THE BEAST IS BACK!
Brock Lesnar made his surprise return to WWE after a 17-month hiatus following the main event of SummerSlam on Saturday night.
Roman Reigns had just successfully defended his WWE Universal Championship with a hard-fought but well-deserved victory over John Cena and was celebrating in the ring when Lesnar's music hit.
Brock, who was sporting a new look, sauntered to the ring and locked eyes with Reigns. It looked like the two men were going to come to blows, but Reigns retreated and slowly walked to the back while Lesnar soaked up the atmosphere from the ring.
After the show went off the air, Lesnar attacked Cena, delivering multiple German Suplexes to the 16-time World Champion and adding insult to injury in the process.
Lesnar hasn't appeared on WWE programming since losing the WWE Championship to Drew McIntyre in the main event of night 2 of WrestleMania 36 in March of 2020. The Beast sat out almost all of the pandemic era and never set foot in the WWE ThunderDome as his WWE contract expired last summer.
Lesnar confronting Reigns at SummerSlam sets up a redux of a feud we've already seen twice before. The first Lesnar-Reigns feud culminated at WrestleMania 31 when the two men met in the main event that was ultimately won by Seth Rollins, who cashed in his Money In The Bank briefcase and pinned Reigns to steal the gold.
Reigns and Lesnar also went one-on-one in the main event of WrestleMania 24, which Lesnar won via pinfall.
Prior to tonight, there had been some talk of Lesnar signing for All Elite Wrestling. Journalist Dave Meltzer reported in a July edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that "there is nothing to [the rumors] at all at this moment." Meltzer also stated that "the stories of Lesnar secretly signing with AEW were 100 percent inaccurate."