Details on Brock Lesnar’s New Deal With WWE

Brock Lesnar is officially back in the WWE following his appearance at SummerSlam this past weekend. “The Beast” hadn’t been seen since dropping the WWE Championship to Drew McIntyre at WrestleMania 36, and reports that he was technically a free agent started popping up over the summer of 2020. Fightful Select‘s Sean Ross Sapp reported on Thursday that sources indicated Lesnar is under a new deal for “roughly a year and a half, and at least eight matches,” for the time being. That fits right in line with Lesnar’s previous part-time schedule, where his matches were few and far between even when he held one of the world championships. From 2012-2020 he only wrestled a total of 64 times.

PWInsider also reported on Thursday that Lesnar will be positioned as a babyface on SmackDown something going forward, something WWE hasn’t attempted since the early 2000s. His arrival on Saturday in Las Vegas saw him confront Universal Champion Roman Reigns before attacking John Cena once the cameras stopped rolling.

“I think he wanted to get the best look possible at what’s going on here, the most dominant Universal Champion to ever do this thing,” Reigns said while on The Bump this week. “I think he sees the Island of Relevancy just like John Cena did. He’s just coming with like a farmer/butcher outlook as opposed to being the Hollywood guy. But yeah it just goes to show all this work, this foundation of greatness that I’ve been laying down, what the Bloodline’s been doing, continually showing everybody that we’re number one.

“It’s really just to put themselves in the conversation with me, to amplify everything, but there ain’t really anybody out there that can compete with what we’re doing,” he added. “Between me and my cousins, the wise man, we come together and we’re putting together greatness right now. We’re raising the bar and lifting the standard, and I think Brock Lesnar, like everybody else, in this industry, they want to be a part of that.”

The big question heading into this week’s SmackDown, which Lesnar is advertised for, is who Paul Heyman will be loyal to given he’s Lesnar’s advocate and Reigns’ special counsel. He repeatedly stated in interviews over the past year that Lesnar was well aware of his arrangement with “The Tribal Chief.”