It’s been quite the year for Brock Lesnar and the WWE. After an incredibly busy first four months of the year, main eventing the Royal Rumble, Fastlane and WrestleMania 32 all in a row, Lesnar shocked the world by announcing that he was returning to MMA for a match with Mark Hunt at UFC 200.
While he went on to win that fight in convincing fashion via 29-28 decision, he shocked the world again (but not really) by having a pre-fight and in-competition drug test come back flagged for a banned supplement (an estrogen blocker called clomiphene).
I’m still trying to wrap my head around how this dude could fail a drug test. If Brock can be revealed as dirty…anyone can.
That raised a very interesting question…how would the WWE react to the news that Lesnar had failed a drug test? The answer, for a while, was that they were going to completely ignore it. Their official statement implied that Lesnar was always clean while competing in the WWE and put the blame on the UFC, while ensuring fans that he would still be competing at SummerSlam opposite Randy Orton. Because of that, it was easy to assume that Lesnar wouldn’t face any kind of punishment from the WWE and would just go on as a professional wrestler.
That may not actually be the case, though, given the ending to Lesnar’s SummerSlam match. What started off as a back-and-forth match between Lesnar and Orton, two of the most popular and successful wrestlers on the WWE roster today, ended suddenly when Brock decided to just beat Orton up for real. The results were absolutely ghastly.
After taking a DDT in the ring, Lesnar did a double-leg takedown on Orton, got into mount position and then slammed him with a hard elbow from the top before punching him repeatedly to the head, neck and shoulders.
This is the elbow that ended up suddenly ending the match. It was real, it was hard, and it was absolutely brutal to watch. Pic by DeathByElbows on Twitter…who got banned for this pic. RIP.
While it didn’t necessarily seem like much, the referee pulled Lesnar away from Orton and called in doctors. As Orton was being attended to, he rolled over and poured blood all over the mat, which was a clear sign to fans that, no, Lesnar just beat Orton up for real.
The WWE hates having blood on-screen during their broadcasts, so that puddle of Randy Orton probably didn’t please Vince McMahon. Photo by Deadspin.
While the WWE made sure to keep cameras away from Orton, the cut that caused that bleeding was caught by some savvy folks on Twitter, and it is actually one of the worst strike-induced cuts I’ve ever seen in my life:
That is one GNARLY cut on Orton’s. Photo by Alex Nino on Twitter @AlexNino.
While you might be thinking “lol this is so fake” no, it really wasn’t. Lesnar vs. Orton was a program that WWE put a great deal of effort into and Lesnar has very few appearances left in his contract for 2016, meaning they need to make the most of him while they have him. This ended up being a VERY short and disappointing match for the main event of one of their biggest shows.
So why did Lesnar do it? Was he unsatisfied with how he was supposed to win? Was he actually supposed to lose the match, and wanted to force himself onto the WWE as a winner? Did Orton give him a stiff shot and he just snapped and returned the favor?
Unfortunately, we don’t know. But boy, what a messy ending to SummerSlam.
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