WWE SummerSlam 2012 Results: What We Learned from Brock Lesnar's Win

Heading into Sunday night's SummerSlam pay-per-view, there seemed to be two takes on the match between Triple H and Brock Lesnar. 

Either Triple H would win because, well, he’s a babyface in the WWE (where faces hardly ever lose), or Brock Lesnar would pick up his first victory since his return. 

Thankfully, it was the latter. 

After the WWE killed a lot of Lesnar’s initial momentum by having him lose to John Cena at Extreme Rules, “The Beast” laid a vicious beatdown on Triple H tonight to pick up the much-needed victory. 

Cena’s big win over Lesnar back in April taught us what we already knew—that Cena is hardly ever going to lose big-time matches, much less two in a row. 

But Lesnar’s win? 

Well, it let us know that the WWE is serious about building Lesnar back up into a monster after the buzz surrounding him immediately after his return quickly faded away with that loss to Cena. 

Make no mistake about it: The WWE brought Lesnar back to be a wrecking machine (and draw, too), but even though he dominated Cena throughout most of their match, he ended the night with an L rather than a W. 

We’ll never know exactly how things would have played out had Lesnar also won at Extreme Rules, but tonight, the WWE made the right choice. 

The Lesnar that we were excited about in April lost a lot of his appeal when he lost to Cena, and going into SummerSlam tonight, the creative team had absolutely no choice. 

Lesnar had to win—for the sake of the WWE as a whole in both the short and long terms. 

There was no benefit whatsoever in Triple H going over tonight. All it would have done was made Lesnar into just another guy. 

But the WWE taught us tonight that it can book logically when the right people put their heads together. 

That’s why Lesnar won. The creative team, Vince McMahon and, most importantly, Triple H himself knew that giving Lesnar a dominant victory would allow him to regain his momentum that left him a few months ago. 

In short, Lesnar left SummerSlam looking like the animal we all know he is, and his next opponent—whoever that may be—is set up to be put over in a major way. 

Whoever faces Lesnar next is stepping into the ring with a guy who is now viewed as a ruthless freak of nature, and that’s great for the WWE in the long run.

Now, Lesnar is perfectly positioned to turn someone into a star or help an already established star reach the pinnacle of the company.

Yes, Brock indeed taught us tonight to have same faith in the WWE. 

But we learned something else, too: Triple H is probably going away for a while. 

Following his loss to Lesnar, Triple H remained in the ring and continuously said “I’m sorry” to the fans as the announcers played up the idea that this was the last we’d ever see of him in a WWE ring. 

That’s not the case. No, not at all.

But what does seem likely, however, is that we just watched Triple H wrestle his last match for a very long time. 

After all, it’s no secret that Triple H is now heavily involved in both the business and creative sides of things in WWE these days, so chances are that his loss to Lesnar and his apologies afterward were a way to get him off of TV for a long period—several months or more.

I’ve seen all kinds of crazy suggestions thrown around about what this might mean for Triple H, but if I had to guess, I’d say that his loss and everything that transpired after that loss mean that he’s going away as a TV character. 

Until when? 

Well, until the biggest pay-per-view of the year, of course: WrestleMania 29, in 2013. 

Lesnar beats Triple H, Triple H goes bye-bye, Lesnar moves on to someone else and then Triple H returns early next year for a feud with whomever his WrestleMania 29 opponent will be. 

If SummerSlam was our teacher, that’s what it taught us.

Drake Oz is a WWE Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter!