Brock Lesnar Originally Scripted For Raw Segment With Roman Reigns, What WWE Had Planned

Although Brock Lesnar was slated to meet his WrestleMania opponent last night on Raw, the Universal Champion did not appear.

It is still not completely clear regarding what happened with Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman last night on Raw.

Neither Lesnar nor Heyman was in Anaheim, California last night for Raw, according to both Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com and Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com, although they were advertised and a segment with both of them was written into the script of the show.

According to Johnson, WWE sources have confirmed that the script for Raw was to feature a lengthy back and forth promo segment featuring the three, right down to, according to one source, Lesnar calling Reigns a “bitch.” The segment was slated for the second hour of Raw as Ronda Rousey’s segment was always closing the show with Stephanie McMahon, Triple H, and Kurt Angle.

Instead, Reigns cut a promo saying he thought Lesnar would be there, but Lesnar was hiding behind his contract and didn’t come, and then cut a promo about how everyone resents Lesnar’s status of working when he wants in the cities he wants while they all work a full-time schedule. Reigns, who was booed heavily coming out, was cheered at the end of the segment. He tried to give the impression he was doing an unscripted promo and would get in trouble for it, but that’s not the case.

The most likely scenario is that somebody came up with an idea for what happened last night with enough time to tell Lesnar or Heyman not to come to the show because they wanted to sell the event as a shoot. Lesnar had come to Las Vegas, Nevada the day before as the photograph going around of him with UFC President Dana White was taken on Sunday afternoon.

The idea for the build to the WrestleMania main event, which has been planned for roughly one year, and is essentially the culmination of what was supposed to happen in 2015, is to make the build come across as much like a shoot as possible and the segment did accomplish that goal.

The goal of the build to the Reigns vs. Lesnar WrestleMania match on April 8th is to get Reigns cheered to lead to his win.

Lesnar is scheduled to defend the Universal Champion against Kane at this Saturday’s WWE live event in Chicago, Illinois and he’s scheduled to return to television on the March 12th Raw from Detroit, Michigan.