Former WWE Star Pays Tribute To Brock Lesnar After Retirement: ‘Was An Honor To Slug It Out With You Over The Years’

WWE

A former WWE star has paid tribute to Brock Lesnar following his retirement from professional wrestling.

After passing the torch to Oba Femi at WWE SummerSlam 2026 Saturday (August 1), Brock Lesnar appeared on The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday, August 4 to officially announce his retirement from WWE.

Some of Lesnar’s biggest WWE rivals such as Roman Reigns and John Cena have paid tribute to ‘The Beast’ and his storied athletic career, with the former hailing Lesnar as “one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time.”

Now another notable past rival of Lesnar has joined in the tributes, as former WWE star Braun Strowman took to Instagram today to thank the 11-time world champion.

Describing working with Lesnar as an “honor,” Strowman wrote:

Was an honor to slug it out with you over the years!!!!

Enjoy it you damn sure earned it!!!!

#retirement #thankyou

Accompanying the post was a still image of Strowman and Lesnar having a stare down in WWE, with the pair clashing twice in one-on-one premium live event matches (No Mercy 2017 and Crown Jewel 2018) and several more times in multi-man bouts at events such as SummerSlam and the Royal Rumble.

Lesnar never lost to Strowman across all of their meetings, with almost all them being contested for the Universal Championship – a title Lesnar held for a combined 688 days across three reigns in-between 2017-2019.

Strowman was released by WWE in May 2025, and has not yet made any appearances for any other major wrestling promotions since then.

Instead, Strowman has been keeping busy in his role as the host of his very own food show on USA Network: ‘Everything on the Menu with Braun Strowman.’ 

The show – which has been airing after SmackDown on a Friday night – is currently on its second season, and has featured several guests from WWE such as Alexa Bliss, Mark Henry, and the wider entertainment world.

An Exciting Post-Brock Lesnar WWE Feud Lined Up For Oba Femi

With Brock Lesnar dominating almost the entirety of Oba Femi’s main roster run thus far, there had been plenty of questions regarding how WWE would book ‘The Ruler’ after SummerSlam.

While it seems obvious that he’s on a collision course with Roman Reigns at some point – being owed a world title opportunity due to his King of the Ring win – that match seems too box office to take place at any event other than WrestleMania 43, and that is likely WWE’s thinking too.

Thankfully, rather than restart the short-lived Oba Femi Open Challenge, it seems as if the former NXT Champion has some clear direction post-Lesnar, as WWE planted the seeds for a feud with fellow future main event star Bron Breakker on the August 3 episode of Raw.

Femi has, in the eyes of many, surpassed Breakker in the WWE pecking order, and this can be something that fuels the second-generation star in his program with Femi.

Breakker needs something big to restart his push, and while a feud with Femi may not ultimately end too well for him on a win/loss front, hopefully WWE can do a good enough job in booking him as a credible threat to Femi’s ascent to the main event picture.

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• wwe
• BRAUN STROWMAN
• Brock Lesnar

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