100 Worst WWE Matches Ever - 3 - Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns

Universal Championship - Wrestlemania 34

May 25, 2024

“To understand why things fail, we must look at why they worked” - Me.

It is impossible to talk about this without talking about its predecessor. The Wrestlemania 31 match just three years earlier is among my favourites of all time. A WWE match that I ranked as my third favourite between 2006-2015 (only behind CM Punk vs John Cena and Shawn Michaels vs Undertaker II). Certainly if I were listing my top WWE matches of the last 10 years, I think I would solidly have it as my number 1 at this point. Both Lesnar and Reigns are amazing wrestlers and would rank highly my own personal list. Leading into Wrestlemania 34, I remember setting myself up with high expectations, understandably so I might say. Perhaps a reason for this placement is the weight of my own expectations, like a disappointed parent finding out their genius child failed their exams. This allegory could be the story of the entire Wrestlemania 34 given the previous disappointments of Nakamura vs Styles and Bryan’s return match.

One of the beautiful stories of the Wrestlemania 31 match is that it should never have worked. The crowd reactions for Roman were at an all time low as WWE were scrambling to recover from the disastrous Royal Rumble debacle. Never forget the go-home Raw before Wrestlemania 31 was the infamous tug-of-war segment. Despite the fact that fans were ready to shit on that main event, the two pulled through a compelling war with a tremendous story and great work by both men.

Lightning, unfortunately, does not strike twice.

There may be readers scratching their heads about the placement of this. Certainly, as far as in-ring work goes, it is not as sloppy as the likes of the Jackie Gayda tag, or Steiner versus Triple H. It’s not as tediously long as Edge versus Orton or Miz versus Cena. It’s not as embarrassingly wretched as Patterson versus Brisco or Cole versus Lawler. I concede, if we view these matches within a vacuum, this is a horrible match, but nowhere near the number 3 worst.

At no point in the process have I ever looked at matches within a vacuum. When I take the time to discuss the backstory and context of each entry, it is because the situation is important to my own personal ranking. A 2 minute match between two barely trained divas on Raw may be worse quality than this, but this is the main event of Wrestlemania - the biggest wrestling match of any year. This, however, is not just any main event. This is one that has been years in the making, arguably as far back as when Brock Lesnar ended the Undertaker’s Streak. If you are questioning this placement, I hope you bear with me while I explain my reasoning.

At some point in 2017, presumably before Wrestlemania 33, WWE set in stone the motion that both these men would reach this point. Roman Reigns received his second consecutive Wrestlemania coronation by defeating the Undertaker after already defeating Triple H the year before. The story for 34 was obvious: the two biggest men, the two men so powerful they were able to defeat the seemingly undefeatable Undertaker at Wrestlemania.

The next year was spent firmly establishing both as a tier above the rest of the roster. In particular, in an era where finisher kickouts are the norm, the F5 and the Spear were the most protected moves in wrestling through 2017. One F5 and one Spear was enough to end every match almost without exception. Samoa Joe, Braun Strowman, Goldberg, AJ Styles, even Reigns himself were some of the names subject to a one-F5-win on pay-per-view. While John Cena, and Braun Strowman plus a multitude of Raw victims took just one Spear to dispatch. The company clearly wanted to separate these two above all others between Wrestlemania 33 and 34. This is important to keep in mind for my justification. This is not some astute observation either. This was painfully transparent to anyone watching WWE at the time.

Speaking of transparency, prior to Wrestlemania, they ran a storyline in which Roman called out Brock Lesnar for being a part-time act. This worked-shoot was a desperate attempt to give Roman a bit of an edge, and get him cheered. They even brought in Vince McMahon to start a pseudo-feud with the boss, which is WWE’s break glass in case of emergency for trying to get a babyface over. Roman accused Brock of being “Vince’s boy”, which is of course massively obnoxious given that anyone who watched WWE knew that Roman was beloved by the company above pretty much every talent they had. Fans would see through this obvious last ditch throw of the dice.

