After one of Brock Lesnar’s heftier work schedules in some time, The Beast is currently on a break from WWE television. With that said, is it acceptable that the Universal Championship will not be defended at WWE TLC 2017?
Unfortunately the situation with the Universal Championship on WWE TLC 2017 is not a black and white issue, and therefore cannot be given just a straight yes or no answer. That is why I will dissect the current landscape of the championship along with the current champion to be able to give a clearer picture.
First off, Lesnar is a part-time talent and part of his draw is that he only appears during special occasions. If Lesnar were to be a weekly participant on Raw or monthly participant on every Raw pay-per-view, then the crowd reactions and interest would dramatically decrease.
Since it is clear that Lesnar’s current arrangement with WWE (and recent contract renewal reported in July) will not have him appear on every non-big four pay-per-view, it would be asking a lot for him to appear at No Mercy and TLC. Does TLC being in Minneapolis change anything?
No, just because it is where Lesnar is billed from it does not mean he must be booked for a show there. Some superstars fit into the “hometown kid” character similar to CM Punk when he would go back to Chicago, but with Lesnar it is not about some scrappy underdog that the hometown crowd is pulling for. Lesnar is a conqueror, he is a destroyer, and he is pro wrestling’s mercenary.
I do not have a problem with the Universal Championship being left off of the TLC card when the champion is in fact Lesnar. As previously mentioned WWE really does not have a choice with Lesnar. With that said, I am concerned about the number of pay-per-views that the Universal Championship could potentially not be defended at, and that starts with TLC.
Lesnar’s gimmick as part-time WWE Champion in 2014-2015 was wildly successful. The Beast was met with over the top reactions every time he appeared due to the significance of his appearances.
Two years later and his Universal Championship run has followed a similar character trend. While Lesnar has had successful matches since April, it appears that some of the lure of the part-time champion gimmick is starting to fade. So now fans must ask, at what point does the interest need to drop for the part-time champion gimmick to be considered detrimental to WWE?
In honor of Lesnar, I’m going to make a comparison between two farm workers to further illustrate my point. If one worker picks 25 ears of corn per hour in 8 hours, and the second worker picks 10 ears of corn per hour in 18 hours, it is clear that the first worker is not only more valuable per hour but also more valuable as a whole. Now if the first worker’s production goes down to 20 ears of corn per hour in the same amount of hours, while he is still more productive per hour, he is actually less valuable as a whole.
So what does that mean? My point is that while Lesnar still draws really good reactions similar to the first worker being more productive per hour, these reactions are not as strong as they were before (similar to worker one’s decrease in hourly production). In the above analogy we see that “worker two”, who is similar to a full-time superstar, ends up being more valuable as a whole when worker one or a part-time superstar becomes less productive. At what point does Lesnar’s reactions and interest dipping make having the Universal Championship off Raw and pay-per-views like TLC a detriment?
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In conclusion, while I am fine with the Universal Championship not being defended at TLC because of the title holder, there should be consideration of the impact that it has when a brand’s number one championship is consistently absent from TV and pay-per-views.