Brock Lesnar Fined for Assault on Randy Orton at WWE SummerSlam 2016

The WWE announced Tuesday that Raw commissioner Stephanie McMahon fined Brock Lesnar $500 for bloodying Randy Orton at SummerSlam.

Lesnar won the match by technical knockout after brutalizing Orton with repetitive elbows to the skull. The company announced Monday that Orton required 10 staples to close a gash on his forehead.

After the match, Lesnar delivered an F-5 to SmackDown Live Commissioner Shane McMahon, seemingly setting the stage for a Raw vs. SmackDown Live feud. The paltry fine only strengthened that likelihood.

It was only a matter of time before WWE pitted the shows against each other. However, the timing doesn't make much sense.

The draft was July 19, barely a month ago, which is hardly enough time for either SmackDown Live or Raw to build any sort of identity. Should the Lesnar storyline continue, the two programs will keep melding together, which won't help them differentiate from one another.

This could be the pretext for bringing Goldberg back into the picture, as WWE teased Goldberg going to Suplex City in a May trailer for WWE 2K17.

That Easter egg could've been nothing more than fan service, but both Lesnar and Sting were preorder exclusives for WWE video games before they later appeared on WWE programming.

SmackDown Live doesn't have many wrestlers who could realistically feud with Lesnar. Orton, John Cena, Dean Ambrose and AJ Styles are the only ones with enough star power to challenge Lesnar, and three of the four have already wrestled him.

With few other options at their disposal, Shane McMahon and SmackDown Live general manager Daniel Bryan could look to a hired gun like Goldberg to take out Lesnar.

Whatever WWE has planned for Lesnar, it will likely be a slow build. The next Raw and SmackDown Live co-branded pay-per-view is Survivor Series on Nov. 20, so any match between wrestlers from the shows will almost certainly take place then.