Another year, another Fastlane main event to decide who gets to challenge for the main strap in the main event of WrestleMania, another morning after filled with regret for genuinely believing this could go any way other than how it did. When Dean Ambrose and Triple H shared an electric moment at the end of the Royal Rumble, there was a feeling that maybe WWE had taken the mistakes of the past on board and were going to get behind the Lunatic Fringe, who is arguably the most popular active star on the roster right now. Instead, they repeated their move of 2015 and put Roman Reigns over strong, putting him once again in the main event of WrestleMania. The issue isn't with Roman as a performer, more with the way he has been booked and the subsequent response from the crowd. He is the most glaring example that WWE has stopped listening to the audience once, and is being made the poster boy for this generation whether we like it or not. Reigns is in a no-win position, which is ironic considering all of this is geared towards giving him a major win. There is no Seth Rollins lurking in the background to save the main event this year, no Brock Lesnar opposite him in the ring giving the belief that Reigns can gain from losing. In the main event of WrestleMania, Roman Reigns will defeat Triple H to win the biggest prize in the game, and the show will end with Reigns and most likely The Rock celebrating under the fireworks and confetti. The crowd? Well, they will respond with a mixture of drunken hostility and outright rejection. WWE had a chance to set up stories for all three of the men in the Fastlane main event. Instead they took the Reigns option, leaving the other two in limbo. Ambrose and Lesnar could go on to face each other, but the story of Lesnar being annoyed at some chair shots is flimsy at best. The Wyatt versus Lesnar story has, for now it seems, been shelved. Fastlane wasn't a bad event - far from it. But it certainly wasn't a good event, mind. The main problem, and the scariest thing on the whole as a WWE fan, is that it was simple there. The road to WrestleMania is long, and the road to WrestleMania 32 has been a particularly pedestrian journey. WWE still have about a month to go before they present what should be the biggest, and best, show of the year. Let's hope they right some wrongs in that time.
Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.
