What if Brock Lesnar had really left WWE after SummerSlam 2018?

#1 Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose feud over the Universal Championship

The issue between Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose may have gotten

additional

weight in the absence of Brock Lesnar.

When Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose split up on the same night Roman Reigns announced he was vacating the Universal Championship, it seemed reasonable enough to think that his former Shield brothers would take up the mantle of headlining Raw. Things changed, in no small part due to a lukewarm response to Rollins and Ambrose’s match at TLC, in addition to the revelation that Ambrose wouldn’t sign a new WWE contract.

Had Lesnar not been on the horizon, though, and soon enough reigning as Universal Champion, might things have gone differently, though?

Ambrose and Rollins were among the very few stars WWE could have readily slid into the title picture at that moment, and perhaps with the Universal title and higher stakes for the company on the line, we would have seen a more heated, better-developed rivalry between them. Lesnar afforded WWE a more conservative out—basically hitting the reset button from before SummerSlam. While Rollins may benefit in the long term, as the Royal Rumble winner and potentially the guy to beat Lesnar at ‘Mania, there's little doubt that the Rollins-Ambrose feud suffered with Lesnar in the picture.