Paul Heyman Comments on Brock Lesnar’s WWE Return Being “Get Over It, He’s Here. You Can’t Cancel Him”
As noted before, this past Sunday’s WWE SummerSlam 2025 Night 2 event featured Brock Lesnar making his surprise return and attacked John Cena.
A recent episode of The Ariel Helwani Show featured Paul Heyman as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Heyman’s thoughts about when he found out about the plans for Lesnar’s return to WWE.
“That happened real quick. A couple weeks. I mean, at least to my knowledge. I got tagged into it after the deal was done.”
Heyman also gave his thoughts about the criticisms surround Lesnar’s recent return to WWE and his response to those complaining.
“Everything in life is met with criticism, I don’t pay attention to that. I don’t pay attention to it. He’s here. That’s the reality of the fact. He’s here and if you were in MetLife Stadium on Sunday, you would understand that return meant a lot. That audience was jacked to see Brock Lesnar come out and to see him F-5 John Cena. People were just going fucking nuts. That’s our paying audience, they’re happy to see him. I’m happy to be a part of a team that presents him. Everyone has criticism in life. There are people that criticize Jesus. There are people that criticize Moses. There are people that criticize Muhammad. There are people that criticize God or Gods. There is no president that has ever existed with a 100% approval rating. There is no president that has ever existed with someone pointing to and saying, ‘That president sucks.’ There are people to this day that think that Abraham Lincoln sucked. They’re wrong, but they think it. There are people who thought FDR sucked. They’re wrong, but they think it. Bill Clinton doesn’t have a 100% approval rating, Donald Trump doesn’t have a 100% approval rating, nobody does. There’s always going to be critics of anything that we do. Very few people make it to the top in life without making mistakes or having skeletons in their closet. Obviously, the decision was made, it’s time to bring back Brock Lesnar. Whatever that decision is based on, I respect it. If there are critics of it, get over it, he’s here. He’s going to be here and you ain’t gonna be able to cancel him. I’m happy to have him back because the audience is happy to have him back. If we brought him back and the audience rebelled against it, I wouldn’t be happy to have him back like, oh man, this doesn’t work. But, it works. So I’m happy about it.”
Transcript h/t: Figthful.com
Backstage Update on Roman Reigns’ Expected WWE Break for Live Action Street Fighter Filming
This past Monday’s WWE RAW show in Brooklyn, New York featured Seth Rollins defeating LA Knight by disqualification to retain his WWE World Heavyweight Championship. This match was notable for a post-match brawl involving The Vision laying out CM Punk, LA Knight, and Roman Reigns that was capped by Bronson Reed stealing another pair of Reigns’ shoes.
PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that The Vision’s beatdown of Reigns was not meant to be WWE’s way of writing out Reigns for his upcoming live action Street Fighter filming commitments.
Johnson reported those spoken to within Hollywood stated that the film’s production does not begin until this September and Reigns is currently scheduled to work for four weeks on the set starting on September 2nd. Those spoken to reportedly stated that Reigns is currently expected to finish his filming commitments on the week of September 26th assuming the production runs on time.
Johnson also reported that this would mean that there is still some time for Reigns to make additional appearances if WWE creative dictates before he needs to leave for filming.
WWE is currently advertising Reigns making an appearance at next week’s RAW show on August 18th in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Johnson also reported that Cody Rhodes’ is currently not expected to be on set as long as Reigns for his upcoming filming commitments for this new film.
WWE News & Notes
WWE NXT and WWE EVOLVE talent Brinley Reece recently announced on Instagram that she got engaged to boyfriend Marcus Aponte on Saturday, August 2 at the Lake Tahoe Edgewood Resort in Stateline, Nevada.
WWE recently released a new behind-the-scenes vlog featuring Dominik Mysterio backstage at this past weekend’s SummerSlam 2025 event.
As noted before, Chelsea Green took a break from social media following hateful messages and death threats she received over the backlash from recent comments she made about Hulk Hogan’s passing that ignored Hogan’s racism and other controversies. Green provided an update on Wednesday on Twitter issuing a “presidential statement” stating that she has returned to social media and she is sorry for making the timelines of her fans suffer without her since she began her break. Green also stated that she would be having a director of social media helping her with content in the near future.
As noted before, this past Sunday’s WWE SummerSlam 2025 Night 2 event featured Brock Lesnar making his surprise return and attacked John Cena. Fightful Select reported that while there have been reports of Lesnar being “cleared” by WWE’s legal team, their sources stated that Lesnar was not actually cleared of any wrongdoing in terms of his involvement in the Vince McMahon sex trafficking lawsuit. It was reported that Lesnar being “cleared” appears to the fact WWE legal’s team cleared him to appear on WWE television again but he is not yet necessarily off the hook in terms of Janel Grant’s case. It was also reported that Grant’s legal team currently expects that more information about Lesnar could come out during the discovery process.
