10 Monumental Happenings On Post-WrestleMania Raws

Brock Lesnar’s King Kong-style rampage was the most memorable part of last year’s post-WrestleMania Raw from San Jose, California.

Lesnar had dropped the WWE World Heavyweight Title the night before at WrestleMania XXXI when Seth Rollins cashed in his Money In The Bank contract during Lesnar’s defence against Roman Reigns.

With more than 15 minutes gone, the gruelling one-on-one match between Lesnar and Reigns was restarted as a triple threat match. Opportunist Rollins pinned an exhausted Reigns just 40 seconds later, and fled with the championship.

The next night on Raw, Lesnar’s advocate Paul Heyman branded Rollins the most “undeserving WWE champion of anybody’s lifetime”, and demanded that he defend the title against Lesnar on the programme. The all-powerful Stephanie McMahon walked out to rubber-stamp the request. The title match, she said, would happen later on the show. Fans inside the Sap Center were elated.

When bell time arrived, Rollins had other ideas. Claiming to be suffering from jet lag in connection with an appearance on The Today Show and foot pain from “kerb stomping [Lesnar] and Roman Reigns” at WrestleMania, the cowardly Rollins suddenly backed out of the scheduled title defence. Following a short scuffle with Lesnar, Rollins made his getaway through the crowd, title belt in hand.

Realising he had been duped, Lesnar’s blood rapidly reached boiling point. He made short work of Rollins’ associates Joey Mercury and Jamie Noble, flipped an announce desk over on Booker T and, despite Heyman’s desperate pleas for calm, F5’d a defenceless Michael Cole.

When Lesnar performed his signature move on the hapless announcer, the crowd noise peaked. At that moment, Lesnar’s babyface turn was complete.

Still fuming, Lesnar grabbed and was about to F5 a television cameraman when Stephanie reappe nd instructed him to commit no further acts of violence or vandalism.

“Brock, stop it right no w!” Stephanie shrieked. “Put that man down, Brock! This is unnecessary.”

Lesnar disagreed: it was necessary. He F5’d the cameraman at which point Steph suspended him “indefinitely”. Lesnar F5’d the cameraman once more, which provoked approving cries of “Lesnar!” from the sell out crowd.

The show suffered a noticeable decline in energy once Lesnar left the screen. Like a raging bull, he was magnificent out there at portraying anger and violence.

Props must go to WWE’s creative team as well: this was an excellent way to explain Lesnar’s annual late spring/early summer vacation.