Twenty-four hours after John Cena suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of The Rock in the main event of WrestleMania 28, Cena was the victim of Brock Lesnar‘s impactful return. “The Next Big Thing” accentuated his return with an F-5 to “The Champ.”
This week on Raw, it was revealed that John Laurinaitis was the person behind bringing Lesnar back, claiming that it would return legitimacy to the WWE. Laurinaitis ended up announcing a match between Cena and Lesnar for the upcoming Extreme Rules pay-per-view.
Laurinaits being in the corner of Lesnar has been the talk of many WWE fans. Judging from my Twitter feed, many of them seem to be against the pairing. Jason Powell of ProWrestling.net expressed his hatred of Laurinaitis’ involvement, saying that Johnny Ace is “such a comedy figure and now he’s involved in an angle that WWE is using to claim ‘legitimacy’ is back in WWE.”
Personally, I’m withholding judgment for the time being. I prefer to wait and see how the story unfolds before condemning it. However, I do understand the aforementioned stance.
I can see the reasoning behind having Johnny Ace involved in this story. For one, Lesnar would benefit greatly from having a mouthpiece. Laurinaitis isn’t on Paul Heyman’s level of mic work by any means, but he can surely suffice.
It seems that Lesnar has returned to be a monstrous bully heel. Having Laurinaitis behind him will help him garner heat, as opposed to the massive amount of love he’s been receiving for being back and attacking Cena.
Keep in mind that Laurinaitis is now in full control of both Raw and Smackdown. Perhaps he brought in Lesnar to make sure that he has a firm grip on both shows. After all, Lesnar can dominate just about anyone in the WWE.
And heck, David Otunga wasn’t exactly succeeding in the enforcer role for Big Johnny.
As much as I’d like to see Lesnar on his own and doing his own thing, I like the potential direction of this pairing. Like I said before, I think it’s far too early to be judging this angle. Let’s just wait and see where it goes!
Thanks for reading. As always, I appreciate any feedback on my writing. Feel free to spark a conversation with me regarding what was discussed in this column by commenting or reaching out to me on Twitter @MikePW247. Also, be sure to tune in to This Very Ring every Sunday night at 11 p.m. ET to listen to myself and Stan Grubb discuss all things pro wrestling.
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