Hey everybody and welcome to Wolski’s Wrestling Ramblings- Wrestlemania week edition. This is the biggest weekend in wrestling and I intend to celebrate it in writing!
This year is kinda unique as both world title matches have happened on huge stages before. AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura faced off at Wrestle Kingdom 10 in 2016, and Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns battled in the main event of Wrestlemania 31 in 2015. Now both matches are happening again in the Superdome in New Orleans for Wrestlemania 34.
So this week I’m gonna go back and look at both matches, and anticipate what we might see again in the new incarnations of them. Plus I’ll see how they compare to this year’s matches next week.
So without further to do, Brock Lesnar vs Roman Reigns I!
Back in the spring of 2015, people hated Reigns more than they do now. While now he’s at least given credit for his in-ring abilities, fans were having none of it back then. He was a cancer to wrestling, we all were convinced. He was Vince’s golden boy and Cena 2.0 and was just gonna beat the unbeatable Brock Lesnar.
But Lesnar wasn’t loved either. He had been the champion since Summerslam 2014, after giving John Cena the worst beating of his life with 14 suplexes. The fans loved that part.
However, Lesnar defended the title only two other times, once at the next pay per view, Night of Champions 2015, and then in an awesome triple threat match at the 2015 Royal Rumble.
By the time Wrestlemania rolled around, people were sick of Lesnar’s stranglehold on the belt, since he rarely defended it or showed up on TV, Raw was left without a major champion. Sound familiar?
It started in Philly at the Royal Rumble 2015. It was a perfect storm of bad booking, as Daniel Bryan made his return with the crowd fully at his side. So naturally, he wrestles for 15 minutes and is knocked off the ring unceremoniously by Bray Wyatt less than halfway into the match.
So for the rest of the match the fans boo everyone, save Dean Ambrose and Dolph Ziggler. Reigns comes out at some point to horrible boos, and is beaten up and doesn’t really do much. Following this, The Big Show and Kane dump out all the credible competitors of the rumble such as Ambrose, Wyatt, and Ziggler like garbage, leaving Reigns alone with them.
Then the two argue and choke each other on the ropes, so Reigns goes from behind and eliminates them. But that’s not it, Rusev is there as well, hiding outside the ring. He jumps in and quickly gets eliminated, but was being cheered. The guy who hates America was cheered in Philadelphia. One of the most patriotic cities in the country. That’s how much the world despised Reigns.
Oh, and they cheered The Rock, who came out to even the odds against Big Show and Kane and lifted Reigns’ hand after his victory. Roman Reigns got The freaking Rock booed.
Yet all the #cancelWWENetworks in the world couldn’t do anything, as Reigns was headed to Wrestlemania. The rest of the Mania build included silly promos where Paul Heyman worshiped Reigns, at one point saying Bruno Sammartino couldn’t lace up his boots. There was very little physical fighting between the two, until the go-home Raw before Wrestlemania.
This Raw bore witness to one of the worst go-home segments ever. That Raw ended with Reigns and Lesnar in a tug of war over the WWE title, each grabbing an end but not really pulling, just looking angrily at each other. It was great comedy, but not a good way to sell a match featuring two of the toughest guys in wrestling.
The match, however, was a different story.
Hard hitting did not do this justice. Both Reigns and Lesnar left it all in the ring, telling the story of Reigns being destroyed by Lesnar and being unfazed, at one point smiling at him after taking a suplex.
This is also the match that coined Lesnar’s famous saying “Suplex City.” Both guys went hard, with Lesnar being busted open by hitting the ring post and Reigns bleeding from the mouth, most likely from some hard punches from Lesnar.
Despite the lackluster build and general attitude toward Reigns, the match delivered as a Wrestlemania main event, providing some great action with a good story.
But that’s not even taking the ending into account. In one of the most shocking moments I can remember, Seth Rollins cashed in his Money in the Bank mid-match and ended up winning the title.
It was a perfect ending since no one really wanted either Reigns or Lesnar to walk out with the win and was a great way to cap a fantastic match.
This year will be a different story. We know that Reigns is winning, and Lesnar is probably leaving WWE for another go-around in the UFC. There is no Money in the Bank winner to save us from an abysmal result.
Yet this time around, I don’t have the passionate hatred for both men that I did three years ago, and it looks like most other fans feel the same. I mostly feel indifference, and will probably just zone out on my phone during the match, which is the worst thing I can say about a match.
And maybe that’s the goal. Maybe the WWE just wants to get the belt on Reigns and show Lesnar the door as quickly and quietly as they can so they can get back to their regularly scheduled plans. Either way, I just don’t really care about this match.
However, if these guys put on a match even half as good as the one from Wrestlemania 31, I’ll only complain in this column a little bit next week.
Keep an eye out on The Clarion for a rewind look at Shinsuke Nakamura vs AJ Styles, and a preview of what’s to come at Wrestlemania. See you later this week!
Henry Wolski
Executive Editor