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How Will WWE Raw Address Brock Lesnar’s Involvement With UFC?

By Kevin Parvizi

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Brock Lesnar was wearing a suit in the crowd at UFC 226, and he shoved Daniel Cormier and cut a promo on the UFC Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight Champion, who had just defeated Stipe Miocic in the main event of the show.

This appearance at a UFC Pay Per View muddied Brock Lesnar’s immediate future plans with WWE even further. WWE initially scheduled a No. 1 Contender’s match at Extreme Rules, which takes place this Sunday in Pittsburgh, with the winner getting an opportunity at Lesnar’s Universal Championship at SummerSlam.

Instead, WWE started an angle casting doubt on whether or not Lesnar will show up at SummerSlam. Kurt Angle cited contractual difficulties as the reason for the No. 1 Contender’s match being scrapped, and Bobby Lashley and Roman Reigns will face off against each other instead.

According to a rumor in Cageside Seats’s “Rumor Roundup”, Lesnar’s situation is expected to be “addressed” tonight on Raw. This doesn’t come as a surprise, but I am interested in seeing how WWE will address Lesnar’s sudden UFC appearance.

Lesnar signed a new contract with WWE earlier this year, and it allows him to take dates with WWE and UFC. That maximizes Lesnar’s ability to make money, and there’s a lot of crossover potential for both UFC and WWE if Lesnar is splitting time with both. Fans have already thought out loud about Cormier costing Lesnar against Reigns or Seth Rollins at SummerSlam. That would get WWE fans talking, and it would also allow UFC to hype up their title bout between Lesnar and Cormier, reaching a different audience in the process.

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So that means WWE should be willing to explicitly address Lesnar showing up at UFC 226 to challenge Cormier. Everyone already knows what happened, WWE isn’t afraid of talking about the UFC, and they can use real-life events to continue to build this story and perhaps the characters of Reigns and Lashley. Those are the two top contenders for the Universal Title at this stage, though Rollins could join the mix if Dolph Ziggler pulls off a minor upset at Extreme Rules in an Ironman Match.

We’ll surely have Angle make some sort of announcement about Lesnar and SummerSlam, and then Lashley and Reigns will have a bit of an argument about the events.

I’m just not sure what WWE will do here, because it’s all predicated on whether or not Lesnar has a match at SummerSlam. But I’m 99% sure he’ll work the second-biggest date of the calendar year (and a show that Lesnar is usually his best at), but it’s more about, who will he face? And when or how will Angle make the announcement? What’s Stephanie McMahon’s involvement in all of this as an on-screen authority character?

Tonight’s announcement will probably be one of those that leaves us with more questions than answers. The tone of it will likely be filled with disappointment from Angle’s perspective and some anger from Reigns. Lashley’s situation will be more complex, because he has been a fighter and a wrestler at the same time. Perhaps he’ll be more willing to see why Lesnar is going off to challenge for a title in UFC, whereas Reigns will be livid that the current Universal Champion is more interested in challenging for a UFC title than defending his title in WWE.

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I wonder if WWE will go as far to show footage of Lesnar’s confrontation with Cormier and some headlines about the event, in addition to reactions from current WWE Superstars. Alternatively, they could just briefly mention what he did and quickly move into the storyline ramifications. The first route will lead to this being a bigger story with more of a likelihood for crossover with the UFC, but if WWE is more low-key, that makes Lesnar’s future with the Universal Championship and his SummerSlam match even harder for the audience to predict.

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