Why Brock Lesnar Was Not Mentioned During RAW

Brock Lesnar made headlines across the sport's landscape last weekend when he appered at UFC [...]

By Ryan Droste

Brock Lesnar made headlines across the sport's landscape last weekend when he appered at UFC 226.

Not only did the WWE Universal Champion watch the main event from ringside, he jumped in the octagon following Daniel Cormier's heavyweight title win and set-up a fight with the champion down the line. It would seem WWE would want to capitalize on all of the mainstream publicity their champion received, but instead, Lesnar's name was not mentioned during the broadcast.

As the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports this week, that was very much intentioned. According to the report, this was a personal directive from Vince McMahon that was relayed to staff early in the day Monday at a production meeting. The rationale was the decision was that the company should start talking about him again "when he's being offered to our audience and we can capitalize on it." For the time being, McMahon noted the company should solely focus on building to this Sunday's Extreme Rules, of which Lesnar is not a part of.

This all continues to be part of a bigger ongoing story where WWE is depicting Lesnar as holding the WWE title belt hostage. According to Meltzer, McMahon is "adamant" about continuing down this path. The story is designed to get Lesnar's challenger (likely Roman Reigns) cheered whenever they eventually face Brock for the championship.

The story is much the same as what was done prior to WrestleMania and Lesnar's match with Reigns there. Lesnar was depicted as someone completely ambivalent about the wrestling business who was only in it for the paycheck, never showed up, and didn't care about the fans. That strategy was also designed to get Reigns cheered against Lesnar in their match. If you saw WrestleMania you know that, well, that strategy was not successful. At all.

It's unlikely that this current story will be able to get Reigns cheered anymore so than the WrestleMania season story. However, we may get an added wrinkle added in to Lesnar's eventual WWE Universal Championship defense. He could be both the UFC Heavyweight and UFC Universal Champion walking into the match, which would be an unprecedented occurrence in pro wrestling history.

As is right now, it's unlikely that Lesnar will be defending the WWE Universal Championship anytime soon. He re-entered the USADA drug testing pool for UFC on Tuesday, meaning he could fight for UFC as of January 8th. The idea that he will defend the WWE Universal Championship while in training for a UFC title fight is not likely.

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