New details on Lesnar walking out on Smackdown in the afternoon but returning in time to be part of show-closing angle

[Big Red Machine]

https://vip.pwtorch.com/2022/07/23/new- ... ing-angle/

By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor

July 23, 2022


Brock Lesnar walked out of Smackdown in Boston, Mass. yesterday afternoon just hours before his scheduled appearance on the show. He left because of the Vince McMahon retirement news, PWTorch has confirmed. Discussions took place between key members of management and Brock over the course of several hours and he agreed to return. In the mean time, Smackdown was reformatted to exclude him.

Brock is very close with Vince McMahon. His walking out was entirely related to the McMahon situation, but several factors played into how he responded to the news.

It’s not known when WWE management knew he’d agreed to be part of the show after all, but it appears it might have been something that developed during Smackdown since WWE did not hype the Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar main event at Summerslam during Smackdown. Lesnar was taken off of the Smackdown preview by WWE.com shortly before Smackdown. He appeared as a surprise at the end of the show, but wasn’t advertised during the show.

Bryan Alvarez of the Wrestling Observer was the first to report Lesnar had left the arena in Boston.