Brock Lesnar: The Beast’s Universal Championship Defenses Ranked

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5. Brock Lesnar vs. Kane vs. Braun Strowman (Royal Rumble 2018)

The only thing keeping this triple threat match from being the bottom of the barrel is the cage match in Saudi Arabia. While this match wasn’t as big of an abject failure as the Greatest Royal Rumble match, it was more disappointing than any others. And not because of its quality, but because of its general existence.

Kane spent much of 2017 and 2018 out on the campaign trail in his (ultimately successful) quest to become mayor of Knox County, Tennessee. But every so often, he would pop back up to inject himself into a lower-level feud to put someone over. Wait, did I say “lower-level” and “put someone over”? I meant “main event adjacent” and “seem more powerful than Braun Strowman.”

It was a case of odd booking that even led to this match, and you could tell the goal was to both keep Strowman out of the Royal Rumble match and keep the title on Lesnar for Reigns to beat him at WrestleMania. Uh, mission almost accomplished?

Kane existed solely to take the pinfall, and preserve Strowman’s invulnerability. The match was hard hitting, tables were broken, yeah yeah blah blah. But there was no drama to it. No one seriously believed Braun would win the title at this juncture, not with WrestleMania looming. And how do you logically eliminate Strowman from a Royal Rumble match (see: Strowman’s victory in the Greatest Royal Rumble a few months later).