Brock Lesnar is back on the WWE fold, and if the earlier reports have been any indication, then he always used to be in the pay structure of the company despite a two-year-long absence. Updates were recently out claiming that his original salary was retained by the WWE irrespective of the hiatus. However, this update may not be entirely true.
According to Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s Dave Meltzer, the top WWE Superstar’s contract wasn’t tweaked a bit, even when he was facing legal issues. Meltzer reported that Brock Lesnar was never suspended and remained under full contract during the hiatus that started in 2023 after his Summerslam match against Cody Rhodes.
To offer clarification on Brock Lesnar’s active status on the WWE payroll, Billi Bhatti addressed the speculation and detailed more on his contract situation on Dirty Sheets’ Wrestling Informer podcast. He was firm on pushing back on the widely circulated reports that WWE continued paying him during his hiatus. He was also specific about Meltzer being wrong in his previous updates about the former WWE Champion.
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“Let’s say that Brock Lesnar has made half a million for no reason, so WWE could use their image, which they didn’t do anyway — it has only really cost WWE half a million dollars. He’s not received anywhere near six to ten million for sitting at home. He’s received half a million. Dave Meltzer’s wrong, and so is every f*cking moron that piggybacks off Dave Meltzer and makes their own stuff,” stated Bhatti.
As per Bhatti’s reports, Brock Lesnar’s post-2021 contract paid $100,000 per television appearance, $500,000 for a pay-per-view, $1 million for a Saudi Arabia event, and a $500,000 annual fee for image rights. From 2012 to 2020, the biggest box office attraction in the WWE worked under larger guaranteed contracts.
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Down the road, Brock Lesnar briefly retired in 2020, but Vince McMahon brought him back on a pay-per-appearance basis, which was his deal at the time of the Janel Grant controversy, leading to his removal from WWE programming altogether from 2024 onward. He returned at Summerslam 2025, where John Cena and Cody Rhodes battled in a hard-fought contest for the WWE Championship at the MetLife Stadium in the main event.