Report: Vince McMahon Balked at Renewing Lesnar’s Deal in 2020 Over Price Tag

Brock Lesnar’s continued run in WWE after 2020 wasn’t a given, according to a new report indicating that then-Chairman Vince McMahon initially balked at re-signing the former UFC champion when his contract came up for renewal that year. The sticking point, per the report, was cost — Lesnar has long been considered one of the highest-paid performers on the WWE roster, commanding a premium for a part-time schedule built around marquee pay-per-view appearances rather than weekly television.

The revelation lands with extra weight now that Lesnar’s in-ring career has officially come to a close. He wrestled his final match at SummerSlam 2026, dropping a Hell in a Cell contest to Oba Femi. Rather than treat the loss as just another result, Lesnar used the moment to publicly elevate Femi, delivering the kind of endorsement that only a performer with Lesnar’s standing in the industry can give — a passing-of-the-torch moment that instantly boosted Femi’s profile heading into the next phase of his career.

That send-off makes the idea that WWE almost let Lesnar walk away six years earlier all the more notable in hindsight. Lesnar’s value to WWE was never about ratings consistency or week-to-week presence; it was about the aura he carried into buildings, the credibility he lent to any opponent he faced, and the box-office spike that came whenever his name appeared on a poster. Letting him go in 2020 would have closed the book on one of the promotion’s most bankable attractions years before his actual retirement.

It’s worth remembering the climate WWE was operating in during 2020. The company was navigating the financial uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, including widely reported cost-cutting measures and a wave of releases across the roster. A hesitancy to commit big money to any one contract, even one as valuable as Lesnar’s, would have fit the mood of that period. Whatever the internal back-and-forth, the deal ultimately got done, and Lesnar went on to headline several more marquee matches before riding off into retirement opposite one of WWE’s rising stars.

The story also serves as a reminder of how often “sure thing” signings in wrestling are anything but, and how differently a legacy can read depending on which side of a negotiation prevails. Had McMahon held firm on walking away from Lesnar in 2020, the promotion would have lost not just a box-office draw but the chance to orchestrate the kind of career-capping moment he gave Femi at SummerSlam. As it stands, Lesnar’s WWE story got the ending it arguably needed — but this report is a reminder of how close that ending came to never happening the way fans know it.