PHILDELPHIA — Brock Lesnar, unlike Vince McMahon, is still in the fold in WWE.
The status of the 10-time world champion in WWE was cloudy after Lesnar was associated with the bombshell sexual assault and sex trafficking federal lawsuit filed against McMahon by former WWE employee Janel Grant in January.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Lesnar, 46, was the unnamed wrestler mentioned in the suit and it was alleged that McMahon sent requested explicit photos and videos of Grant to Lensar.
He was not named in the suit but the Journal confirmed he was the “world-famous athlete and former UFC Heavyweight Champion” mentioned in the text.
Paul “Triple H” Levesque, WWE’s chief content officer, was asked about Lesnar’s status with the company after Night 1 of WrestleMania 40 at Lincoln Financial Field on Saturday and said Lesnar is not officially done.
“At one point, there was a conversation with Brock about Royal Rumble quite a long time ago,” Triple H said. “Right now, Brock is home being Brock, and we’ll see where that leads to from here. The status is the same as it’s been before. Brock is not gone from WWE, he’s just home being Brock.”
According to the lawsuit, Grant accuses McMahon of causing her physical harm with his fists and other objects, including sex toys, along with locking her in a WWE office before he and another WWE executive took turns sexually assaulting her.
She also accused McMahon in the lawsuit of forcing her into sexual relationships to keep her job.
McMahon resigned as executive chairman of TKO days after the lawsuit became public and has denied Grant’s claims, calling them baseless and “replete with lies, obscene made-up instances that never occurred” and “a vindictive distortion of the truth.”
The UFC and WWE merged into TKO Group — owned by Endeavor — in September 2023 at a $21.4 billion evaluation.
Lesnar seemed to be on the outs with WWE after news of the lawsuit broke.
He was reportedly supposed to appear at the Royal Rumble, but ultimately did not and was replaced by Bron Breakker, according to the Wrestling Observer.
WWE then began scrubbing him from some of its content.
Lesnar was removed from the cover of the “40 Years of WrestleMania” special-edition cover of the new WWE 2K24 video game and he, like McMahon, is not a playable character in the core game. You can still, however, play as Lesnar in the 40 Years of WrestleMania Showcase mode.
He was also removed from the WWE Superstars mobile game at the time.
Lesnar is known for taking long breaks from WWE and loves spending time hunting and being a farmer around his home in Saskatchewan, Canada.
He last wrestled against Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam in August and is not scheduled to appear at WrestleMania 40 — though there is always the possibility of a surprise.
His former manager, Paul Heyman, did mention Lesnar by name during his Hall of Fame speech on Friday night.
