10 Times WWE Went Too Far With Brock Lesnar
6. The Roman Empire Burns
Of all the times for Roman Reigns to actually just go over, why on earth did WWE choose WrestleMania 34 to not be one of them?! Why, again, did Brock Lesnar actually have to win?
After a year of beating everybody with a single F5, Lesnar delivered so many to 'The Big Dog' at 2018's 'Show Of Shows' that finishing moves as we once knew them were lost to grainy Network archive footage. Designed around triggering the biggest reactions from crowds and teasing conclusions, the F5s failed at both. And they failed over, and over and over again.
As highlighted briefly in a WWE Network 24 special on this very show, Lesnar himself was fuming - he threw the Universal Title belt at Vince McMahon as he stormed through gorilla, mindful of the catastrophe he'd just been a part of.
The two weren't doing anything outwardly bad, but the New Orleans faithful let their emotions flow like Roman's claret. His blood late in the contest only only boiled theirs, resulting in half the audience missing Lesnar's win assuming it wasn't likely to come. They weren't prepared to go looking for it.
In olden times when wrestling stakes meant more, this would have been calamitous. As part of the new Lesnar booking framework it was merely considered disposable spectacle instead of an actual pro wrestling disasterpiece.