Everyone who follows combat sports knows who Brock Lesnar is, and most can tell you his accomplishments. He’s brought home a collegiate wrestling title, top titles in the WWE and Japan and UFC championships, while also getting the honor of beating The Undertaker at WrestleMania.
Because of all that, he’s long been viewed as one of the top draws wherever he goes, including the WWE. But all that seems to be coming to an end, some of which are within is control and some of which are not.
Age is more than a number
Brock Lesnar is 38 years old, which is the same age as AJ Styles and younger than John Cena. But unlike those two men, Brock Lesnar weighs 300 pounds, has a background in the truly vicious world of mixed martial arts and also battled a severe case of diverticulitis that caused major intestinal damage.
For all those reasons, Lesnar can’t be expected to stick around much longer, especially since he’s already on such a limited schedule. With maybe just a few pay-per-view matches left, fans should enjoy him while they can.
Schedule limits options
It’s well-documented that Brock Lesnar has a contract that only requires him to work a few dates a year, usually major pay-per-views and more recently some events specially designed for the WWE Network.
As such, the WWE creative team can no longer rely on him as a champion, particularly when it comes to the World Heavyweight Championship. For the sake of the long-term storylines and the strength of the roster, Lesnar can’t carry titles, which limits what can be done with him.
No gift of gab
For all of Brock Lesnar’s abilities, he has one glaring weakness that is pretty significant when it comes to professional wrestling: microphone skills. Simply put, he has trouble speaking in a compelling way or even partaking in “smack talk” with an opponent.
To account for that, Lesnar is always accompanied by manager Paul Heyman, but again, this limits what can be done with him within the story. He can’t really break from Heyman, and because Heyman is generally revered for his microphone skills, Lesnar always kinds of come off as a face or tweener, at worst. This isn’t a huge deal, but it often helps separate Lesnar’s stories from the rest of the roster’s work.
Not enough moves
When Brock Lesnar won the world championship from John Cena at SummerSlam in 2014 by tossing him around the ring with German Suplex after German Suplex in a completely dominant victory, it was impressive to watch.
Close to two years later, Lesnar has continued to show basically just that skill set, even in a “street fight” against Dean Ambrose at WrestleMania 32. Quite frankly, there’s only so much entertainment to be found in watching a 300-pound monster toss 220-pound men over his head over and over again, and wrestling fans are beginning to demand more depth in the movesets of all the superstars.
The booking is boring
First and foremost, Brock Lesnar winning matches is certainly realistic. In almost every match, he’s the bigger, stronger athlete in an era when WWE superstars are much smaller than they used to be.
But still, it makes it hard to get invested in Lesnar’s already limited storylines if we know that he’s going to win, and usually in a boring, dominant manner. Sure, he might lose in a triple threat like the one at Fastlane when Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns – two of the company’s top stars – teamed up at times to keep him down, but Lesnar won’t lose a singles match cleanly, it seems. And that is already getting old fast.
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