Brock Lesnar is notoriously a difficult man to work with, with numerous stories having surfaced of varying backstage fiascos. Even as recently as this past July, ‘The Beast Incarnate’ is reported to have walked out of a SmackDown broadcast mere hours before it went on-air upon learning of Vince McMahon’s retirement.
This was no different at the 2016 WWE SummerSlam pay-per-view, as reports emerged following the event of a backstage scuffle between Lesnar and Chris Jericho. The incident is said to have occurred straight after Brock Lesnar‘s TKO victory vs. Randy Orton, which saw Brock seemingly intentionally draw blood from ‘The Viper’ after a series of forearms.
Brock Lesnar Vs. Chris Jericho: What Really Happened?
When mentioning the topic on his Talk Is Jericho podcast, Chris Jericho explained how he was merely sticking up for Randy Orton:
“Well, you know, anytime something like that happens there’s always a lot of rumours and a lot of stories being told. Not to get into specifics…it was basically between me and Brock, but we did have a little bit of a brouhaha, shall we say.
I think that happens when you get guys that are in a sport such as ours – half-entertainment, half-real, half-not…I just thought the finish of that match was very brutal and very violent, and I just didn’t know if Randy was OK. I was checking on Randy, my friend. We’ve always been pretty close. I said something and he said something and next thing you know we’re nose-to-nose kind of yelling at each other. And [it] diffused fairly quickly.
Listen, let’s make no bones about this, Brock is a trained fighter, and he’s a beast. I’m not the type of person to back down from anybody – to my detriment. Hot head fire off and we were in each other’s face and that happens sometimes. I guess I kind of have a reputation for it too, I never back down. In the case of guys his size, they think people are just going to wilt, and most people do. I’m glad he didn’t eat me.
Basically, there was a face-to-face confrontation and I’ll leave the rest between the two of us.”
Despite all that’s reported to have happened, Randy Orton claimed he has a lot of respect for Brock Lesnar based off their time spent together in Ohio Valley Wrestling.