Brock Lesnar is back on WWE television as he returned following the main event on Friday’s SmackDown where Roman Reigns retained the Undisputed WWE Universal Title over Matt Riddle. “The Beast” came out and shook Reigns’ hand before hitting him with an F5. He attacked The Usos and stood tall in the ring to close out the show.
Following the show, WWE confirmed that Lesnar will challenge Reigns for the title in a Last Man Standing Match at SummerSlam on July 30th. Originally, WWE planned for Reigns to defend the title against Randy Orton at this show, but Orton is dealing with a back injury and WWE fears he will have to undergo surgery that will keep him out of the ring until next year.
Fightful Select reports that once it became clear that Orton wouldn’t be able to wrestle, the plan was put in place for Lesnar to return to television.
Word started to spread backstage at SmackDown before 5 PM EST that Lesnar could be returning, but he was not featured on internal rundowns that were handed out just before the show.
In regards to whether this was reactionary after the Vince McMahon investigation, the report stated plans for Lesnar’s return were put into place about three weeks ago, which would’ve been well after the investigation started.
