Roman Reigns Lost, But He Isn’t Done With Brock Lesnar
At WWE WrestleMania 34, basically everyone expected Roman Reigns to defeat Brock Lesnar and finally conquer The Beast Incarnate. Instead, he lay there in a pool of his own blood, defeated after a sixth F5 from Paul Heyman’s monster.
Whether you like it or not – and the fans in attendance at WrestleMania 34 certainly didn’t – Roman Reigns is the WWE’s top babyface, and that’s a fact that likely won’t change. As such, most fans expected Reigns to win the Universal Championship for the first time in his career in the main event of the show, defeating Brock Lesnar and ending the part-timer’s year-long reign.
Lesnar’s time with the Universal Championship has had some highs, including his match with AJ Styles at Survivor Series and the builds to his feuds with Braun Strowman and Samoa Joe, but lately it’s been filled with more lows. His main event match at WrestleMania against Reigns was one of those lows.
At WrestleMania 31, Reigns and Lesnar put on an instant classic before Seth Rollins interrupted to become the WWE World Heavyweight Champion by cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase. It was an all-out brawl with plenty of false finishes, but it showcased both performers and entertained the crowd.
Credit: WWE on Twitter
However, their rematch at WrestleMania 34 did the opposite of entertain the crowd. Instead of winning the hostile New Orleans crowd over, they caused the crowd to completely turn on the match, as “CM Punk” chants reverberated across the Superdome at one point.
Reigns hit some spears, and Lesnar kicked out of them. Lesnar hit F5 after F5, screaming “Motherf****r!” at one point when the resilient Reigns kicked out. Showcasing Lesnar’s beastliness and Reigns’s resiliency was smart and unsurprising. Making the match nothing but a finisher fest was not, because both performers are capable of so much more.
The match moved from being awkward and uncomfortable to being difficult to watch when Reigns was busted open, blood everywhere. A sixth F5, and Reigns was finally done, defeated in shocking fashion by Lesnar, whose reign now seems to be in an awkward spot and whose UFC future seems imminent – but ultimately postponed by this surprise win.
It’s hard not to feel terrible for Reigns. The man works his butt of night in and night out to earn the respect of the audience, and they’ve done nothing but vilify and boo him due to his success. At WrestleMania 34 against Lesnar, he went out there and did the job against the part-timer, taking a real beating and getting busted open for his efforts. He lost in a pool of his own blood and took an F5 through the table.
Credit: WWE Network On Twitter
The WWE does everything for a reason. This match was roundly criticized by most fans, and, well, that was for a good reason. It wasn’t remotely what they wanted or expected to see in the main event of a WrestleMania card that had, to that point, delivered emphatically with most of its matches and marquee moments.
But there’s a reason why Reigns lost in shocking fashion while bloodied and battered in a match that was ostensibly his coronation. There’s a reason why Lesnar retained against a man who has successfully won in the main event of WrestleMania against Triple H and the Undertaker in previous years.
Because at the end of the day, it’s hard to believe that Reigns is finished with Lesnar. In fact, I can’t bring myself to believe that this was Reigns’s last shot at the Universal Championship with Brock as the title-holder. Reigns is the guy who is portrayed as having resiliency beyond resiliency. He’s the hero with the resolve to get past everything, including five F5s before succumbing to a sixth while his head was busted open. This isn’t the type of guy who lies down quietly after being beaten into a pulp in the main event of WrestleMania.
Next: WrestleMania 34 Live Review, Highlights, Grades, and Analysis
Reigns isn’t finished with Lesnar. He’s ready for revenge, and we’re going to see a side of him that we haven’t seen before. The build to this WrestleMania match was fine and had some solid promos from Reigns, but what’s about to come next in the evolution of his character will be even better.
And if it isn’t, the WWE will have done a serious disservice to one of its most talented yet misunderstood and polarizing wrestlers.