WWE Storyline of the Week: Brock Lesnar and John Cena Get Physical on Raw

Well, I can’t say that I expected that to happen. 

At the beginning of last night’s episode of Monday Night Raw, Brock Lesnar came out for a promo and was immediately interrupted by John Cena. 

Cena made his way to the ring, had a brief staredown with Lesnar and then slapped Lesnar right across the face, resulting in a fierce brawl that left Cena with a bloodied lip and had to be broken up by the entire locker room. 

As a result of the melee, new Raw GM John Laurinaitis announced later in the show that Lesnar and Cena would compete against each other at Extreme Rules later this month.

At first, my reaction was, “Man, they rushed the hell out of this feud, huh?” 

Then, the more I thought about it (and the more I chatted it up with some fellow wrestling fans on Twitter), the more I began to like the quick escalation of the Lesnar/Cena feud. 

Why?

Because it’s a nice contrast from the slowly-evolving feud that we just saw between Cena and The Rock. 

It took what seemed like forever for those two to finally get physical, and though it resulted in a great feud and match, I don’t think we really needed to see the WWE go that route again. 

What we really wanted was something different, fresh and unique, and that’s exactly what we got on last night’s Raw when, just a week after his return, Lesnar was already going at it with the face of the WWE. 

Lesnar’s mic work leaves a lot to be desired, so establishing him as a heel who’s been brought in by Laurinaitis and then immediately having him target Cena is a great way to get him over again without some long, drawn-out feud.

The fans are already seeing that Lesnar is going to be a heel, and judging by his low blow to Cena at the end of Raw, they’re not going to like him too much because of it. 

That all stems from the great brawl at the beginning of Raw, which was one of the best starts to Raw in recent memory and a great way to jump-start this feud and the build to what will undoubtedly be a highly-anticipated match between Lesnar and Cena at Extreme Rules. 

The WWE easily could have let us down after the great build to WrestleMania 28, but business might not just be staying up. 

It’s actually picking up.

Note: As part of the new WWE blog, I'll be asking all of the B/R wrestling readers for questions for a new mailbag that I will post on Fridays. It will be a slideshow featuring 10-20 questions and answers on a wide range of topics. You can submit questions either through Formspring or Twitter, and the best ones will be answered in the B/R mailbag.