5 Problems with Braun Strowman vs Brock Lesnar at No Mercy 2017

After his stellar performance at SummerSlam 2017, WWE is going all-in with Braun Strowman being the next singles opponent for Brock Lesnar at the upcoming No Mercy 2017 event on September 24th.

On paper, this seems like an amazing idea, as it will feature two of the biggest men on the roster piggybacking off their brutal confrontation.

However, once you get past that initial excitement and begin examining it with a more critical eye, you can start to see several problems that emerge from this booking decision.

In more ways than one, this isn't going to turn out to be as amazing as people are expecting it to be and we'll be sitting there on September 25th wondering why the Universal Championship picture is in the state it's in.

Here are five reasons why this match is going to have issues before, during, and after it happens and why despite the fun we'll have along the way, it will end up being more of a mistake than a benefit to the roster.

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#1 Who is the babyface in the match?

This was perhaps the biggest babyface pop of the entire night for SummerSlam, which was given to a heel.

Between The Beast Incarnate and The Monster Among Men, which one of them is supposed to be the fan favourite?

As far as issues go, this is the least worrisome, but it's still a problem that will come up.

Yes, it's okay to have heel vs. heel, face vs. face or tweener vs. tweener matches from time to time and it won't cause the entire company to collapse and the stock points to fall, but it does pose a few potential ways to disturb the peace.

For example, if Strowman is getting as positive of a reaction as he's been lately and WWE wants him to remain a heel, putting him up against someone he'd be cheered against will further cement his status as a fan favorite—counterproductive to what stories they'll want to tell after No Mercy.

That would force them to have to do damage control and retrace their footsteps in trying to make him seem like a bad guy again, which is double the work, and with as many rematches and hastily thrown together feuds as we've been having lately, sometimes, it appears as though having to work is the opposite goal of the creative team.

One single match can sway the WWE Universe into thinking a certain way about a wrestler and WWE might find themselves stuck with needing to turn Strowman into a full babyface, or at least dealing with a diminished effectiveness of him as a heel.

This may not seem like a thing, but look at how Samoa Joe has been cheered ever since facing Lesnar. He and The Miz were the clear favourites against Roman Reigns and John Cena, which is the complete opposite of how WWE would want the crowd to react.

Whenever WWE doesn't listen to the fans and their reactions, nobody wins.

#2 The outcome is predictable and repetitious

"Lol Lesnar wins" might as well replace "Lol Cena wins" at this point.

Let's get this out of the way really quickly and rip off the bandage fast: Braun Strowman is not going to win the Universal Championship.

Before even Goldberg won the title, there were reports that the plan was for Goldberg to beat Kevin Owens and drop it to Brock Lesnar, who'd then hold it an entire year before losing to Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 34.

This has never seemed to fully change, as Dave Meltzer is still beating the same drum that that is the current plan as reported earlier today.

If that's the case, then Strowman assuredly will lose this match and it will be a copy and paste of exactly what we had seen with Samoa Joe vs. Brock Lesnar.

Strowman will be booked strong so he looks like he's a major threat to the title reign — which he's already done by one-upping Lesnar on Raw this week — and the two will talk smack and brawl here and there until Lesnar is victorious at No Mercy.

It's a rinse and repeat of what's been done, so why should anybody care and get their hopes up for something different?

If you're the type of person who complains that John Cena always is the underdog and then wins after being beaten down, you have to extend the same courtesy to this type of booking for Lesnar, since that seems to be WWE's go-to storyline.

#3 Where does Strowman go from here?

This is just a pipe dream for another year, it seems.

The ultimate goal is the WWE Championship or the Universal Championship, but as previously established, that isn't going to happen for Braun Strowman.

Assuming Roman Reigns dethrones Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 34, Strowman fans will have to wait at least another eight months or so just to see Strowman have another feud with Reigns to be able to win the title!

What does WWE have in mind to counteract the disappointment of seeing the Monster Among Men lose to Lesnar?

It's doubtful there's actually a plan in place as the philosophy is probably that he'll be so popular by the time they get to No Mercy that it won't matter what he does next because they'll just go with the flow and figure it out a few days before September 24th.

That type of carelessness sometimes causes major problems and forces the company to scramble at the last minute to figure out something halfway decent, and often, when that happens, they fail at accomplishing that task.

How disappointing is it going to be to see Strowman build up all this momentum, lose to Lesnar, and then mull around with nothing to do for a few weeks until they announce some lame new feud with Bray Wyatt for TLC, for example?

The glass ceiling of being the top of the division will be out of the realm of possibility for Strowman, so no matter what is presented to his fans, they'll know that it won't amount to much.

Sure, he can beat Jason Jordan and Finn Balor and others, but does any of that matter in comparison?

It will be deflating to see him go from a potential world title reign to just another face on Raw struggling to find his way onto the card.

#4 There are no more believable challengers

The challenger staring down the champion is important, but nobody else will have this momentous feel.

Once Lesnar dispatches Strowman, who else is left for him to feud with as a believable challenger to his title reign?

By this point, he'll have defeated Samoa Joe, Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, Triple H, John Cena, The Undertaker, Randy Orton, Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, Goldberg, Big Show and many, many more top tier guys.

Are we really supposed to believe someone like Finn Balor is going to pose any kind of a threat whatsoever when he's half Lesnar's size at best?

The Demon King is popular, but he's smaller than some of the guys on 205 Live's weight limit and he's struggled with Bray Wyatt and Elias!

Speaking of Wyatt, he and Lesnar already had their exchanges in the past, where The Eater of Worlds was made to look like a complete chump—something he's used to, as he very rarely ever wins anything.

A track record of being a jobber to the stars makes Wyatt an easy pick to lose a match of any importance, so the idea of a feud with him and Lesnar is a moot point.

Big Cass is injured and has not been built up enough to challenge Lesnar anyway, the rest of Raw's roster is too low on the totem pole to be intimidating, and it's not worth moving someone over from SmackDown just to have them lose.

What valuable option after Strowman is there to do for Survivor Series and the Royal Rumble other than just doing another rematch with someone like Cena and going through the same motions we've done before?

#5 It deprives us of a better WrestleMania 34

Imagine the heat if Strowman did this to Lesnar at WrestleMania to force him out of WWE!

This week, we saw the tease of Roman Reigns vs. John Cena—a match which is undoubtedly the absolute biggest pairing the company can do at this point.

That should be our Universal Championship match at WrestleMania, not a redo of Lesnar vs. Reigns, which needed Seth Rollins to be added into the mix just to save it from being booed to the heavens several years ago.

If we were to have Reigns against Cena, that would have opened up Lesnar to face Strowman at WrestleMania and to hand the keys over to him while he made his exit from WWE.

Brock's contract is over at WrestleMania and it seems like he wants to get back into UFC. If that's the case, he needs to put over someone on his way out so that person can take the mantle as the top destroyer.

There's no benefit to having Lesnar leave on top and there's nothing to gain from having Reigns be the guy again when the crowd doesn't want to budge on its criticism of The Big Dog.

Strowman, on the other hand, could have been the perfect guy for the job.

His performance at SummerSlam could have been a marking point in their feud where he becomes someone that Lesnar actually fears and Paul Heyman does everything in his power to avoid having to set up the two of them going one-on-one.

Heyman manages to get Lesnar to escape having to face Strowman at No Mercy, setting up a different opponent instead, who Lesnar can more easily defeat.

Then, let's say Survivor Series is coming up and Lesnar is scheduled to fight Roman Reigns. Strowman interferes in the match and costs Lesnar the title, infuriating The Beast Incarnate.

The two momentarily clash during the Royal Rumble match, where they both eliminate each other and brawl to the back, setting up their inevitable fight at WrestleMania.

Then, Strowman makes good on his promise to take Lesnar out of commission and defeats him, sending him away from WWE for however long he wants to stay away to do his UFC dealings.

Lesnar gets a good storyline for months, the Universal Championship gets to be defended on a more regular basis, Reigns vs. Cena headlines WrestleMania, Strowman gets positioned as the go-to unstoppable monster in the company and everybody wins.

Having their confrontation happen here deprives us of the possibility, as there's no way to book either of them winning here and then doing another rematch at WrestleMania without it feeling like it's retreading familiar ground and not having the same market value as their "first-time ever" singles fight.

Instead, we'll just get Lesnar defeating Strowman the same way he did with Samoa Joe, doing Strowman no favors, opening the door for lame opponents for Lesnar and then having a WrestleMania main event where the fans still don't want to see Reigns end the night as the figurehead of the company, just as they didn't want it to happen at WrestleMania 31.

Meanwhile, Strowman will probably be thrown into the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal or something after spending the next few months going nowhere but down.

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