5 Ups & 10 Downs From WWE WrestleMania Raw (March 28)

4. A Naturally Awkward Promo

There’s a reason Paul Heyman has spent the bulk of Brock Lesnar’s professional wrestling career doing his promos. While Brock is certainly smart and capable of shining on the mic, carrying a segment week in and week out might be a bit much.

Lesnar opened Raw by acknowledging that Heyman usually did the yapping for him, then made his way through a promo where he talked about taking Roman Reigns down memory lane, with stops at Suplex City, the Beast of Broadway, and a carnival ride on the F-5.

It was a bit disjointed and uneven, but here’s the thing: It felt real. Yeah, it felt like someone trying to remember his lines at times, but Brock just sidestepped that by acknowledging the “What?” chants and then name-dropping Steve Austin, ad-libbing, “He’s an a**kicker like me, but he didn’t kick my a**.”

The best part though was Lesnar talking about his title and Roman’s title getting married and having a baby unified title, which he was going to gain full custody of. Cheesy, yes, but again, you felt like it was Brock talking.

Not a huge success, but given the overly rehearsed and prepared promos of today’s WWE, we’ll take semi-awkward here.