Ask 411 Wrestling: How Many Non-Singles Matches Has Brock Lesnar Had?

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Through Hel Stryer and brimstone . . . it’s Ask 411 Wrestling!

I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and I am here to answer some of your burning inquiries about professional wrestling. If you have one of those queries searing a hole in your brain, feel free to send it along to me at [email protected]. Don’t be shy about shooting those over – the more, the merrier.

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Joseph from White Oak, Texas is a lone wolf:

Got an interesting one that comes to mind…with respect to the upcoming hoss battle coming up at Wrestlemania:

How many non-single matches has Brock Lesnar wrestled ever?

I actually answered a similar question to this back in 2002, when a guy named Father Smurf asked when Lesnar’s last tag team match was. At that time, it was either on March 12, 2016 if you counted a handicap match as a tag team match or February 19, 2006 if you were counting only straight, two-on-two tag matches.

In an update to Father Smurf’s question, if you count War Games as a tag team match, then Brock’s most recent tag match was November 29, 2025 at the Survivor Series. If you don’t consider War Games a tag team match, then my answer form 2022 is still accurate.

However, Joseph didn’t ask when Brock’s last tag match was. He asked how many non-singles matches he’s had over the course of his career.

Of course, as with Father Smurf’s 2022 question, some of this will depend on what you want to consider a singles match. I’ve seen some people count a triple threat match as a singles match because it’s in the singles division as opposed to the tag team division, but I’ve also seen some people refer only to one-on-one, two man matches when they use the term “singles match.”

For purposes of this answer, I’ll be counting all of Lesnar’s matches that aren’t just straight one-on-one bouts. If your criteria differ, you can just delete the items you don’t agree with.

First and foremost, when Brock Lensar was in developmental with Ohio Valley Wrestling, he was primarily a tag team wrestler with his partner Shelton Benjamin in the Minnesota Stretching Crew. Before his main roster TV debut, Brock had 34 tag team matches. Most of those were with Shelton, but he also worked quite a few house shows and dark matches at TV tapings where he teamed with other developmental talent, most frequently Ron Waterman but also sometimes Randy Orton or Leviathan (the man who would later become Dave Batista.)

After his WWF television debut on March 18, 2002, Brock had a handful of non-singles matches. Throughout 2002, he had 11 tag team matches, 3 handicap matches, and 2 triple threat matches, bringing his non-singles match count up to 50.

In 2003, his first and really only full year on the WWE roster, Lesnar had 24 tag team matches, 22 handicap matches, 15 triple threat matches, and 1 Royal Rumble appearance, which takes the total from 50 to 112. If you’re wondering why there were so many handicap matches, it’s because there was a house show run of handicap matches with Paul Heyman and either A-Train or Big Show facing Lesnar, another house show run with Lesnar and the Undertaker against three members of the FBI, and several handicap matches involving Team Angle against Lesnar and various allies.

In 2004, Brock was only wrestling from January 1 through Wrestlemania in mid-March. During that time, he had 3 tag team matches, 2 triple threat matches, and 1 handicap match, giving us a new total of 118.

In 2006, Lesnar wrestled exclusively for New Japan Pro Wrestling, and they booked him in one triple threat and one tag team match, so the total is now 120.

As to the rest of his professional wrestling career, Lesnar had 2 triple threat matches in 2015; 1 Royal Rumble, 1 triple threat, and 2 handicap matches in 2016; 1 Royal Rumble and 1 four-way in 2017; 3 triple threats in 2018; 1 Money in the Bank match in 2019; 1 Royal Rumble in 2020; 1 five-way, 1 Royal Rumble, and 1 Elimination Chamber in 2022; 1 War Games match in 2025; and 1 Royal Rumble in 2026.

That puts our final total at 138.

Big Al is at long last being inducted into the Ask 411 Hall of Fame:

Why did Demolition break up? Also, why would they turn Smash into Repo Man, basically a heel jobber and turn Crush into a Hawaiian diver, who was basically a little above Repo Man? They took two of the men of one of the greatest tag teams and turned them into not so great characters.

According to various shoot interviews that the members of Demolition have done over the years, the gimmick was done away with because the WWF signed the Road Warriors, and there wasn’t a need for both teams of the roster as they filled basically the same role. (Plus, Demolition had been around for four years and had multiple tag title reigns, so you could argue that they’d run their course.)

Bill Eadie, who was Demolition Ax, claimed he had been promised a role as a road agent but left the company when that promise was not followed through on.

