If WWE Was Being Honest About Brock Lesnar
A fundamental problem incarnate.
On the Super ShowDown go-home RAW, Brock Lesnar both annihilated Seth Rollins and failed to deliver on his promise to cash in his Money In The Bank briefcase—or rather, in WWE-speak, his Beast In The Bank briefcase.
It was a disturbing, well-produced angle. Lesnar’s chair-assisted onslaught looked and sounded disgusting. The hardway blood drawn from Seth’s back confirmed that this was no mere effect. To get the angle—or, more accurately, Brock Lesnar—over, WWE once more encouraged the Beast to unleash the full, real brunt of his combat athlete credentials in a worked setting.
“Friday,” Lesnar repeatedly insisted, as Heyman pleaded with his client to capture the Universal Title when he was in the best possible position to do so. “Friday,” he repeated, and in fairness, it was consistent with his character. He was more concerned about securing a gigantic payday than winning a title that was easier to claim in that moment than the ugly 24/7 strap. It didn’t matter that the Universal Title is, in storylines, the A to the WWE Championship’s 1—because the title does not matter to Brock Lesnar.
Brock Lesnar failed to cash in the briefcase on Friday.
A damaging, one-sided angle that did nothing but put the Beast over as something that is equivalent to—or perhaps exceeds—a Lovecraftian horror. Another bait-and-switch gotcha that does nothing for WWE’s chronic brand trust issues, the second in five days. Rancid, nonsensical marketing drivel. This was a very WWE thing to do, and a very Brock Lesnar thing to do. No less an authority than Jon Moxley conflated the two gigantic entities on his incendiary Talk Is Jericho podcast appearance:
“That’s why [Vince McMahon] pays Brock billions of dollars to come in and ruin his company: because he wants to own Brock.”
But is Brock Lesnar ruining WWE?
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