Brock Lesnar made a somewhat surprising return to SmackDown on Friday night. But, perhaps fans shouldn't be all that surprised considering the number of names that were dropping like flies due to injury in WWE. In fact, it was an injury to one star that motivated WWE to call Lesnar from the sidelines and put him back into the game.
Fightful Select reports that once it became clear that Randy Orton wasn't going to be able to work the next program with Roman Reigns and wouldn’t be able to wrestle after Riddle lost his match for the WWE Undisputed Universal Championship, a plan was put in place for Lesnar to immediately return to television. It was around 5 PM EST that word behind the scenes at SmackDown started to spread that Lesnar would be returning and that caught a lot of attention because he was not mentioned on internal rundowns that were handed out just before the show.
Some were wondering if Lesnar's return was a reactionary move to the attention the Vince McMahon allegations have been receiving, but that is apparently not the case. This was simply a talent decision and a move made because WWE is lacking credible challengers right now. They report that plans to bring Lesnar back began about three weeks ago, which was well after the investigation started and well before it became public. It's not clear why Lesnar wasn't mentioned in meetings prior to yesterday's show.
Lesnar Is A Big Draw
For WWE, it's nice to be able to have this ace in the hole when they need it. Yes, Lesnar is expensive and it would be nice if the company had built up some new talent to be a believable challenger to Reigns, but Lesnar is a draw and there's no denying it. That WWE can call him when they're in a jam and immediately insert him into the title scene is a nice luxury to have.
WWE announced that Lesnar will face Roman Reigns in a Last Man Standing Match at SummerSlam.
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