WWE News: Brock Lesnar Will Wrestle At Live Event In Japan, Reason Why Revealed
Throughout this week, rumors regarding the return of the “Beast Incarnate” Brock Lesnar have been constant. Now, as his return appears imminent, it has been revealed that Lesnar will wrestle at a live event in Japan on July 4, according to the WWE’s Japan Twitter page.
???????????????7/4???????? http://t.co/LMwrPrdgpr #wwe_jp #2015wwejp pic.twitter.com/WXnMV0Cbnf
— WWE Japan (@WWEJapan) May 29, 2015
It’s strange for the company to utilize Lesnar, a man who is known to work strictly Monday night RAW and pay-per-view events, on a non-televised event. In fact, Lesnar has not appeared at a live event for WWE in over 12 years. To add fuel to the report, the WWE Japan YouTube channel released the following promotional video soon thereafter.
At this time, Lesnar is being advertised to face one-third of the WWE tag team champions, Kofi Kingston. The entire advertisement and prospect of Lesnar wrestling a non-televised live event in Japan, against a competitor that he has no backstory with, is puzzling. However, Dave Meltzer, the legendary wrestling journalist from F4WOnline (via Wrestlezone) posted on the website’s message board the reason for Lesnar working the event.
“Lesnar and Brad Rheingans wanted to go to Japan to see Masa Saito. Just figured since he was going anyway, make it tax deductible, get his trans paid and work one show.”
In reality, Lesnar does have ties to Japan as the former UFC champion wrestled for New Japan Pro Wrestling from 2005 until 2007 after leaving the WWE and failing at his pursuit of becoming an NFL player. While in Japan, Lesnar became the IWGP Heavyweight champion, winning the championship in his first match.
Issues with NJPW led to Lesnar being stripped of the title without ever losing it. Still in possession of the physical belt, Lesnar put his NJPW title on the line for the Inoki Genome Federation in a match against Kurt Angle, who was the TNA World Heavyweight champion at the time. Lesnar lost his title to Angle on June 29, 2007, in what turned out to be his final professional wrestling match for five years.
With that fact in mind, this would be Lesnar’s first appearance in Japan in eight years, rather than the 12 years that the advertisement claims. As the Inquisitr reported earlier this week, the WWE appeared to have spoiled Lesnar’s return. Since then, Lesnar has been advertised for several RAW events and the WWE Battleground event in July.
With his return imminent, this special attraction for the Japanese crowd will be a treat as Lesnar does not work live events.
[Image via WWE]
