The Latest on Plans for Brock Lesnar and the Universal Title

It's nearly July 2018 and Brock Lesnar still holds the WWE Universal Champion. Who would have thought?

Lesnar's stranglehold on RAW's top championship for the last 15 months is viewed by many fans (and industry experts) as an albatross on the brand. Luckily, the brand is filled with so many quality performers and popular crowd favorites (Braun Strowman, Seth Rollins) that they haven't skipped a beat even without their own top champion for most of the year.

Even so, WWE does badly need to get the championship off of Lesnar, and plans are rolling toward that eventual outcome. And it's the same plan you've seen play out before.

WWE is going back to the same story they had heading into WrestleMania last April, except they are planning on ramping it up just a little. At that point, the idea was that Lesnar was only in the business for the money and didn't care about the championship, fans, or company. The idea was to build a fan uprising behind Roman Reigns heading into WrestleMania where he would take the title from the big, bad disrespectful Lesnar.

Well, as we all saw it play out, Lesnar didn't give up the title as plans were changed at the last minute for him to retain in New Orleans. This amid one of the most disengaged crowds during a WrestleMania main event history.

This time out, it's fairly evident that they are playing the same angle. This week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter confirmed what I wrote just a few days ago: WWE is again working toward a match between Reigns and Lesnar with the idea they can build fan momentum behind Reigns by portraying Lesnar as someone disengaged with the business. We saw them get the ball rolling this week by declaring that WWE was unable to get Lesnar to agree to a contract for a championship match.

According to Meltzer, the plan is to go one step further this time. Lesnar will be portrayed as wanting to leave for UFC without defending the title. In effect, he will be holding the title hostage.

To be blunt, the idea that this will work any better at getting the fans behind Reigns versus what happened during WrestleMania season seems like a fantasy. Both Strowman and Rollins seem like far more logical babyface choices to take the belt from Lesnar, as they both have a ground-swell of support surrounding their characters and have for the last several months. With Reigns, the fans are completely ambivalent and that's not likely to change without some sort of massive character restructuring.

The Observer also reports that the eventual Reigns vs. Lesnar match may not even happen at SummerSlam, though that's when most expect it to occur. Ultimately, Vince McMahon will make the call for when the match and title change will happen.

There had been rumors that Lesnar would return to UFC for a December 29th bout against the winner of the Stipe Miocic vs. Daniel Cormier UFC Heavyweight Title fight on July 7th. Cormier even said in a recent interview that he plans on fighting Lesnar following the Miocic fight.

If this UFC return scenario was to play out, it would mean Lesnar has until the end of the day Friday (June 29) to re-enter the USADA drug testing pool. He needs to be in the pool for six months before he is allowed to fight again, stemming from his drug test failure in the summer of 2016.