WWE Raw: The Brock Lesnar Era Must Come To An End

The April 1 edition of WWE Raw was the go-home episode of the red brand before this Sunday night’s WrestleMania 35 pay-per-view and even though it came on April Fool’s Day, it wasn’t a prank when Brock Lesnar showed up.

Last night’s WWE Raw kicked off with a bang when Universal Champion Brock Lesnar and his advocate Paul Heyman addressed the upcoming Universal Championship match with Seth Rollins at WrestleMania 35.  Heyman gave his usual shtick and said that Lesnar will violate Rollins while also desecrating the good name of WrestleMania in the process.

However, business really picked up when The Architect came out to voice his thoughts on the upcoming match.  Rollins said it’s the biggest match of his career and he has to win to rid the WWE of Lesnar as champion.  He said nobody wants Lesnar here anymore whether it’s fans or the superstars in the back, but Lesnar wasn’t in a fighting mood and decided to simply brush off Rollins and leave the ring.

That wasn’t good enough for Rollins, however, and he decided to go low on Lesnar and send a message that he has what it takes to dethrone The Beast Incarnate.  Lesnar did get in a suplex, as expected, but once he tried to hit Rollins with an F5, Rollins countered and hit Lesnar with another low blow before eventually capping it off with a stomp as he stood above Lesnar with the Universal Championship in hand.

This was probably the best segment this feud has produced in the buildup towards WrestleMania.  It’s hard to build any Lesnar feud given the fact that he isn’t there much, there’s no denying that.  And that’s just one of the biggest reasons why the Lesnar era in the WWE must come to an end sooner rather than later for the betterment of the WWE as a whole.

The fact of the matter is it’s 2019 and Lesnar’s appeal just isn’t there anymore, in all honesty.  His shtick is beyond played out, he’s a one-trick pony, he’s never there, and his Universal Championship reigns have been among the worst championship reigns in pro wrestling history.  Even Heyman’s shtick is getting old and he’s undoubtedly one of the greatest voices in the history of the business.

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The WWE has done a good job of making you hate Lesnar in kayfabe terms and he’s only doing what the WWE tells him to do, but that still doesn’t change the fact that Lesnar’s appeal has greatly diminished.  Who honestly gets excited to see him anymore?  This version of The Beast Incarnate is a far cry from what he used to be capable of in the WWE.  Maybe it’s just how the WWE decides to present him or maybe he’s just not as good as he once was, but it has to change.

He has done everything he can possibly do in the WWE, so the jig is up.  It’s not like Lesnar needs the WWE anymore, either.  And hopefully, the WWE realizes there are much bigger priorities moving forward than catering to a part-timer on the downside of the proverbial hill.  It needs to start Sunday at WrestleMania with Rollins capturing the Universal Championship.  If there’s one guy that can help bring relevance back to the Universal Championship, it’s The Architect.

But the trolling and heat-building decisions regarding Lesnar must come to an end.  This entire argument could be much different if he just wasn’t the Universal Champion for the majority of the past two years because at least then, the sake of a world title isn’t being taken for granted.  The decision to keep the title on a part-timer that rarely defends it is one of the worst decisions Vince McMahon has ever made.  This is his mess and he needs to clean it up on Sunday night.

It’s can almost be an instinctual thing when people realize something isn’t what it used to be, and that’s what has happened to Lesnar in the WWE.  Given his current status, there’s nothing else that Lesnar can do under the WWE platform and the company needs to make a decision on his future.  If Vince just can’t bring himself to part ways with Lesnar, keeping championships off of him needs to be the bare minimum.

WrestleMania 35 could be a company-changing night in a variety of ways, including for the future of the Universal Championship and a superstar that has run his course in the WWE.