The Truth About Chris Jericho & Brock Lesnar's Backstage Fight At WWE SummerSlam 2016

Pro wrestling fights are often born out of building tensions between two competitors, often over months or years. At SummerSlam 2016, however, that wasn't the case at all.

Instead, two former world champions came to blows at a major pay-per-view out of nowhere, with no known heat between them, with the confrontation taking place due to a lack of communication between the office and the locker room.

Brock Lesnar

Brock Lesnar was one of, if not the top star of WWE in the summer of 2016, with the man known as The Beast Incarnate very much qualifying as a pro wrestling enigma.

In the 18 months before SummerSlam 2016, Lesnar had featured in a silly tug of war over the WWE World Heavyweight Championship with Roman Reigns before bleeding in the match at WrestleMania 31 where he lost the belt, squashed Kofi Kingston in under three minutes at a televised house show in Japan, feuded with The Undertaker after a brief confrontation with Seth Rollins at Battleground in which Rollins vanished into thin air, feuded with the Wyatt Family before plans changed, had an awful WrestleMania 32 match with Dean Ambrose, and competed at UFC 200 where he won via decision, only to later have his victory rescinded after testing positive for a banned substance in his post-fight screening. 

Compared to his later years on WWE TV, Brock had a busy schedule in 2015 and 2016, with his segments feeling important. His programme leading into SummerSlam 2016 was so important that Mike Goldberg mentioned it during UFC 200, with what some would consider a dream match between Lesnar and Randy Orton finally set to take place to close out the Biggest Party of the Summer. 

Chris Jericho

By 2016, Chris Jericho was beginning to threaten Marty Jannetty's record for most WWE tenures. Unlike Jannetty, however, Jericho always came and went on good terms, going to great lengths to reinvent himself for each distinct run. 

This time around, Jericho had returned to WWE in the 2016 Royal Rumble and feuded with AJ Styles and Dean Ambrose, before he began his memorable partnership with Kevin Owens, which would see them defeat the incredibly popular duo of Enzo Amore and Big Cass in the opening match of SummerSlam. 

SummerSlam 2016

WWE enjoyed a positive 2016 overall following the reintroduction of the brand split but SummerSlam 2016 was a strange show. Sheamus vs. Cesaro was bumped to the pre-show, The Miz vs. Apollo Crews was the actual Intercontinental Title match, Jon Stewart managed The New Day, Roman Reigns received chants of “don’t come back” in his win over Rusev, Dean Ambrose and Dolph Ziggler had an oddly ineffectual all-babyface WWE Title match, and the ugly red Universal Title belt was roundly booed before Finn Balor became the inaugural champion with a win over Seth Rollins, suffering an injury in the process. 

Then, in the main event, Brock Lesnar faced off with Randy Orton. The match had little reason to exist outside of that it was considered a dream match by some, and the result was considered a foregone conclusion of a competitive struggle before Lesnar won in the end. 

The finish ended up being one of the most disquieting moments in WWE history, however. After 10 minutes of an average WWE match with little to get the fans truly excited about outside of an RKO out of nowhere, the finish saw Orton prone on the canvas when Lesnar mounted him like they were in the octagon. The former UFC Heavyweight Champion then unleashed a torrent of elbow strikes to Orton’s head, with the elbows splitting Orton’s face open and causing him to gush blood. 

Behind the scenes, it was decreed before the match that Orton would get colour, but he wasn’t allowed to blade, as had been done for decades to bleed in professional wrestling, with WWE judging that blading was barbaric. So, for PG WWE to draw blood they decided to have Brock Lesnar pulverise Orton’s head with elbow strikes. 

What WWE deemed to be the best course of action resulted in Orton needing 10 staples to close the wound, with conflicting reports emerging about whether or not Orton suffered a concussion. 

The Fight

Backstage, what had unfolded upset a lot of wrestlers, including Chris Jericho, a close friend of Orton’s. He, among others, wasn't sure if Lesnar had gone into business for himself and intentionally busted Orton open.

