As PWMania.com previously reported, after learning that Vince McMahon would be leaving the WWE, Brock Lesnar reportedly left the building before Friday’s episode of Smackdown, although he ultimately made an appearance on the show.
Lesnar reportedly said something to the effect of, “If he’s gone, I’m gone.”
While WWE was trying to persuade Lesnar to return, he was also taken out of the SmackDown preview on the WWE website. Lesnar made a comeback and appeared in the show’s final segment, where he laid out Theory.
One insider, according to Fightful Select, called the situation “overblown.” Things “blew over,” it was stated, and Lesnar eventually made a return. It was noted that they didn’t know if he’d end up actually being on the show. The script for the show was revised by WWE creative, and Lesnar was not included in the new script. WWE left the final segment open so that Lesnar could be added if he made a return.
Lesnar was supposed to leave the arena straight away after appearing in the opening segment, according to PWinsider.com. Where Lesnar went after leaving the arena and how close he came to taking flight back home are still unknown.
Dave Meltzer pointed out on today’s episode of Wrestling Observer Radio that this wasn’t a case in which Lesnar left the arena only to come back just before his segment. The moment Lesnar made his return, WWE didn’t keep him hidden from everyone backstage.
“I know he was back in the building by 8:30 [pm local time] as far as a timeline goes. It wasn’t that he was hidden away, or they wanted to do this big…like the MJF thing where you’re doing the work, and you show up at the last second, and nobody knows you’re back. It wasn’t this big guarded secret. I shouldn’t say a guarded secret because it probably was supposed to be a secret. It wasn’t as if he didn’t come back…he didn’t show up at 9:45 and go out there at 9:50, put it that way.”
On July 30, at SummerSlam, Lesnar is scheduled to face Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns in a Last Man Standing match.
