Brock Lesnar not appearing on RAW this week (and the promo from Roman Reigns) has caused quite the buzz over the past 24 hours. Dave Meltzer provided an update on the situation on f4wonline.
Here are some of the key parts in regards to how WWE is going to build the match between Reigns and Lesnar at Wrestlemania 34:
– Meltzer says that the goal of the Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns build is to get Reigns cheered in the match. The hope is for a positive reaction when he wins the title in New Orleans.
– Both Lesnar and Paul Heyman were apparently not at RAW at all. Both were written into the original script for the show, which obviously changed.
– Meltzer says that the idea for the build is to make it come across as much like a shoot as possible. The promo from Reigns on RAW certainly accomplished that as fans were left wondering what was scripted and what was not. To add to this, Mike Johnson of PWInsider says that Reigns’ promo was not in the script but most of his verbiage was approved beforehand. Meltzer says that the idea was for it to come across as an “unscripted promo and would get in trouble for it, but obviously, that was not the case”.
– Lesnar is still scheduled for the March 12th episode of RAW. He was never scheduled for next week’s episode.
In other news, another major name is rumored to be John Cena’s opponent at Wrestlemania 34.
Also, another planned segment was scrapped from RAW this week. You can read about that here