Brock Lesnar is back as an active wrestler in WWE, despite also still being an active part of a civil lawsuit alleging that former WWE chairman Vince McMahon forced a former employee to agree to have sex with Lesnar as part of an effort to get the former world champ to re-sign with the company.
Lesnar, also a former UFC heavyweight champ, made his return to WWE at the end of Night 2 of the company’s annual SummerSlam mega-event at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on Sunday, to confront former rival John Cena, who had just lost the Undisputed WWE Title to Cody Rhodes in the main event of the show.
Lesnar had last appeared in WWE at the 2023 SummerSlam event, losing the finale in a three-match series with Rhodes.
Lesnar had been scheduled to make a return at the 2024 Royal Rumble, but the civil suit against McMahon was filed on the eve of that event, and among the allegations of sexual misconduct against McMahon and former WWE head of talent relations John Laurinaitis was a troubling matter involving Lesnar, who is not named as a defendant in the suit.
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According to the suit, filed on behalf of former WWE employee Janel Grant, Grant was directed to send sexual photos of herself – the suit describes this as “personalized sexual content” – to Lesnar as WWE was trying to recruit him to make a return to the company in 2021.
The suit alleges that Lesnar had told McMahon that he enjoyed the content, and that McMahon told Grant that Lesnar had re-signed with WWE, in part, so that he could have sex with Grant.
Things advanced from there, according to the suit, with McMahon giving Lesnar Grant’s phone number, Lesnar requesting more sexual images from Grant, and attempting to set up a play date that got scuttled by a snowstorm that disrupted Lesnar’s travel plans.
WWE, in the wake of the suit being filed and made public, pulled Lesnar from its active roster, and he had been on the shelf since.
The Grant suit is still active, with the last activity in the legal maneuvering dating to July 1, with lawyers for McMahon and WWE requesting that the suit be moved to private arbitration, which lawyers for Grant are opposed to happening.
It’s not clear what would have changed to get WWE to consider using Lesnar again, but Wrestling Observer Newsletter editor Dave Meltzer reported after the event that Lesnar was cleared by WWE’s legal department last month.
“Either they’re confident that things are going to arbitration, and Lesnar’s not a factor at that point, or they’re close to a settlement, and then, at that point, Lesnar’s not a factor, or somebody there just had a change of mind, and I don’t know which one of those it is,” Meltzer said.
Paul Levesque, known to WWE fans by the ring name Triple H, who is now the company’s chief content officer, indicated after the show that the decision to bring Lesnar back was to accommodate Cena, who is in the midst of a year-long retirement tour.
“It’s about John being able to go out the way he wants to go out, to write his chapter,” said Levesque, the son-in-law of Vince McMahon and Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Education in the Trump administration. “I know what that’s like as a performer. I know what that’s like for everybody to feel that, and I think for John to be able to do what he wants to do. One of the very first things I said to him was, Who do you want, and how, and we’re working through that.”
A bit of a cop-out there, putting the decision to bring back a 48-year-old caught up in a sex-trafficking lawsuit who also, it needs to be noted, hasn’t been in the ring in two years, and didn’t look, in his brief time on camera Sunday night, anywhere near fighting shape, on one of the contract talents, even if the contract talent in question is a WWE legend like John Cena.
Levesque’s comments on Lesnar, notably, came in a post-show Q-and-A with WWE commentators. WWE is facing fire for its move to scrap its usual post-event media scrum, to keep Levesque and its contract talents from having to face probably uncomfortable questions about Lesnar and about Levesque’s appearance at the White House this week for a presidential announcement that featured another athlete caught up in a sex-trafficking scandal, Pro Football Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor – not to mention, that event also involved Donald Trump, who is caught up in the throes of the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking controversy.
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And thus it was that we got Levesque gushing over the pop from the Met Life Stadium crowd when Lesnar’s music hit after the main event last night.
“My reaction was exactly what I thought it was going to be, which is, if there was a roof on this place, it wouldn’t be there anymore,” Levesque said. “The dynamic in the room changes when The Beast is here. Seeing Brock Lesnar come back, anything you thought was happening goes out the window, because the factor of Brock now just changes that dynamic. It makes it so unpredictable. So, yeah, incredible, just incredible to have him back.”
Update: Monday, 2:32 p.m. In response to your MAGA friends who are wrestling fans who have tried to claim that Lesnar is no longer part of the Janel Grant suit, we have this statement from the Grant legal team addressing Lesnar’s return to WWE:
“For far too long, abuse was allowed to thrive under WWE’s leadership. Instead of righting this wrong, WWE has done nothing to ensure those responsible are held accountable. This attempt to sweep misconduct under the rug will backfire. We look forward to the full set of facts, including those about Mr. Lesnar, coming out in a court of law where they belong but, in the meantime, we refer you back to Janel Grant’s updated complaint, which outlines, in detail, the abuse she endured by McMahon and others while employed at WWE.”
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