MID-Tier Match Reviews: Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns – WWE WrestleMania 34

Concluding our trinity of infamous Roman Reigns WrestleMania main events we have his last before the entire world turned upside down. Which is sort of fitting because the Roman Reigns from before the pandemic and the one that returning after it began were worlds apart from one another.

Despite being arguably the biggest wrestling star of the past ten years, Reigns had one of the bumpiest roads to the top in recent memory. Much of this wasn’t entirely his fault: as his most recent run has proven he is more than capable as a draw and has actually become a babyface with most of the wrestling world despite being portrayed as a heel. Indeed, it was the material he was given with at first that made him into such a reviled wrestler; and since those passionate and vocal opponents of his knew they couldn’t target or affect Vince McMahon directly, they opted to try and tarnish his next handpicked creation in any way they could.

And so, Reigns main-evented four consecutive WrestleManias and in all of them he was met with significantly more boos than cheers. Yet each match was different: his first in 2015 was largely positive thanks to arguably the biggest surprise in WrestleMania history. His 2016 appearance was more slow than it was outright bad, thanks to it bookending the longest and most exhausting WrestleMania of all time. His third was a damning indictment of his lack of skill and his opponent being clearly unfit to wrestle. But after all of those ups and downs, how did Reigns fare once things came full circle and he found himself facing Brock Lesnar once again?

The Story

Reigns won a #1 Contender’s Elimination Chamber match at the eponymous PPV and thus earned the right to face Lesnar at WrestleMania. But there was a problem: Reigns was still hated by many vocal pockets of the fandom. Small pockets in the grand scheme of things, but still vocal enough to generate headlines that weren’t to WWE’s liking. So WWE positioned Reigns as the working man’s choice, a guy who came to work every week no matter what while Lesnar used his special privileges (which were confirmed by Vince McMahon) to show up whenever he felt like it.

In truth this was a double-edged sword: Lesnar appearing rarely helped amplify his special aura, and while there’s definitely something to be said about him not appearing regularly like Reigns and others, Reigns’ condemning Lesnar in this way kind of made wrestling appear like an ordinary job that people clock in and out for when, in fact, it’s a very specialized type of work for which part-time appearances like Lesnar’s extend one’s career.

Anyways, Reigns, now this man-of-the-people-type, confronted Vince at Gorilla about Lesnar being perpetually absent, which led to Vince suspending him in story. Reigns returned anyway and beat up some indy wrestlers dressed as US Marshalls in a thinly-veiled copy of one of Steve Austin’s angles from back in the day. He tried to fight Lesnar moments later despite being handcuffed only for Lesnar to manhandle him all the same. Then a bunch of midcarders were to serve as a barrier between Lesnar in the ring and Reigns on the stage, but the moment Reigns mentioned the word “part-timer”, these other guys parted like Moses and the Red Sea, allowing Reigns to get a few more hits in.

The Match

This took place on April 8, 2018. It was rated *** out of five by the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer.

Reigns comes out first to a torrent of boos which are quickly followed by relative silence from the crowd. Meanwhile Lesnar gets a mild pop but it’s far from his biggest or most positive reaction ever.

A light “let’s go Roman/Roman sucks” chant starts among a few fans as the bell rings and Lesnar carries Reigns into a corner. Lesnar hits shoulders to the gut but Reigns shoves him back and lands an uppercut. Lesnar hits back with three German suplexes but Reigns retaliates with two Superman punches followed by a third at ringside. He clotheslines Lesnar back out of the ring and goes for another Superman punch but Lesnar catches him with an overhead belly-to-belly, which leads to a CM Punk chant.

Lesnar follows with another belly-to-belly but this one’s more awkward and Reigns shifts his weight so that he doesn’t go face-first into the ringside commentary table and instead lands on top of it. German suplex #4. “Suplex City, Bitch”, says Lesnar to a surprisingly muted response. Lesnar lands German #5 and a third Belly-to-belly. B2B #4 sends Reigns across the ring and to the floor. Lesnar tosses Reigns into a piece of barricade and then goes for an F-5 but Reigns escapes and shoves Lesnar into a ringpost. Then Reigns hits a Goldberg-like carry spear and sends Lesnar over and onto another commentary table.

Something in the crowd steal’s the crowd’s attention causing a sudden torrent of boos. Maybe it’s the Hogan impersonator from WrestleMania XX, back to troll Lesnar for having bad ‘Mania matches. Reigns tosses Lesnar into the ring and hits both one Superman punch and two spears for a two-count. The crowd pops again but for something happening in the stands and not in the ring. Reigns charges for another spear. Lesnar hits first with a Tsuruta jumping knee for two. Lesnar lands an F-5 but Reigns kicks out. F-5 #2. Another kick-out. A third F-5. Yet another two-count. the crowd chants “boring”. Lesnar dumps Reigns ringside and hits a fourth F-5, this one through a commentary table…which leads to more boos.