Barry Darsow, who was Demolition Smash, has stated in shoot interviews that the Repo Man gimmick actually came from a conversation he had with Vince McMahon about what he would do in a post-Demolition world. Darsow had legitimately worked as a repo man before he got into wrestling, and when he mentioned that to McMahon, the rest was history. Darsow also said in a shoot that he was willing to take on a role where he put other wrestlers over as opposed to being a major star, because the way he saw it he got pushed as a top guy as soon as he debuted and had people making him look good for years, so it was his turn to give back.

Though a lot of people seem to remember Brian Adams, who was Demolition Crush, turning babyface and becoming overtly Hawaiian as soon as Demolition broke up, he actually left the WWF for about nine months and went back to working in the Portland territory, where he had been a star early in his career. According to Adams’ Wrestling Observer Newsletter obituary in 2007, he was sent away from the WWF following Demolition’s breakup with an understanding that the company would bring him back in the relatively near future once they had come up with a new role for him.

In a fun bit of trivia, Crush and the Repo Man actually feuded in 1992, including a match at that year’s Summerslam in Wembley Stadium. Their history as a team was never acknowledged.

Jace is here and gone:

In early 2009, Hade Vansen appeared on Smackdown in pre-taped vignettes once or twice, then never again. I read somewhere he was going to play a Gothic character and feud with the Undertaker. What happened for him to come and go so quickly without ever debuting live?

First off, I feel the need to point out that even though “Hade Vansen” sounds like it came out of the WWE name generator, this is actually a ring name this guy had from the very beginning of his career in 2001.

Vansen came out of the British independent scene and started to get some international exposure in 2006. First, he became a featured performer in Nu Wrestling Evolution, a promotion booked by Rikishi in Italy and other parts of Europe which drew big crowds for a time by bringing in former WWE stars to headline. Vansen was one of several European wrestlers brought in to round out the NWE cards. The same year, he was brought in to IWA Puerto Rico where he was part of a tag team called the British Militia. Who was his partner in that tag team? The decidedly not British Jon Moxley.

In 2007, he was signed to a WWE developmental deal and reported to Florida Championship Wrestling. According to the newsletters at the time, his hiring was part of an effort to bring in several European wrestlers for an eventual WWE “territory” that would be launched on that continent, an idea that got floated a couple of times before we ultimately got NXT UK in late 2016. (And look at how successful that was.) Also in the class of Europeans signed at the time were Sheamus and the man now known as Wade Barrett, which makes Vansen’s washing out in the company seem all the more perplexing.

On December episodes of WWE Smackdown, a pre-taped vignette featuring Vansen aired. In it, he talked about studying the darkness and delivering on a prophecy in addition to having others who would walk with him. There were graphic effects before and after the vignette that made it look as though Vansen’s message was cutting in to the normal Smackdown video feed as opposed to being part of it, and initially there was no comment made by the announcers on either side of the pre-tape.

Based on Vansen’s comments, even fans who had no idea what was going on behind the scenes surmised that he was going to have something to do with the Undertaker and that he was going to have a crew of wrestlers join him . . . and both of those items of speculation turned out to be true based on backstage stories that later came out.

Based on newsletter reports that were published at the time as well as interviews with creative team members and Vansen himself that have come out in later years, the plan was in fact for him to lead a stable. Names for additional members of the stable that floated around were Black Pain, a Puerto Rican wrestler who was also known as Sweet Papi Sanchez in FCW, and ECW’s resident vampire Kevin Thorn. (Speaking of bad ring names, how goofy a gimmick is a vampire named Kevin?)

There were also at least some in the company who were of the belief that Vansen would or should face the Undertaker at Wrestlemania XXV, with the storyline perhaps even going as far as Hade being revealed as Taker’s son.

Actor Freddie Prinze Jr. of Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed fame was contributing to the WWE creative team at the time, and apparently he was a big proponent of the Vansen push. According to interviews Prinze has done, the reason that the Vansen angle got dropped was that Triple H didn’t like the notion of somebody being fast-tracked from developmental to immediately face one of the company’s largest stars at Mania and he said as much to Vince McMahon, who immediately put the kibosh on the whole thing.

Is it a coincidence that the 2009 Mania match with the Undertaker wound up going to HHH’s good buddy Shawn Michaels?

. . . maybe.

In an interesting side note, Vansen in interviews has also said that his being put into this role upset Kevin the Vampire, because Thorne allegedly pitched the idea for himself originally, only for the creative team to take it and make Vansen the centerpiece instead.

Without any clear role in the company, Hade Vansen was cut from developmental in January 2009.

