When Brock Lesnar began his career in WWE, he was billed as the “Next Big Thing.”
Speaking on the “Tetragrammaton” with Rick Rubin podcast, Paul Heyman revealed that Vince McMahon initially hated the nickname and didn’t believe it would work.
Paul E. revealed that McMahon was under the impression that the fans would “vomit all over” the name. Of course, he wound up backtracking on that claim.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On what he told Vince McMahon about Brock Lesnar: “I think he’s ‘The Next Big Thing’ and I think we are screwing this up.”
On the Next Big Thing nickname: “[Vince said], ‘That’s terrible. Why would you call him that?’”
On the nickname getting over: “It had caught on, and people in production meetings were saying ‘next big thing, next big thing, Brock Lesnar’s the next big thing.’ JR’s written on his notes ‘Brock Lesnar’s the next big thing,’ and Vince started to realize ‘maybe this is catchier than I thought it was.’”