Back in the ring Lesnar lands a sixth German followed by a fifth F-5 for yet another two-count. Lesnar removes his gloves and starts punching Reigns’ head as the crowd chants “this is awful”. You can see the straight gig mark right below Reigns’ hairline as blood starts pouring down seconds later. 0.25 on the Muta scale. Lesnar tries another F-5. Reigns escapes this time and hits two more spears. One, two, Lesnar survives. Reigns charges for a full-power spear…and runs into F-5 #6. One, two, and three! Lesnar retains.

Winner and STILL WWE Universal Champion after 15:55: Brock Lesnar

Post-match, Lesnar leaves and, in footage released later on, he throws the Universal title at Vince at Gorilla.

Review

Talk about a deflating way to end WrestleMania.

This wasn’t as bad as Reigns’ match with The Undertaker from the prior year but it was still worse than his match with Triple H. While these two guys learned from the Reigns/HHH match and trimmed the fat to keep things simple, this still went too long with plenty of dead air and wasted time between big spots. Both Lesnar and Reigns are cut from the same cloth: they’re guys who can have compelling longer matches with someone smaller who can fight from underneath against them (in Lesnar’s case, an Eddy Guerrero or an AJ Styles or even a Kurt Angle, even though he’s not that much smaller; and in Reigns’ case, a Bryan or a Cody). But when paired against each other these two men just didn’t have all that exciting a match. Though I wouldn’t say it’s either of their faults; instead, I’d put the blame here squarely on the agent who put the match together and for WWE’s management for giving the audience something they didn’t really want.

Somehow this ended up being both a carbon copy of Reigns’ 2016 WrestleMania storyline and its mirror image: it was so obvious he was going to win yet at the last possible second Vince decided to swerve the audience (was it McMahon or the ghost of Russo booking this?) and keep the title on Lesnar. Story-wise it didn’t make sense: the entire build was centered on Reigns supplanting Lesnar in a mishmash of different previous storylines, and this time with the added Daniel Bryan underdog element thrown in for good measure as well. WWE tried everything to make Reigns into a lovable babyface but the audience refused to eat what Vince McMahon was serving. Worse, many people ended up tired of Lesnar here as well since he had been doing more or less the exact same type of finisher spam matches that quickly lose their wow factor once you’ve seen more than a handful. As a result, this match left the audience in a no-win situation: Reigns winning was the expected result but still a dissatisfying one while Lesnar winning would’ve been a surprise but an inexplicable one. Small wonder, then, that the crowd started entertaining themselves in any way they could.

And while this show wasn’t as painfully long and exhausting as the previous two and had a stronger undercard to keep most people at least somewhat happy, there was no need for this show to go over five hours. Fans watching either at home or on location were likely exhausted, bored, disappointed, or drunk by the time this match came around. Things only got worse as both Lesnar and Reigns devalued their respective big moves by spamming them nonstop to less effect each time. Though this level of finisher spam wasn’t as egregious as Seth Rollins versus Bray Wyatt in 2019 it, was still enough to make plenty of people collectively think “just get this over with already”. So with a disappointing story, an unnecessary swerve finish, and underwhelming in-ring action that didn’t justify either its length or its sense of repetition, it’s no wonder that this match is still seen as one of the worst main-events in WrestleMania history.

Final Rating: *3/4

They tried here but this just didn’t work. Though the wrestling was physical and there was still something mildly fun in seeing Lesnar throw the 265-pound Reigns around like a weightless ragdoll, those moments of genuine joy and excitement were few and far between here. This match should’ve been cut in half in terms of time given and the number of big moves. Rather than spam the same moves over and over and devalue them as a result, these guys should’ve simply made this more of a struggle to land fewer more important and impactful ones instead.

But don’t take my word for it: just watch and listen to the crowd’s responses to this unnecessary repetition. Those that didn’t chant random stuff throughout the match could be seen from the hard camera looking elsewhere and finding something else to enjoy. If that’s not a clear indictment of this match’s quality then I don’t know what is.

If you want to see these guys at their best then you’re better off looking elsewhere. Lesnar’s best matches were against Kurt Angle at WrestleMania XIX and Eddy Guerrero at No Way Out 2004, while Reigns had strong performances against Cody at WrestleMania 40 and some great ones with Daniel Bryan and AJ Styles. Any of those matches will be a much better use of your time and you won’t finish any of those matches feeling swindled or underwhelmed.

Thanks for reading.