Brock Lesnar Not Defending The Universal Title At Payback? Post-Mania Raw Viewership Up

Sunday night Brock Lesnar and Goldberg clashed at WrestleMania 33 in Orlando, Florida with the Universal Title on the line. Goldberg walked into the match 2-0 against Brock Lesnar, but when the bell rang it was Lesnar who scored the victory and won the belt.

Lesnar’s victory caused some fans the shake their heads, as last time Brock held a major title he rarely appeared on television. Monday night on Raw, Paul Heyman sent a warning to Roman Reigns, so some fans assumed that meant we could be seeing Brock defend the belt against Roman Reigns very soon.

However, it looks like Brock Lesnar may be sitting on the sidelines for the Payback pay-per-view, as he’s not being advertised for the show on WWE.com or the SAP Center’s website.

As of this writing Brock Lesnar is also not being advertised for any of the televised Raw events leading up to Payback, nor is he being advertised for the post-Payback Raw, or the May 8th Raw which is being taped from London.

Monday night WWE teased a possible match between Braun Strowman and Brock Lesnar, but it looks unlikely that the match will happen anytime soon, as Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman are being advertised for face each other at upcoming live events, and they’re also expected to face off at Payback.

Although Paul Heyman called out Roman Reigns on behalf of Brock Lesnar on Monday night, it looks like it could be a while before they clash, as current plans call for Brock and Roman to face off at WrestleMania 34 in New Orleans.

This week’s episode of WWE Monday Night Raw was one of the most anticipated shows of year, as it was the post-WrestleMania edition of the flagship show.

According to ShowBuzzDaily, the show drew 3.767 million viewers and viewership was up from the 3.292 million viewers who tuned into the go-home show for WrestleMania 33.

For this year’s post-WrestleMania edition of Raw the first hour drew 3.826 million viewers, followed by the second hour which drew 3.893 million viewers. The third and final hour drew 3.583 million viewers.

It’s worth noting that the post-WrestleMania Raw was the most viewed show of 2017 so far. In comparison, the 2016 post-WrestleMania 32 Raw drew 4.09 million viewers.