As the two begin, the match starts hot. Despite this, the crowd immediately starts to chant for “Nicholas”, the 10-year-old child who just won the Tag Team Championships with Braun Strowman 20 minutes earlier. This would set the tone for the rest of the contest. Some may attribute this to the fact that the fans had been sat in the arena for damn near 7 hours at this point, which is a valid argument.

There have been other instances of fans turning on a match. In the course of this project, Batista vs Big Show, Samoa Joe vs Roman Reigns (that actually happened just after this one), and Steiner vs Triple H all famously had the fans turn on them for one reason or another. However, outside of Brock Lesnar vs Goldberg, never had such a high profile match been scrutinised by a live crowd. This is even worse than that. This is the main event of Wrestlemania. WWE had been building this for at least a whole year. The fans chanting for a 10-year-old child would be akin to WCW fans chanting for Disco Inferno during Hogan vs Sting at Starrcade 97. This is arguably the most embarrassing failure of a match in WWE history from a booking perspective. Final evidence that their now-four year commitment to Roman Reigns had failed. Proof that they couldn’t put their finger in their ear and ignore the reactions like they did with John Cena. Cena, for all his faults and vocal critics, had an established and loyal fanbase. Reigns did not have that luxury.

As the match goes on, Brock barely gets Roman over his head for a suplex on the floor as the crowd starts to chant for CM Punk - the de-facto “we hate this” chant of the late 2010s. A second suplex and Roman doesn’t rotate and awkwardly goes face first into the announce table.

This is a common theme of the match. We all know how the Suplex City goes, but there’s something that feels off about this one. There’s very little energy about Lesnar’s suplexes. There’s little elevation, power behind them, and a lot of downtime between each one. It’s almost as if he’s exhausted early and never recovers. I’ve generally never been as down on the Suplex City as its biggest critics, because I think there’s a world of difference from the “lazy Suplex City” that you’d see here, or in matches that Lesnar clearly isn’t interested in. If you watch Lesnar’s performance against Cena at Summerslam 2014, and Reigns at Wrestlemania 31 - you can see that he is inspired, motivated, and puts on the performance that this all time great performer is capable of. This is so detached from those that I do not think they’re even comparable. This match is what the critics of Suplex City believe those matches are - a mindless spam of moves before a mindless spam of finishing moves.

As the crowd entertains itself with some “Johnny Wrestling” and “Delete” chants, the start of the match continues to try desperately to keep a bit of energy. Roman hits a spear to the announce table, which gets little reaction from the live crowd. Rather, they’ve decided to now entertain themselves with beach balls. It’s hilarious to see the fans in the background watching anything except the main event of Wrestlemania.

With absolutely no build up, Roman hits two spears in the ring. Bearing in mind, this is the move that has been beating everyone with one blow all year. But because they’ve whored these two out, and the booking is so predictable and transparent, this gets absolutely no reaction at all. Nobody for one second believes this could possibly end the match for what is the third spear of the night. Part of this is down to the booking, but a part of it is because the wrestlers are not making any effort to build suspense for each move. Every time a wrestler goes for a finisher, they hit it. No teases, no counters. When people criticise mindless finisher kickouts, this match should sit atop that mountain of criticism because I think it’s one of the poorest attempts at creating excitement I’ve seen watching wrestling.

One year of build for this spot, and this crowd reaction.

Similarly, Brock hits an F5 with absolutely zero build up, and no reaction to the pin attempt. WWE’s masterplan to set these two above the rest of the roster in preparation for this night has failed. This is an abject failure of the build, and structure of the match. Wrestling fans are not stupid, especially the ones in the arena this night.

The fact that this by association makes the rest of the roster look like shit for losing to this move is the icing on the cake. It would only get worse.

A second F5 follows seconds later, to another two count and zero reaction. This pains me because they’re so much better than this.

A third F5 immediately follows for another two count. This time they get a reaction, but it isn’t excitement for a near fall. It’s boos at this lazy excuse for a match. Even the play-by-play of this review feels disjointed because they’re just doing moves with nothing between them. They are quite literally just hitting finishers in a desperate attempt to gain a cheap reaction. This is a match that doesn’t understand why a finisher kickout can be an effective storytelling device.

“I can’t remember the last time anyone kicked out of 1 F5, nevermind 3.” - Corey Graves.

