Rob Conway Recalls First Impression Of Brock Lesnar In WWE Developmental

Rob Conway has recalled his first impression of Brock Lesnar during their early days together in WWE’s developmental system.

Conway and Lesnar faced each other during their time in Ohio Valley Wrestling. OVW served as WWE’s primary developmental territory during the early 2000s. The former WWE star remembered being struck by Lesnar’s size when he first saw him in person.

Conway discussed Lesnar during an appearance on Chris Van Vliet’s Insight podcast. He explained that he often heard people described as “big” before meeting them.

““Yeah, a lot of times we would get new guys, and I don’t know how you are, but everybody tells me, oh, my boyfriend’s really big, or my husband’s big, or my brother’s big. I see him, and I’m like, where they at? So one of the guys, he said, ‘Hey, man, there’s this dude here, he’s huge.’ So I was driving to the show, and I got there, and I saw him. I went holy c**p! This guy’s legitimately huge.”

Conway also discussed that WWE had started bringing in more “blue-chip athletes” at the time. While Lesnar was not a wrestling fan when he entered the system, Conway described him as an athlete determined to succeed.

“Early developmental, they started sending us big dudes, I mean, because they would find these blue-chip athletes, and not all of them panned out. But Brock, with his work ethic and his build. He wasn’t a wrestling fan, he was just a great athlete that was bound and determined to be good at anything that he wanted to do.”

Brock Lesnar went on to become one of the top stars in both WWE and the UFC, retiring this year. Meanwhile, Rob Conway was released by WWE in 2007. He briefly returned as a guest trainer at the Performance Center in 2018.