Bully Ray Recalls Brock Lesnar Being Terrified In First WWE Singles Match

Take one look at Brock Lesnar, and it's easy to understand why he's one of the most intimidating performers to ever step through the ropes. The term "scary strong" comes to mind, and for years WWE fans have seen examples of that, whether it's throwing The Big Show around like a bag of birdseed or scooping up Mark Henry as easily as a child. Wrestling a veteran Lesnar is probably unnerving enough, but facing him in rookie form was likely a whole different level of unease.

On "Busted Open Radio," Bully Ray got candid about how challenging it was to wrestle a very powerful — and very green — Lesnar. "Brock just came on the scene," Bully recalled. "The office came to me, and they said, 'Bubba, this is going to be the guy. Do as much as you can with him. Educate him as much as you can [for] his first-ever singles run." Bully remembered being on the receiving end of an errant throw from Lesnar during a house show in Pennsylvania. 

"[Brock] gave me an overhead belly-to-belly suplex and dumped me on my head, [and] he got terrified in that moment ... I immediately got back up and threw myself into Brock and said 'Do it again.' And he's like, "No, no, no" because he did not want to hurt me. [But] I knew that in that moment, if I did not have Brock throw me again ... he would wind up being skittish, and possibly be in a Ridge Holland situation." Bully was referencing the 2022 incident in which Holland accidentally broke Big E's neck with a botched overhead suplex. It led many to label Holland unsafe, and Big E has not wrestled since. "You don't want another wrestler to become skittish," Bully reiterated. "If you fall off the horse, you gotta get right back on the horse."