WWE SUMMER SLAM 2016

WWE SummerSlam 2016: Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Orton is a matchup 14 years in the making

                WWE.com

It’s a battle between legends, and while they aren’t new, the matchup and its meaning are both new and overdue.

If you’re excited about all the newness in WWE during the self-proclaimed (and so-far-delivering) "New Era," Randy Orton vs. Brock Lesnar might be disappointing to you. It could sound like a slapped-together match of two dudes with nothing else going on in WWE at the moment. That’s simplifying things to the point of being unfair, though: Lesnar and Orton are two of the most important wrestlers in WWE, in terms of both present-day appeal and legacy, and they’ve never had a significant feud before despite their decade-spanning wrestling careers.

Yes, they’re both well-established superstars, and they’ve accomplished everything you can in a wrestling career — except topple the other during one of the main events at a high-profile event like SummerSlam. This upcoming battle between the two is something that would have gone down years and years ago, if not for a little thing like Lesnar leaving WWE — and then wrestling — entirely.

Before we get into that, though, a trip through history is necessary. WWE is just beginning a brand split, with RAWand SmackDown possessing distinct rosters, story lines and championships. This isn’t the first brand split, though, and in the previous one, there were two major WWE championships. The World Heavyweight Championship was in the style of the big gold belt from the WCW and before that, Ric Flair’s days in the NWA — it’s important to note that it only had the style, though, as the actual WCW Championship had been unified with WWE’s own after Vince McMahon bought the failing WCW. That championship, which had the combined legacy of Ric Flair, Sting, Booker T, Stone Cold, Bret Hart and The Rock, was the WWE Championship.

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Randy Orton is the youngest World Heavyweight champion in the history of the company. He first won the title at SummerSlam in 2004 at just 24 years old — he’d go on to win WWE’s major titles a combined 12 times, with three more World Heavyweight Championship reigns along with eight WWE Championship runs. The last of those reigns actually saw him unify the two belts into today’s version of the WWE Championship, currently held by Dean Ambrose — that decision is the reasonRAW is now introducing its own major championship, the Universal belt, but let’s not digress too far.

Brock Lesnar is the youngest WWE Championship holder in the history of the company. In fact, at 25, he won his first WWE Championship at SummerSlam in 2002 just five months after he debuted — two years before Orton’s first major championship. Less than two years later, Lesnar would leave the WWE before any kind of youngest champion vs. youngest champion match could even become a thought in anyone’s head.

Lesnar was leaving to attempt a career in the NFL. He hadn’t played football since high school, yet the Minnesota Vikings signed him for the preseason and cut him before the regular season began. You know how everyone is laughing at Tim Tebow’s chances at even making it in the low minors after not playing baseball since high school?Lesnar was invited to play in NFL Europe to hone his skills after his run in the preseason, but instead, went back to wrestling, this time in Japan. There, he became one of the few Americans to ever win New Japan’s IWGP Heavyweight Championship, and then he moved on to the UFC, their Heavyweight Championship and eventually a return to WWE in 2012.

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Brock has destroyed everyone he’s come into contact with since. Triple H, John Cena and Undertaker all picked up victories on him, sure, but Lesnar won each feud in the end, and in some cases absolutely annihilated his opponents in a way you don’t normally see in wrestling. Now, it’s time for Orton and Lesnar to face off, in large part because it’s the first opportunity where they’ve been able to.

Orton was in WWE Championship feuds when Lesnar was aiming his destruction elsewhere. Lesnar was holding the title while Orton was otherwise occupied or injured. Now, both are in WWE, both are healthy and we’ll finally get the clash of the company’s youngest-ever champions in a major event that we never got to see over a decade ago when we likely would have.

There are few worlds left for Lesnar to conquer. He’s a four-time WWE Champion with some of the most dominant reigns in company history. He’s excelled outside of WWE on both a professional and amateur level, and not even necessarily while wrestling. He’s taken down the likes of Cena, Triple H, Taker and more, and there are no legends necessarily left for him to beat. Sure, AJ Styles or Samoa Joe or Shinsuke Nakamara would all be amazing, new experiences, but as incredible as all three are, they don’t have the WWE-specific legend cred of Orton or those other names above. Lesnar, if not in the title picture, at least needs to be fighting his equals. And Orton is the only one around who hasn’t proven he’s anything but Lesnar’s equal yet.

This match isn’t all about the conquering Beast, though, as Orton could absolutely win this thing. You don’t get into a main event with Lesnar without being capable, and Orton’s accolades speak for themselves. His finisher, the RKO, is one of the most popular, if not the most popular finishers in wrestling, and it’s certainly capable of felling even the largest of Jimmy John’s sandwich monsters, no matter how many times said monster hoists you up in a suplex and violently throws you across the ring.

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That’s what helps make this match so appealing: not only is it new given history and timing didn’t allow it to happen previously, but the outcome is unknown. It’s rare that you don’t feel like you know who is going to win a Lesnar match — he is, after all, Brock Lesnar — but both wrestlers could use this as a launch point for greater things down the road. Lesnar is 39. Orton is 36. They both still have championship runs left in them but they don’t have all the time in the world, and as the former is on RAW and the latter is onSmackDown, both could easily use this match as evidence that an opportunity for such a run should happen sooner than later.

Even outside of future championship aspirations, there’s something to be said about one legend facing another, especially when both excel at taking down other legends. Orton even had a gimmick based around the idea in his younger years, as the Legend Killer, and all Lesnar has done since arriving in WWE is tear the main event apart one piece at a time. What happens when the Legend Killer and the Beast face off against each other? This is some unstoppable force vs. immovable object action right here, and we’re going to find out which can go harder.

Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Orton has meaning, in terms of their legacy, the brands they currently represent and what it means for the future of both. You can argue that either will or should win, and both seem fired up about the chance to lay into each other this coming Sunday. You can’t ask for much more than that from a main event. No, these aren’t two shiny new wrestlers, months removed from training in NXT or heralded work overseas, but they both have plenty to offer and somehow, after all these years, just as much to prove. That’s all you need, and really, it’s more than enough.