What EXACTLY Happened With Brock Lesnar At WWE SmackDown Last Week?
Latest on Brock Lesnar's SmackDown walkout - and how WWE got him back last Friday.
Last Friday's episode of WWE SmackDown was nothing if not tumultuous, with the shockwave of Vince McMahon's sudden retirement causing all kinds of knock-on effects, including a Brock Lesnar walkout.
The Wrestling Observer's Bryan Alvarez reported prior to the show that Lesnar had left the SmackDown tapings shortly after news of Vince's retirement broke. This was corroborated by Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp and PWInsider's Mike Johnson. Following his original tweet, Alvarez stated Lesnar had said something along the lines of "If he's gone, I'm gone" upon leaving the show.
With Lesnar set to headline SummerSlam 2022 eight days later, this was a potentially alarming development for WWE, who started work on getting Brock to come back. This paid off later on, as Lesnar closed SmackDown by attacking Money in the Bank briefcase-holder Theory.
Per Fightful Select's latest update on the situation, things blew over between Lesnar and WWE, who removed Brock from SmackDown's advertising following his walkout. The situation was called "overblown" by one source, though even they were unsure if the Undisputed WWE Universal Title contender was going to be on the show.
Fightful adds that as well as rewriting the show without Lesnar, WWE's rundown didn't feature him either. Instead, those putting SmackDown together left the closing segment open in a way that would allow him to feature if required. Brock, who was originally supposed to be a SmackDown focal point pre-rewrite, was reportedly in a better mood upon coming back to the building.
Elsewhere, Dave Meltzer writes in the Wrestling Observer's Daily Update column that Lesnar and WWE both wanted to keep details of how things went down confidential. The idea was to avoid giving the impression that things had spun out of control during WWE's first day without Vince McMahon at the helm. Understandably, the optics of somebody perceived to be the company's biggest male wrestler walking out, thus jeopardising the SummerSlam main event, was something they wanted to avoid.
Lesnar will challenge for Roman Reigns' Undisputed WWE Universal Championship on 30 July.