Despite his devoting seven years to wrestling, his release from WWE was also the end of his time in the “sport.” After leaving wrestling, Vansen decided to embark on an acting career. He has 24 credits on IMDB under his real name, Hadrian Howard. Though he has not had a major role in anything of note, he has had background or other small parts in some very large productions, including Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, the 2017 version of The Mummy, and Sons of Anarchy.

Tyler from Winnipeg wants a billionaire buddy:

Did Donald Trump ever hang out with Ted Turner?

They certainly knew each other and were in some respects part of the same circles, but based on what I’ve been able to find they haven’t had much of a relationship, positive or negative. The biggest story regarding an interaction between the two men that I could find was this snippet from the Chicago Tribune in 1988, in which it was reported that Turner’s TNT cable station was planning to produce a made-for-TV movie that would be a biopic of Trump, based on The Art of the Deal. However, the movie never actually materialized.

Turner did endorse Hillary Clinton over Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election, for whatever that is worth.

Jeff just caught his own pass:

Your recent answer to a question sharing that Curt Hennig was in talks to be revealed as the masked man who attacked Hogan in ’94 got me wondering about his on-again, off-again relationship with the then-WWF in the mid-90s. He disappeared right before Survivor Series ’93, showed up as a guest ref at Wrestlemania X and was set to resume his feud with Lex Luger but then abruptly vanished again, and then came back as a commentator/friend of Triple H around early ’96, then was finally off to WCW. What was the story behind all these stop-starts in those years?

Regarding the November 1993 departure, it is interesting because the November 8 and November 15, 1993 editions of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter say that Hennig had missed some of his recent WWF bookings because he needed time off to address “family problems,” though the 11/15 Observer says despite those issues one would expect him to be at the Survivor Series. However, he obviously didn’t appear at the pay per view, and the December 6 Observer went on to report that fans should not expect to see him back anytime soon and that he was sitting out because he was upset after being passed over for an Intercontinental Title reign.

He remained under contract to the WWF for that entire time (despite there being rumors he would go to WCW), so when he came back at Wrestlemania in 1994 it was really just a matter of the situation that upset him being smoothed over as opposed to a new deal being reached.

Regarding his departure shortly after Wrestlemania X, I covered that in more detail back in 2024, but the short version is that he was injured for a time and then had a dispute over pay.

In 1996, his departure really just came down to money, as he got a large offer from WCW according to the November 16, 1996 Pro Wrestling Torch.

Last week, I attempted to rank every feud Hulk Hogan had during his 1984 to 1993 WWF run. This week, long-time reader Donny from Allentown, PA wants to weigh in on an omission from that list:

I thought your list was fantastic and I totally agree with your choice of Randy “Macho Man “Savage being number one overall. I do however have to bring to your attention one very glaring exclusion and that would be the Honky Tonk Man. When Honky first came in the company in late 1986 he claimed to be a good friend of Hogan’s. I do believe Hulk Hogan even endorsed him on television in an interview-no doubt trying to get him over as a huge babyface. When the crowd didn’t respond well to Honky Tonk Man he cemented his heel turn on a non televised house show at the Meadowlands in Dec of 1986. He interfered-following a match between Hogan and Savage and made it looks like he was there to aid Hogan when in fact he helped Savage double team Hogan. This lead to the tag match with Savage and Honky vs. Hogan and Ricky Steamboat from Jan 1987 that you can find almost anywhere. Not to mention Honky Tonk Man being the catalyst for the Mega-Powers formation later that year which lead to a few of Mega Powers vs Hart Foundation/Honky Tonk Man handicap matches around the circuit. Honky also challenged Hogan to a title vs. title match during a Survivor Series interview and wound up wrestling Hogan one on one during a July 1989 Saturday Day Nights Main Event. You said about Hulk & Koko vs. Honky & Kamala being bizarre tag team match. That was the result of Honky Tonk Man dressing up as Kim Chee (Kamala’s handler) during a Saturday Nights Main Event match between Kamala and Jake Roberts and attacking Jake. The payoff match was supposed to be Jake and Hulk vs Kamala and Honky, but Jake was hurt so they replaced him with Koko.

Yes, you’re correct, I probably should have clocked Honky and included him on the list somewhere. A couple of other readers suggested that Bobby Heenan should have been ranked as the connective tissue between many of the Hulkster’s in-ring feuds, though I was focused primarily on guys that Hogan wrestled on a regular basis, as if I was talking about managers I probably also should have given some consideration to Jimmy Hart, Sensational Sherri, Mr. Fuji, or even Slick.

We’ll return in seven-ish days, and, as always, you can contribute your questions by emailing [email protected]. You can also leave questions in the comments below, but please note that I do not monitor the comments as closely as I do the email account, so emailing is the better way to get things answered.