The 2024 WWE Royal Rumble went down this past Saturday night and saw several surprise entrants in both matches. Naomi and Andrade made their returns to the promotion, while Liv Morgan came back from injury, and Impact Knockout’s Champion Jordynne Grace made a surprise appearance. One name who was expected to be involved in the men’s match but seems to have been pulled at the last minute is Brock Lesnar.
Lesnar was named in former WWE employee Janel Grant’s lawsuit against Vince McMahon, John Laurinitis, and the WWE. In it, Grant claims McMahon pressured her to set up a date to have sexual intercourse with Lesnar, but it did not happen. She also claims that she sent sexually explicit images to Lesnar at the request of McMahon.
The Wrestling Observer reports that, in light of the allegations, Lesnar was removed from the men’s WWE Royal Rumble match. He was never officially advertised to participate. Furthermore, Lesnar was replaced by former WWE NXT Champion Bron Breakker, who executed many of the spots that were planned for the former WWE and UFC World Champion. This included when Lesnar was planning to enter, who he was going to eliminate, and how he got eliminated.
POST Wrestling adds that the man who formally eliminated Breakker from the Rumble, Dominik Mysterio, was in line for a big match against Lesnar. Apparently, the elimination would have led to a match between Mysterio and Lesnar at the WWE Elimination Chamber in Perth, Australia. This was confirmed to POST Wrestling by two sources.
It is unknown whether Breakker will pick up the feud with Mysterio left behind by Lesnar. Following his participation in the big multi-man match, Breakker said in a backstage interview that the WWE main roster was his home now. Haus of Wrestling reached out to a tenured WWE source who said they were unsure if Breakker was officially done with WWE NXT but did compliment him on cutting “a hell of a promo.” It is worth noting that Breakker is still listed as a WWE NXT star on WWE.com.