One Moment WWE Wants You To Forget From Every Year (1985 to 2026)

2. 2025 - The Grim Reality Of The Brock Lesnar Return

WWE Royal Rumble 2026 Brock Lesnar Paul Heyman
WWE.com

The Vince McMahon/WWE sex trafficking lawsuit remains the cloud that hangs justifiably over everything World Wrestling Entertainment, or the sludge that runs underneath it depending on your preferred analogy.

It's one thing for a "new era" or sweeping changes to the on-screen product being constantly rolled out to move the show away from the one it was under McMahon for so long, but it's quite another when said era and product features Brock Lesnar, a man named in the allegations against the former Chairman.

His bewildering SummerSlam 2025 return was a show of complete ignorance towards optics at best, and an act of obnoxious revisionism at worst. Lesnar was pulled from the 2024 Royal Rumble at the eleventh hour for the same reasons people are angry are being overlooked now. 

And for what? 

It can surely only be combative arrogance from the corporate side of the company, because it's doing nothing for the creative one. He got a pop initially, but most surprises get pops. His match against John Cena at WrestlePalooza was one of the year's biggest stinkers, his cameos in WarGames and the 2026 Royal Rumble weren't much better, his promo work reeks of a guy that doesn't care anymore, storylines haven't even converged to get him back alongside Paul Heyman where they're both more comfortable, and all without a care of how it might look the longer the hideous allegations remain at large.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for nearly 10 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 65,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live.