In just a matter of a few weeks the planned WWE SummerSlam 2012 main-event has changed twice. According to a new report the main-event may be changed once again due to panic in Stamford regarding the June WWE No Way Out pay per view.
[adinserter block=”2″]Dave Meltzer reported on his F4Wonline.com podcast over the weekend that the planned Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar SummerSlam match may be off. According to Meltzer, there is a strong possibility the match will instead come two months early at No Way Out. Meltzer cited “panic” as the reason for the possible match change.
Brock Lesnar’s return to the WWE has been some story since he dropped John Cena and kicked Cena’s ball cap to the Miami crowd. According to numerous reports, plans have changed for Lesnar several times since returning. The lack of focus is fascinating considering that Lesnar has only been back for about six weeks. Any reports or rumors about future Lesnar matches should be taken very lightly at this point.
The irony here is that you would think booking the biggest star in the UFC who knows how to actually wrestle and has a history in the WWE would be a piece of cake. Yet there doesn’t appear to be any clear focus on Lesnar other than a week to week basis. I wasn’t as negative on the Extreme Rules finish as most people were, yet I am losing confidence every day that they are going to get their money’s worth out of Lesnar.
I can certainly see why the WWE wouldn’t want to keep Lesnar on the shelf. They are paying the man $5 million for a year’s worth of limited work. All indications are that he gave Extreme Rules a huge boost in the buyrate. His opening segment on RAW where he broke Triple H’s arm was one of the highest rated segments on RAW in ages. This goes back to what I wrote before WrestleMania about the WWE waiting too long with Cena vs. The Rock. Is it better to strike while the iron is hot with Lesnar as opposed to costing yourself money in the hopes that his WrestleMania 29 payoff makes the wait worthwhile? At this point it looks like Vince McMahon is worried about taking that gamble.
The first question I thought of when I heard the report is what happens to Paul Heyman? According to most reports, Heyman was brought in with the idea of keeping Lesnar hot until SummerSlam without having to actually put Brock on television. If Brock is coming back in June, will Heyman stick around until SummerSlam as planned? Will Heyman stick around at all? Is this any kind of double cross on Heyman who came back expecting to play a major part of the storyline until August?
If you think back to the Triple H vs. CM Punk feud, a similar thing happened at the time with the program. The program started out with plans not to have the match until one of the big pay per views, possibly even WrestleMania 28. Yet the company panicked and wound up hotshotting the match immediately. Is this just a coincidence or is there a reason Triple H isn’t waiting his feuds out?
[adinserter block=”1″]The next two weeks will tell us whether this match is happening sooner or later. At this point, my money is on them rushing the match and going in another direction for SummerSlam. While it isn’t what I would do, it is hard to argue when you are paying a man $5 million to sit on the sidelines.
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I think debuting Lesnar the night after WrestleMania has proven to be a mistake. They should have held off until July, which would have set up Cena vs. Lesnar for Summerslam. Then the HHH fued could have built to a match at Survivor Series. Now they are stuck with a 3 month gap until Summerslam, at which point your average casual fan may have stopped caring about the HHH-Lesnar storyline.
I think you may be right. They usually do WrestleMania rematches through May and June but they had their backs in the wall with The Rock in and out.