As noted before, WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair recently revealed that himself, former WWE/TKO Executive Chairman Vince McMahon, and WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque were among those who had attended Hulk Hogan’s private funeral service this past Tuesday in Largo, Florida. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that Lex Luger, Sting, Eric Bischoff Kevin Nash, Jimmy Hart, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase, Dean Malenko, Paul Wight, and Brutus Beefcake were also confirmed to have attended Hogan’s funeral this past Tuesday as well.
Brooke Hogan recently gave her thoughts on Instagram about her reasons why she did not attend the funeral of her father Hulk Hogan. Brooke stated “My father hated the morbidity of funerals. He didn’t want one. And although I know people grieve in many ways – and I’m so grateful for all celebrations and events organized to honor him, as his daughter, I had to make my own decision to honor him the best and most genuine way I knew how…privately…the way that made me feel the closest to him. The only thing missing today was him in is pop up lawn chair watching the waves… and the sunset. Daddy, we honored you in the simplest way that agreed with my soul. We took our babies to the beach, and put them in the same salty waters you loved. Molly loved the water. I think she’ll be a ‘little fish’ as you called me. We love you and honor the things that made you so special. Every grain of sand and every wave reminded me of being your beach baby, and brought us closer to you. I pray you are at peace and know how dearly I love you. Rest in heaven, Daddy.“
In a recent interview with ESPN’s First Take, Roma Reigns gave his thoughts about what fans can expect from WWE’s new deal with ESPN and his belief that WWE is not in its final form. Reigns stated “100%, like we said, we’re just continually trying to get better. We don’t think we’re in our final form at all. It’s entertainment, so it’s just always evolving, it’s ever changing, but that’s the type of pressure we like to put on ourselves to be able to team up with an ESPN. We know we have to get better. We know we have to get bigger. We know we’re going to be reaching a bigger audience. So I think that’s just without being said, we’re going to make it bigger.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
As noted before, WWE recently signed a new media rights deal with ESPN to broadcast their Premium Live Events (PLEs) on ESPN’s new streaming service in the United States starting in 2026. WWE commentator Pat McAfee recently responded on Twitter giving his thoughts about WWE’s new deal with ESPN and took shots at ESPN higher-ups claiming that they will muddy the deal. McAfee stated “Congrats to the @WWE and @espn on getting a historic PLE deal done. Great to see 2 powerhouses of sports and entertainment come together. I assume all the mid level, powerless, bum ass suits at ESPN will attempt to muddy this somehow (out of context leaks/ignorant anonymous opinions/etc.) but, in the end.. this agreement will outlive the dinosaurs currently guarding desks in Bristol and this deal will be great for ESPN. Cheers to the future.“
In a recent interview with The Bill Simmons Podcast, Cody Rhodes gave his thoughts about his match against Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at WrestleMania 39 is his favorite match of all time. Rhodes stated “My favorite match is WrestleMania 39, which is the one where (I don’t win). I probably would’ve been pumped to win, certainly, but there is something about that night where things are happening in the stadium that never happen. He’s got me in the guillotine choke and you hear these old timers, God bless them, talking about ‘just stay right there and the people will react.’ When you’ve seen the amount of cool flips and awesome stuff, sometimes it doesn’t like that’s real anymore. In that moment, I’m just slowly wiggling my head out and I can hear an entire stadium where the sound goes up start to move. I thought, ‘Oh man, they’re into it. How blessed am I that they are into this?’ When it’s that good, it feels completely real. Everything seems real. Roman is the greatest enemy of my life and I’m trying to climb a mountain that is impossible. That acoustic moment for me made it my favorite match of all time. I couldn’t tell anyone that because it’s the saddest ending, but it’s my favorite match.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
In a recent interview with The Ringer’s The Masked Man Show podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Bret “The Hitman” Hart gave his thoughts about his disdain of wrestlers hitting others on purpose with real chops during their matches and his issues with Gunther’s chops. Hart stated “The best wrestling has to pretend to be real. That’s what I did, I tried to make it as real as I could. Contrary to that Gunther guy, who seems like a nice enough guy when I met him, but I hate wrestlers that hurt each other on purpose. I hate it when you’re out there and getting beat up and hurt by a guy for real. Like chops. Who ever won a fight with a chop? What a waste of time. Ric Flair is famous for bringing the chops the way they are now. My dad used to tell wrestlers at Stampede, ‘Nobody ever beat anybody with a chop.’ It’s true. They hurt, they look like shit. They make a big slap sound, but they hurt. When you get chopped by somebody like Ric flair for a 30 minute match and he chops you 15 times, your whole chest the next day is bruises. It hurts to put a shirt on. I used to wrestle Ric Flair and wake up going, ‘Why am I hurting so much? Doesn’t Ric Flair know it’s a show?’ It’s not supposed to be real. I’m not supposed to wake up with a really sore chest. I have no respect for guys that hurt each other all the time. It’s just to me, lazy, shit wrestling when guys like Gunther…I’ve told him this to his face, it’s bullshit. When you’re hurting somebody for real, you’re unprofessional. I wrestled guys and never hurt anybody.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
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