Brock Lesnar is a reflection of WWE’s modern-day failures

Brock Lesnar seems to be the well Vince McMahon cannot resist going to time after time, but the WWE Chairman’s insistence on sticking with Lesnar might just be a reflection of everything that is wrong with the WWE today.

The fact that a comedy angle between Drake Maverick and R-Truth is the best thing on WWE today should tell you everything you need to know about the current product.

The company’s flagship television program, Raw, saw its lowest ever viewership record broken four times in the span of six months in the second half of 2018. What was once a revolutionary product in the late 90s has over the years turned into a shell of its former self that most wrestling fans watch more so out of habit than out of interest.

And in many ways, Brock Lesnar is the reflection of everything that is wrong with the company today. Since his return to the company in 2012, Lesnar has become the focal point of all WWE programming despite the fact that he is absent from television most weeks. The former UFC Heavyweight Champion’s dominance of the product is clearly visible from his three reigns as the WWE Universal Champion, most recently winning it from Seth Rollins at the Extreme Rules pay-per-view.

Since the belt’s introduction on Jul. 25, 2016, six men have held it. At the time of writing, Brock Lesnar has held it for 664 days spread over his three reigns. The other five men have held it for a combined 377 days. Add that to his 224 days as WWE Champion and Lesnar has spent 888 days as a World Champion during his second run in the company. That is Hulk Hogan level dominance, apart from the fact that the Hulkster used to be on our television sets every week.

Lesnar’s reigns have also come in stop-start fashion that shows the lack of long term storytelling that had once been WWE’s forte. His first reign came back in 2014 when he absolutely destroyed John Cena at SummerSlam to win the WWE Championship. But soon the reign would become a slog as Lesnar was absent from television most weeks.

Still he held onto the title till WrestleMania 31 as the WWE was clearly setting him up to lose the championship and pass the torch to Roman Reigns who had been earmarked as the next face of the company. But the fans weren’t as high on Reigns as the WWE was and the plan had to be scrapped in favor of a brilliant Money in the Bank cash-in from Seth Rollins in the main event.

This was arguably Lesnar’s best reign as the top champion of the company since returning. His second reign came after he beat Goldberg at Wrestlemania 33 to win the WWE Universal Championship. He would hold onto the belt for 504 days in one of the most boring World Championship reigns in WWE history before losing it to Roman Reigns at SummerSlam in 2018. Reigns though would have to relinquish the title just two months later as he was diagnosed with leukemia.

Here, WWE had the perfect opportunity of giving a championship reign to Braun Strowman who was red-hot at the time. But they would inexplicably put the title back on Brock. It is not as if the company was not aware of how much the fans hated Lesnar as champion cause it became the focal point of his storyline with Rollins going into WrestleMania 35.

Fortunately, Rollins beat Lesnar at WrestleMania and it appeared that his reign at the top was done once and for all. Except that it was not! Just a month later, Brock won the Money in the Bank briefcase which he cashed in successfully earlier this month at Extreme Rules to reclaim the Universal Championship from Seth Rollins.

This is the type of booking that makes you wonder whether it is time to finally give up watching WWE for good. What was once must-see television has now become a farce of what it used to be. Back in the days of the Monday Night Wars, one was forced to tune in every week because you never knew what was going to happen. All you need to do now is watch the Raw after a pay-per-view and you know what is going to follow for the next three weeks or so.

The sad thing is that this decline in quality has caused WWE no financial harm at all. They have managed to score billion dollar television deals for both Raw and SmackDown. Globally, the WWE is bigger than it ever was. As long as they keep making money, fans can expect the same boring, monotonous product that the WWE has produced for the best part of a decade now. One can only hope that the formation of All Elite Wrestling is the kick in the pants that the company has need for quite a while.

Many fans blame Vince McMahon for not being able to change with the times. But he has in reality. Gone is the hunger, the desire and the knack for keeping fans on the edge of their seats every week. Vince McMahon has changed a lot but unfortunately for the worse.

And we can see this change in his top star of choice, Brock Lesnar. A bland character in direct contrast to the charismatic onscreen character of Hulk Hogan, an apathetic worker opposite to the passionate Stone Cold Steve Austin, and an uninteresting performer unlike the divisive John Cena.