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WWE advertised its latest t-shirt offer – ‘buy one tee, get one for $1’ – during the WWE Payback 2020 pay-per-view, but that deal seemingly did not apply to fans of Brock Lesnar.
All of Brock Lesnar’s merchandise has been removed from WWE Shop and WWE Euroshop, and his Superstar page is no longer accessible through the company’s online store or via search engines.
Last week, fans were able to purchase 11 Brock Lesnar items from WWE, including the shirts in the picture below, but links to those pages are now broken.
WWE usually keeps old merchandise on its website even after the items have sold out – Wade Barrett’s “King of Bad News” shirt from 2015, for example – but Brock Lesnar’s merch is nowhere to be seen.
The Beast has not appeared on WWE television since losing the WWE Championship to Drew McIntyre back in April 2020 at WrestleMania 36, so it is only natural that fans have started wondering whether he could be done with the company.
With so much speculation surrounding Brock Lesnar's WWE status, let’s take a look at five theories on why his merchandise is no longer available for WWE fans to buy.
#5 Will Brock Lesnar return with new merchandise?
One theory is that Brock Lesnar’s page is simply getting a refresh before he returns with new merchandise, but that does not seem very plausible.
Roman Reigns returned to WWE at SummerSlam 2020 with his new “Wreck Everyone & Leave” shirt, which was available on WWE Shop immediately after the event, and his other merchandise remained on the site in the months that he did not appear on television.
The Big Dog’s merchandise was also on WWE Shop in the hours leading up to SummerSlam, which rules out any theories that fans may have about Brock Lesnar’s merch being removed due to his page getting some kind of refresh before a new batch of items are added to it.
Reigns’ page remained active before his new merch was made available for fans to purchase, so why would Brock Lesnar’s page suddenly become inactive?
#4 Keep fans guessing about Brock Lesnar’s future
WWE removing Brock Lesnar’s merchandise from WWE Shop has certainly gotten people talking.
Within a couple of hours of the article being published on Sportskeeda, fans began discussing the possible reasons why WWE is no longer selling his merch online.
Brock Lesnar’s WWE status has been questioned ever since his second three-year contract with the company came to an end after his match against Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 34 in April 2018.
At the time, it looked as though Brock Lesnar was going to lose the Universal Championship and return to UFC. However, he defeated Reigns and continued to appear in WWE on a part-time basis for the next two years, with his latest contract reportedly running until after WrestleMania 36.
Along with Seth Rollins, Brock Lesnar has developed a reputation for himself as “Mr. SummerSlam” over the last few years, but he did not make an appearance at this year’s Biggest Party of the Summer.
With WWE fans already in the dark about Brock Lesnar’s future plans, perhaps his merchandise has been removed in order to keep fans guessing about whether or not he will return to in-ring action?
#3 Has Brock Lesnar left WWE?
On a similar theme to the last point, plenty of WWE fans have speculated since this news emerged that Brock Lesnar may have officially left the company.
The Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer reported (H/T Wrestling Inc.) in June 2019 that Brock Lesnar signed a deal with WWE which was due to expire in May or June of 2020.
If that really was the case, then it could be possible that Brock Lesnar’s contract ended earlier this year. It would also explain why Vince McMahon said “we no longer have Brock Lesnar” during a conference call with investors in April 2020.
Back then, it appeared that McMahon was simply saying that WWE did not have Brock Lesnar at that moment in time because, as is often the case, he was taking a break from television after competing in three PPV matches at the start of the year.
However, looking back, the WWE Chairman did not elaborate on Brock Lesnar’s status any further than that, so it is possible that he genuinely meant that WWE no longer has Brock Lesnar on the roster.
It is worth noting, though, that Brock Lesnar is still listed as an active Superstar on WWE’s website.
It would also be strange for his merchandise to be removed from WWE Shop when other Superstars who are no longer with WWE, including Goldust and Rusev, still have items for sale on the site.
#2 Could WWE use this as part of Brock Lesnar’s next storyline?
Without even appearing on WWE television, Brock Lesnar has been the subject of plenty of conversations amongst fans since the closing moments of last week’s SmackDown.
Brock Lesnar’s advocate, Paul Heyman, appeared at the end of the show with one of The Beast’s most fierce rivals, Roman Reigns, and the two now appear to have formed a villainous alliance.
Heyman also watched on as Reigns entered the WWE Payback 2020 main event towards the end of the match to defeat Braun Strowman and “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt to win the Universal Championship.
It has not yet been explained why Heyman and Reigns have joined forces, but the unexpected alliance has led to plenty of questions about what could happen if and when Brock Lesnar returns to WWE.
Brock Lesnar’s beastly WWE character hardly seems like the kind of person who would care about whether or not fans can buy his shirts, but the removal of his merchandise certainly makes for interesting timing when you take into account that Heyman has just started managing Reigns.
Maybe, just maybe, Brock Lesnar seemingly being erased from WWE can somehow play into a future storyline if he and Heyman are ever reunited on-screen.
#1 Has WWE decided to punish Brock Lesnar?
As you can see from the 29:21 mark of the video above, Sportskeeda’s Tom Colohue mentioned in his preview for the August 31, 2020 episode of RAW that, according to one of his sources, Brock Lesnar refused an offer from WWE to perform in the ThunderDome at SummerSlam.
He added that WWE does not have to pay Brock Lesnar royalties when his merchandise is not on WWE Shop, so the removal of his merch could simply be another cost-cutting measure.
Either way, even though it is not 100 percent clear why Brock Lesnar’s merch is no longer available, Colohue says he is being punished for some reason by WWE.
So far in 2020, Brock Lesnar has participated in the 2020 Royal Rumble, where he lasted 26 minutes before being eliminated by Drew McIntyre, and he also main-evented WrestleMania 36 in a WWE Championship match against McIntyre.
Other than that, his only match in 2020 came in February when he defeated Ricochet in a 94-second encounter at Super ShowDown.