F5 through the announce table. For those keeping track at home, that’s his fourth one. Not only is it the fourth one, it’s the fourth consecutive move Lesnar has done. This is so hopeless. No transitions, no build up, no energy. He hits two German suplexes before his fifth F5 for a 2 count. This one again gets a reaction, but not the one WWE want - just pure jeers, boring chants, and eventually “this is awful”. And they’re right, it’s a pathetic excuse for a match that seems to have entirely lost what made the Wrestlemania 31 match special.

The only cheers you will hear in this are every time someone pulls out a new beachball.

After the 5th F5, Lesnar strikes Roman repeatedly with his elbow, cutting Reigns open hardway similar to the match with Orton at Summerslam 18 months earlier. I hated this at Summerslam, and I hate it here. See, WWE doesn’t allow blade jobs, but if someone is to “accidentally” get cut open by having a violent MMA fighter slice them with their elbow, that’s okay. Plausible deniability for the sponsors, I guess. Despite the fact it is far easier, and safer to just do a blade job. It’s shameless, and I am generally of the belief that great wrestling is the ability to be compelling while being as safe as possible. I say this fully aware that my beloved Wrestlemania 31 match also has hard way blood, which again is silly. But at the very least the blood worked there as a vehicle to show the previously unstoppable Lesnar was vulnerable. There was a storyline purpose there. Not a cheap ploy to trick fans, and try and save face for Roman because the company refused to finally pull the final trigger once and for all.

After getting bloodied, Reigns is truly fucked up. It’s a great visual wasted on such a miserable match.

The reason for the blood, like the rest of the match, is painfully obvious in retrospect. See, WWE chickened out of finally having Reigns defeat Lesnar. After all this time, two consecutive Wrestlemania coronations, after having previously pussying out of the Wrestlemania 31 match, for some reason they decided to have Lesnar win again. It made no sense in 2018, and still makes no sense today. A bloody Roman Reigns hits a pair of spears (4 and 5 of the match), which would have been the right way to end this match if they insisted on running it like this. Of course, however, Lesnar kicks out.

Seconds later, a sixth F5 ends the match.

To me this is indicative of all the problems with the WWE main event scene from 2015-2020. You could summarise a large portion of fan frustrations entirely within the scope of this, and everything going into it. Lesnar and Reigns were put on a pedestal above all others to the detriment of the rest of the roster. Think for a second of all the missed opportunities during this time. Braun Strowman and Samoa Joe come to mind immediately, not even counting the people whose main event run was stopped dead by the Lesnar, Reigns (and to an extent Goldberg) contingent. Men like Kevin Owens, Finn Balor, Seth Rollins all felt like a collection of upper midcarders who happened to get main event title runs rather than being actual stars because everyone knew WWE loved two men above all others.

WWE struck gold in 2014 with Lesnar and Suplex City. He became the Shao Kahn of WWE - a man at the top of the tower that if you were lucky enough to reach he would mercilessly spam you until you were dead. It was tremendous and a spot that can only work with a special, rare talent like Lesnar. Rather than eventually paying off that gimmick, the only man that truly benefited from it was Goldberg. For Reigns, they ducked out of the big win repeatedly (does anyone really remember Summerslam 2018?). Drew McIntyre would eventually beat Lesnar cleanly, however the unfortunate timing of Covid robbed him of that monumental moment.

When WWE tried to present Reigns as Lesnar’s equal it failed. Ironically, it wasn’t until Reigns would become his own part time star as the Tribal Chief that I think Reigns ever felt truly special. To me, that entire run was justification for my fandom of Reigns - my insistence for years as far back as 2014 that Reigns was a terrific performer, just horribly mismanaged and miscast.

Afterwards, there is no celebration to be had. Wrestlemania 34 fades to black without even so much of a hint of joy from Lesnar, or pyro setting off. Instead, Brock gets the fuck out of there as quickly as he can. There would be an altercation between Brock and Vince McMahon backstage where Lesnar would throw the Universal Championship at him. Depending on who you listen to this was either a work, or he was legitimately angry at the fact that they didn’t have Roman get his big win and upset at the fan reaction.