This past weekend, ‘The Beast Incarnate’ made a shocking return to the WWE.
Night two of SummerSlam in New Jersey ended with Brock Lesnar defying Daniel Cormier’s recent comments to make a comeback.
The former UFC champion hasn’t been seen in the ring in two years and his return wasn’t predicted by many after controversy outside of the ring had led to his 2024 plans being wiped from the schedule.
While Lesnar achieved incredible things inside the Octagon, his MMA career quickly took a downturn after he suffered several big losses while battling severe injuries.
In 2019, he was able to get some revenge for one of those defeats since returning to the WWE and recementing his status as one of the promotion’s top stars.
Brock Lesnar beat Cain Velasquez in just over two minutes in a rematch of UFC 121
At UFC 121 in 2010, Cain Velasquez destroyed Brock Lesnar to bring the heavyweight champion’s reign to a brutal end.
Velasquez would eventually follow his former foe to the WWE after cutting his teeth in Mexican promotion AAA at the start of the year where he was impressive for someone who was at such an early stage of their training.
It didn’t take long for WWE to see the potential in having the former UFC champion crossover and in October of 2019, the same year that he debuted in AAA, Velasquez attacked Lesnar to set up a WWE Championship match.
The two men met at WWE’s Crown Jewel event in Riyadh later that month where fans were stunned to see the match only last just over two minutes.
Despite the promotion setting up a rivalry between the two former opponents that could have been interesting with Velasquez already proving that he was capable in the ring, he got little offense in before being submitted by the defending champion.
The match was slated by WWE fans, as was another showcase matchup on the card that pitted Tyson Fury against Braun Strowman.
Cain Velasquez’s WWE run was cut incredibly short by injuries
With fans questioning why WWE would book such a short match between Brock Lesnar and Cain Velasquez that seemingly instantly killed their rivalry, an explanation was reported.
The Wrestling Observer Newsletter stated that Velasquez had been battling a knee injury and though he had been working through it with a knee brace since he arrived in WWE, the injury was worse than expected and he required surgery.
WWE still planned on having the former UFC heavyweight champion make his return in the following year’s Royal Rumble but he suffered from more injury setbacks before being released in April of 2020 due to the promotion making budget cuts during the COVID-19 pandemic.