How Austin Theory Got WrestleMania 36 Spot, Brock Lesnar Praised

How Austin Theory Got WrestleMania 36 Spot

As surprised as people were to see Andrade and Angel Garza land in a RAW Tag Team Championship match, there was a bigger surprise coming. When Andrade was ruled out of the WrestleMania match due to injury, WWE needed someone else. Rather than scrub the match, or replacing the entire team, WWE replaced Andrade. That replacement likely raised quite a few eyebrows. WWE opted to give the slot to 22 year old Austin Theory. We are now hearing more about the WrestleMania reasoning for this move.

No one disputes that Austin Theory could do great things. He certainly has the look. He came to WWE in 2019, after a strong and successful run through the indies. However, since signing with WWE, he has been hardly used on television. So how has he gotten such a sweet spot so quickly? He has a fan in the right spot, according to the Observer.

Paul Heyman is the producer of RAW. He is known to be a big fan of such talents as Andrade and The Street Profits. He is also a believer in Austin Theory, according to reports. If those are to be believed, that goes a long way toward explaining his WrestleMania opportunity.

While Theory may be a Paul Heyman guy, that does not necessarily mean we should expect Theory and Garza to leave the Performance Center (or wherever they recorded) as champions. It seems just as likely WWE did not build toward another, bigger feud due to the coronavirus crisis. Meaning this tag title match may end up being good, but it may also end up being nothing more than a filler.

We will see soon enough.

Brock Lesnar Praised

Much can be said about how fans don’t care for Brock Lesnar being an absentee champion. It’s been a hot topic pretty much every time Lesnar has had a run with a WWE Championship since he left MMA and re-joined the company. In spite of all that hate, ESPN recently interviewed a number of Superstars to show fans a different side of The Beast. Call it seeing the beauty of Brock Lesnar, if you will.

Here’s what a couple of Lesnar’s peers and former opponents had to say of the current WWE Champion.

CM Punk had this to say:

“I don’t want to ruin his image,” Punk said. “I think he’s a f—in’ sweetheart. This is a guy, when I got into MMA and I left wrestling, he was texting me, ‘Hey, if you need any help.’ I’m always kind of a standoffish guy. It’s hard to open up and trust people in the pro wrestling world. But he was never anything but a real sweetheart. It was a pleasure to work with him. He’s just a great guy, I think. I think I’m one of the lucky guys who he wanted to work with in pro wrestling. We put together a pretty special match. I don’t think Brock gets the credit for how smart of a wrestler he is.

Rey Mysterio added:

For him, it was like, ‘I think I did what I need to do here and I’m out.’ I give him a lot of props for that. I grew up around the business. I kind of expected our road would turn out this way. After seeing Brock like that, it really put things into perspective. It made me see my personal life in a different way, too. We just had my daughter, so I was raising some kids at the time. It hit him and shortly after it hit me, too. 

Plenty has been said about how intensely private Brock Lesnar is, but it’s nice to see a number of his peers do hold him in high regard.