The recent Brock Lesnar: The Beast in the East WWE Network special wasn’t exactly your typical WWE show. It’s hard to image how a simple throwback wrestling show, featuring a mix of NXT and WWE talent, emanating from one of Japan’s most hallowed arenas and airing at 5:30 in the morning in the United States even came to be. Well, turns out that it was kind of a fluke.
According to the Wrestling Observer, two somewhat random situations led to The Beast in the East becoming a thing. First, Kevin Owens hit it off on the main roster sooner than expected. With Owens moving up, something needed to be done with the NXT title, but the next NXT Takeover special wasn’t until August. Not wanting to wait that long, somebody in WWE hatched the idea to put the title on Finn Balor in front of a “hometown audience” in Japan.
Still, even with Owens vs. Balor, the special probably wouldn’t have happened without Brock Lesnar. Well, luckily enough, it turned out that Brock was planning to go to Japan anyway because he wanted to visit Japanese wrestling legend Masa Saito (better known as Mr. Saito in the West). Saito, who’s reportedly not in great health, used to live in Minnesota, and he and Brock are close friends. So, Brock was already going to Japan, and if he crushed Kofi Kingston while there, he could write the whole thing off as a business trip. So, everything fell into place, and WWE suddenly had a very un-WWE-like special on their hands.
Oh, and guess who put together one of WWE’s best shows of the year? None other than the master of People Power himself, John Laurinaitis. Of course, Laurinaitis wrestled in Japan for years as Johnny Ace, and all the specifically Japanese touches like the streamers and flower ceremony before the Owens/Balor match were Big Johnny’s idea.
So, not your typical WWE show in front of the camera or behind the scenes. Kind of makes you wish WWE would just go with the flow and let circumstances book shows for them more often.
