Roman Reigns Should Turn Heel at WrestleMania 32 to Defeat Brock Lesnar

Roman Reigns has been fighting The Authority, but how about if he joins them at WrestleMania 32?

Through his journey to the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, Roman Reigns has been battling The Authority. Sheamus, who has had a loose tie to the group, has assisted in screwing the former Shield man out of the title. However, he would lose the title to Reigns soon after.

Since the title change, Vince McMahon has been out to get the champion. He made himself the special referee for the rematch, put Reigns in a “One vs. All” match and is forcing him to defend the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in the Royal Rumble match.

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Throughout Monday’s episode of Raw, we saw Paul Heyman hinting towards wanting his client, Brock Lesnar, to get a match for the title at WrestleMania 32. However, The Authority refused this. It led to Lesnar being put into the Royal Rumble match while destroying half the roster to close the show. He ended with hitting an F-5 on Reigns.

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With how few options there are for a WrestleMania main event, teasing Reigns vs. Lesnar for it makes sense. They are the two biggest non-injured active names WWE has. Plus, they never got to have a definitive finish from their title match at WrestleMania 31 due to Seth Rollins’ Money in the Bank cash-in.

However, before Rollins interfered, we saw Reigns struggle to get in any offense on Lesnar. He hit a few spears and Superman punches on the Beast Incarnate, but didn’t have enough fight to get the pin after being tossed around the ring for fifteen minutes. It was made clear that to defeat the former Next Big Thing, something drastic would have to happen.

With that in mind, let’s take a trip back fifteen years ago to the WrestleMania X-7 main event.

In a match for the WWF Championship, The Rock defended against Stone Cold Steve Austin in what’s considered one of the best headlining matches in WrestleMania’s 31-year history. It pitted two wrestling icons against each other who had a great match full of in-ring work and dramatics.

However, the dramatics is what people still talk about today from that match.

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Before the title bout started, ring announcer Howard Finkel stated to the crowd that this would be a No Disqualification match. This left everyone confused, including Jim Ross and Paul Heyman on commentary.

Well, they had every right to be baffled because the ending was a stunner.

Minutes before the match ended, Mr. McMahon came to ringside. He then started helping Austin by pulling The Rock away after he went for a pinfall and handing Stone Cold a chair, which he used multiple times. After one big shot to the head, Austin pinned the People’s Champ to win the WWF Championship and align with McMahon, something fans thought would never happen. It is considered one of the biggest swerve in WWE history.

On Tuesday, Ross, who again was at ringside for this match, brought up the WrestleMania X-7 main event and compared it to a possible WrestleMania 32 headlining match in his latest blog post.

"“Lesnar is a ‘face who the fans both are in awe of and respect wholeheartedly. BTW….what happens if Lesnar faces Reigns for the WWE Title at Wrestlemania Texas and Reigns turns, aligns with the Authority and cheats to beat Lesnar in AT&T Stadium? Just saying…”"

This idea is not all too crazy. Combine it with Reigns needing something drastic to defeat Lesnar and this can be seen as a possibility.

Lesnar is not going to go down easily, as we have seen with his booking for about three years. He has run through the likes of CM Punk, Big Show, The Undertaker and John Cena. The former WWE Undisputed Champion also will get up after his opponent hits their finishing move about two to three times. So, the best way for him to go down will be in a chaotic, messy fashion.

What also has to be factored in is Lesnar will be around for another two years (he signed a three-year deal in 2015 to stay with WWE). Given that he doesn’t show up often, his long-term booking has to be protected so that when he comes back, the fans are anticipating it. Having Brock take a clean pinfall loss would hurt his momentum for the remainder of his time with the company.

WrestleMania 32 is going to be seen in front of around 100,000 people, which will set an attendance record for the Show of Shows. For WWE to make this show have a long-lasting memory, doing something like Reigns shocking everyone by turning heel and aligning with The Authority would fit the bill.

As for how this heel turn could happen, ideas similar to the McMahon-Austin alignment come to mind. A change could be having the Authority sitting at ringside to either “make sure Reigns doesn’t walk out of WrestleMania as champion” or “to make sure things go smoothly” with a vagueness on the word “smoothly”. As for the events that transpire, I’ll leave that to your imagination.

This would all be stunning for two reasons.

First, it would show that WWE has a willingness to turn their anointed next top star heel. They have protected and made him the focus of every show since Rollins went down with an injury, so seeing him suddenly turn would be interesting.

Second, after all that The Authority put Reigns through, seeing an alignment happen would be bizarre. Roman, Triple H, Stephanie and Vince McMahon standing side by side?

Another thing to look at would be how WWE could tease this, which they already have done multiple times.

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Last fall, Reigns aligning with Triple H was mentioned on TV multiple times, only for the former to decline the offers. This led to the vicious assault at WWE TLC. But what if Reigns decides to change his mind due to The Authority being too much of a pain in his side. The old saying was always “If you can’t beat them, join them”, right?

Then on Monday night, we saw the McMahon’s get angry with Lesnar and Paul Heyman when the latter asked for his client to be put in a WrestleMania 32 match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, bypassing the Royal Rumble match. The WWE owners were angry at this and turned down Heyman’s proposal. This led to Lesnar taking out everyone at the end of Raw.

Go back to the night after WrestleMania 31 as well. This was when Lesnar took out his frustrations after Rollins ran away from their title rematch. He attacked a cameraman and Michael Cole, leading to a suspension handed down by The Authority. While they did bring him back to face Rollins at WWE Battleground, it doesn’t mean things are peachy between the two sides.

A while after all this happens, the dust would settle and Reigns’ title run would continue. Someone who will likely come back for his title is Rollins, who will be sidelined into the summer with an injury. We already saw some cracks between The Authority and the Architect before he left, so maybe he returns as a babyface to attack Reigns, who would be aligned with Triple H and company. This could set up an epic main event for WWE SummerSlam between the two former Shield men who have never had the chance to compete one on one on a big stage (derailed by injuries twice).

WWE has often been afraid to have the heels stand tall to end WrestleMania. They did prove many wrong last year by having Rollins walk out with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, though, via Money in the Bank cash-in. If they want to do this again, having Roman Reigns shock everyone by cheating to defeat Brock Lesnar while aligning with The Authority would work.

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