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WWE Issues Statement On Brock Lesnar’s Potential Doping Violation

By Mark McAllen • Published 16th July 2016
TJR Wrestling

The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) recently informed UFC that Brock Lesnar has been flagged for potentially using a banned substance. A drug test Lesnar took on June 28 came back to the USADA as positive. The USADA didn’t receive the results until Friday (July 15) which means Lesnar could have been using a performance-enhancing substance during his UFC 200 fight with “The Super Samoan” Mark Hunt on July 9; a fight in which Lesnar won via unanimous decision.

The following is UFC’s official statement on this news that they released through Twitter.

In a response to the Associated Press, Lesnar said that “we will get to the bottom of this”.

It was only a matter of time before World Wrestling Entertainment had to issue a statement on the matter, and they did so late Friday night. WWE reported on the news objectively and even included the above tweet from SportsCenter. The only revealing note from their statement came in the last sentence of their article in which they said, “Brock Lesnar has not performed for WWE since WrestleMania and is not scheduled to return until Sunday, Aug. 21.”

Mark’s reaction: If you take this statement at face value, it seems like Lesnar will still be wrestling Randy Orton at this year’s SummerSlam. It is unclear yet as to whether or not WWE will say Lesnar violated their wellness policy. However, even if WWE does suspend Lesnar, it would be his first violation. This means that he would, like Roman Reigns, be suspended for 30 days; which means he would serve his suspension and be back in time for his SummerSlam match with Orton on August 21.

If this “potential” violation ends up being a definite violation, it should be interesting to see how WWE handles it in regards to Lesnar’s character and storyline. Does Orton brand Lesnar a cheater? Will Lesnar do something where he owns up to it on WWE television and says he doesn’t care, making him a heel in the process? Whereas before it seemed like it would be the right move to have Lesnar go over Orton in their SummerSlam match after such a decisive win against the (at the time) #8 ranked heavyweight in UFC, does this violation change things? It should be interesting to see where WWE, and Lesnar’s WWE mouthpiece Paul Heyman, goes with this story in the future.

Image used above is courtesy of UFC.com.