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WWE News: Brock Lesnar Now a Part of Raw Roster Along with WWE Title

By John Canton • Published 4th November 2019
TJR Wrestling

This past Friday on WWE Smackdown, the show started with Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar doing a promo about Lesnar’s quick victory over Cain Velasquez at Crown Jewel last Thursday. They also talked about Rey Mysterio saving Velasquez with a steel chair. Heyman responded to that by saying he asked Vince McMahon to give them Rey Mysterio, but Vince said no because Rey is on Raw only. After being told that, Heyman said that Lesnar was quitting Smackdown and going to Raw on Monday while daring WWE to try to stop him.

The problem with the story that Rey can’t go on Smackdown against Lesnar is that REY WAS ON SMACKDOWN TWO WEEKS AGO! I put it in all caps for emphasis. Anyway, it’s WWE. They think fans are idiots and we forget things. You just shrug your shoulders and move along.

In case you forgot, Lesnar was drafted to Raw on the second part of the WWE Draft on October 14. Lesnar was the second overall pick that night after Raw drafted Seth Rollins.

Lesnar moving to Raw also means the WWE Championship will be on Raw, so that title is moving away from Smackdown, which is where it’s been since July 2016 when the WWE Draft took place at that time. The Universal Title was a Raw title that debuted at SummerSlam in August 2016 (when Finn Balor beat Seth Rollins), but now the Universal Title is on Smackdown because Bray Wyatt won the title from Rollins at Crown Jewel on Thursday and Wyatt (also known as The Fiend) is a Smackdown guy now.

According to the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer, WWE planned on announcing this Lesnar news on the first regular episode of WWE Backstage on Fox Sports 1 on Tuesday, November 5. Instead, they announced it on Smackdown because of the travel issues that caused many WWE superstars to miss Smackdown.

The obvious connection for Lesnar on Raw is that his advocate and good friend Paul Heyman is the current Executive Director of Raw meaning he has a lot of say in what happens creatively on Raw, so it’s not that surprising that Lesnar would be on the show that Heyman is helping in an executive capacity.

The NYCB Live arena in Long Island, New York tweeted about Lesnar and Heyman on Raw this week.

There’s no official preview of WWE Raw as of this writing where they can promote Lesnar or make an official statement on his status, but the belief is that Lesnar is a Raw regular again.

As is always the case in WWE, anything can and will change randomly often without explanation. That’s just the world they live in.

TJR Thoughts: I understand why this was done to get the two major titles off the same brand, but this was a very lazy way to do it. There’s still time to try to explain by saying there was a trade or something of that sort. When Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross were moved to Smackdown, it was said there was a trade for future considerations, but I’m not sure this Brock story would fit in those plans.

I’m also a bit surprised that this happened because I figured Lesnar would remain on Smackdown because he’s more of a big name in mainstream sports and you would Fox would want a guy like him. Instead, it’s back to Raw for Lesnar.