Vince McMahon was always insistent about keeping all of Brock's booking – especially his finishes – a secret. This is what led to the scenario in the 2019 Money in the Bank Ladder match where Mustafa Ali was told to "climb the ladder, but don't actually pull the briefcase down", but nothing more. This resulted in Ali looking pensive and confused on his climb as he simply waited for Brock’s theme to fill the arena. 

This also meant only a handful of individuals knew about the finish of SummerSlam 2016, meaning Jericho had no idea if the incident was a work or shoot.

Jericho began questioning the presiding Michael Hayes about what had just happened. Hayes, though, allegedly said nothing and was reluctant to explain what had just happened, even if the situation warranted transparency with the locker room. 

With Jericho unable to get answers out of Hayes, he loudly exclaimed, "This is bullsh*t" just as Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman walked through the curtain to the backstage area. Though the exclamation was directed at Hayes' silence, Brock interpreted it as having been about his performance. 

Lesnar and Jericho immediately exchanged words, with Brock dismissing Jericho's anger, and Y2J pointedly demanding answers. According to witnesses, Lesnar gently shoved Jericho away, only for the shorter Jericho to immediately go back at him, getting in his face.

With Jericho and Lesnar nose to nose, Brock told the former AEW World Champion to "hit me or kiss me, b*tch", with Lesnar even allegedly kissing Jericho on the forehead to try and goad him further. Jericho, a man with a much smaller frame than Lesnar, responded by shoving Brock hard into the wall by the gorilla position.  

Speaking about the incident years later on the True Geordie Podcast, Jericho alleged that Lesnar made homophobic remarks while trying to goad him, and his plan was to bite Lesnar's nose off.

"I was in Gorilla and I was f*cking angry about it. And Brock came through and saw me angry about it and decided he wanted to challenge me. We got into a little bit of an issue and I was like, 'F*ck this guy. I don't give a sh*t how f*cking big he is. I don’t f*cking care. This is f*cking wrong.' I will stand up for what I believe in to the death, and I remember being literally nose to nose with the guy. And he's laughing and he was actually saying things that would probably get him cancelled if I said them to you, like homophobic terms that you shouldn't be saying," Jericho revealed.

"I was like f*ck it, I'm going to bite his f*cking nose off. I'm going to bite his nose off. I see this giant, fat nose and I'm like if he comes any closer and takes a swing at me - I'm not even saying it as a tough guy - I'm literally going to bite his f*cking nose off. And I remember King Haku had done it, he's a good friend of mine, bit someone's nose off once, and I'm like I'll bite his f*cking nose, see how tough he is then. He might kill me but he's going to walk around for the rest of his life with no nose. I didn't care about the homophobic thing, I don't give a shit, I wasn't falling for it."

Quickly, the two wrestlers engaged in a clinch, but before either man could land any sort of damaging blow, Triple H intervened to break up his fellow main eventers of 2002, at which point Lesnar and Jericho told him to "f*ck off." Others, including Michael Hayes and Vince McMahon, quickly descended upon the scene.

Once separated, Lesnar continued with his taunts. Jericho then re-engaged the bigger man, before Vince himself reportedly got between them. McMahon scolded Jericho for being unprofessional, while Jericho retorted that Brock was unprofessional for maiming Orton. It was only then that Vince had to tell him it was all a work.

Reports indicated that at that point, Triple H told his father-in-law that Lesnar had started it and that Jericho was only defending himself. In his battered state, Orton later confirmed to Jericho that the bloodletting (barbaric as it was) was planned ahead of time.

Neither Lesnar nor Jericho was punished, largely because the scrum was broken up quickly enough. Both men continued to be pushed well into WrestleMania 33 season and never really seemed to cross paths otherwise.

So, the backstage fight between Brock Lesnar and Chris Jericho occurred because Vince McMahon cloaked the main event finish with Fort Knox levels of security. Secrecy led to alarm and confusion, which led to wrong place/wrong time vented frustration, then taunts, then physicality.