out and farm and be with his family.

That's it.

I'm frizzled. I've been through wars.

And it builds confidence and character.

So that's who I am now. I'm confident with who I am and what I've

This Sunday at WrestleMania, they will chant your new

reigning, defending, unified heavyweight champion of the world.

Welcome to the most stupid.

I've been in these situations many times, but this one has a little more

to it.

This match is billed as the greatest WrestleMania match of all time. It's a

title versus title unification match.

Everything that I've done, it's not there if I don't go out there.

Showcase why I'm the greatest of all time. Showcase why I'm the very best in

this industry.

Have you ever seen a champion as dominant as Roman Reigns?

No, sir, I have not.

Roman Reigns has achieved and exists in God mode.

But this is beyond supremacy.

Tonight is a battle for immortality.

And there is the beast.

WrestleMania 38 gives Roman an opportunity to have the kind of match

would normally have.

It was his time to shine.

Roman Reigns. And Roman Reigns now locked and loaded. And now Roman

Reigns is rolling.

I'm the greatest of all time.

At the time, it was the last one, and it was going for all the

marbles.

So you wanted to see, all right, this rivalry has

been through many years and many machinations.

Now one of them is going to come out as the man, the undisputed.

Unified Champion.

And Reigns with another spear and survival mode. Cover for the win.

He got it.

And Roman Reigns is the undisputed WWE and Universal

Champion.

Roman, what he was able to accomplish and what he was able to do and how

dominant he has been, it immediately puts him in the conversation of greatest

all time.

We're lucky to be able to experience watching him catapult to the top.

And then there's been this two -decade enigma, almost, that

is Brock Lesnar.

It didn't feel maxed yet. It was almost one of those deals where, like,

Man, do we have one more?

The Beast is back!

I knew there was still meat on the bone.

An incredible atmosphere here tonight at Nissan Stadium.

For 680 days, Roman Reigns has been a champion.

He said it's one last trip to the island of relevancy.

Before I send Brock to the farm for good.

Tonight, I'm approaching this like I approach anything athletic in my life.

I'm coming out the wing tonight.

I'm a fighter. I'm a farmer.

And a badass big cowboy.

Now get the f*** out of here.

You know, every generation you have a few guys, when they come out, it's

different from everybody else on the card.

Roman's like that. Brock's like that. It feels different when they walk out. It

feels like a prize fight.

Where is Lesnar going?

Brock Lesnar is bringing the farm to SummerSlam.

Look at the smile on Lesnar's face.

He is driving a tractor.

The peanut butter needs jelly.

Feels like Roman and Brock are the two that just have been running concurrently

against each other.

Lucky to be a fan of this era.

The following contest is a last man standing match.

Oh, my God.

Didn't waste any time. Off the tractor and we're underway. Last man standing.

This is going to be ugly. The only rule, keep your opponent down for the count

of ten.

Lesnar is savoring this.

You have Cowboy Brock, Tribal Chief. I mean, we're completely locked into who

are. To be able to do it this many times on that many stadium shows.

To me, this is where me and Brock showed we're so much better than everybody

else.

Who knows what sort of horrible ideas Lesnar had in his mind. Lesnar just

him into that front loader. And now Lesnar is taking out the track.

God almighty, what the hell is Lesnar doing?

Anything he wants.

This isn't my first rodeo.

You know, I wear a cowboy hat because I'm a cowboy.

I farm, I ranch.

This is Brock Lesnar.

Lesnar slipped it up the ring with no range in it.

Brock Lesnar just slipped in the ring.

We showcase what a sports entertainer looks like. To be able to take that

of physicality, that level of brutality and violence, and then to entertain and

have showmanship.

There's just so many elements to it that just...

It showcased greatness in my opinion.

It's over.

Reigns retains.

Roman Reigns. It took the Usos. It took Paul Heyman.

It took every piece of equipment in ringside to bury the damn beast and for

Roman Reigns to continue his historic championship reign.

To me, it was by far their best match they've ever had.

They found a way to make all the chaos work to really make it seem like Brock

overcame a lot and ultimately couldn't overcome anymore.

The ring is a mess. It's still propped up from the bulldozer.

And Brock does something that I've never seen.

He climbs to the top of this broken ring, up where the bucket of the tractor

and he thanks the fans.

Looks on the cowboy hat and lets them know that, yeah, this was for you.

I think that that was Brock's way of saying this chapter may be closed for

now, and see you on down the road.

I don't think that there was anybody really except for Brock Lesnar to make

Roman Reigns the star that he is.

I can't think of anybody else really that could have been in that spot to get

Roman Reigns to catapult him to this superstardom.

When this all first started with Roman,

He was a young man.

You just know when somebody has it, and I think he's a special talent.

I'm really proud of Roman for the work that he's put in.

Obviously, the struggles that he's had personally with his health, it's really

testament to his passion for this business.

I think it's really cool to see somebody become great looking at how Brock

stepped up and figured this business out.

And so does Roman.

They both look dangerous.

I love watching. If one of these guys are going to wrestle, I'll make sure I

watch that match.

No one will ever do what Brock has done. And then you have someone like me who

is just so focused and locked in on this world, the WWE world, pro wrestling,

sports entertainment.

Two elite level, once in a lifetime, once in a generation performers that

completely different backgrounds and upbringings and different journeys.

But we are able to get to the same peak of the same mountain, you know, just

from different sides.

That's our legacy.