9 Planned WWE WrestleMania 32 Matches That Fell Apart
4. Roman Reigns Versus Brock Lesnar
Last year's WrestleMania was headlined by a clash between unbeatable WWE World Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar and unstoppable Royal Rumble winner Roman Reigns. On the grandest stage in sports entertainment, Seth Rollins cashed in his Money in the Bank contract, joined the match, and pinned Reigns to walk away with the belt. Though Reigns and Lesnar both technically came up short, the question of who was the better man was still unanswered. It was clear that a rematch between the two would come sooner or later, and with both men among the company's top stars, WrestleMania 32 seemed like an ideal opportunity. Why it fell apart: Reigns's road to WrestleMania 32 has been rocky, to say the least - after WWE decided he wasn't popular enough to walk out of WrestleMania 31 as champion, the company spent months trying to get fans to accept him. Another match with Lesnar would be risky in terms of reaction, but it was still a safe direction from a storytelling and match quality perspective. