5 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE Fastlane 2017

2. Reigns Slays Strowman

roman reigns braun strowman
WWE.com

No one stays undefeated forever. But when and how a monster is finally defeated is extremely important. Throw away that first defeat and you wasted a chance at making a new star in the process.

So of course, after WWE spent months building up Braun Strowman as a dominant monster who improved in the ring each week and actually was getting a good reaction from fans (witness his Raw main event against Big Show), the company sacrificed him in a throwaway match to the never-ending project of getting Roman Reigns over as a top guy. (Maybe now fans will buy Roman as a hero who slays beasts!)

Reigns is a guy who didn’t need this win. He’s also a guy who doesn’t really benefit from this win. Was his status as a top guy ever in doubt? Is he suddenly more legit with this win? No and no, but WWE had booked itself into the proverbial corner with this match.

It probably would’ve been better to go with a screwjob finish, but instead we got Reigns spearing Strowman for the 1-2-3. It was a good match, but if WWE was hellbent on Roman beating Braun, it should have happened in a more consequential way, not just a grudge match that gives Reigns nothing other than a notch in his ornate belt.

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Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.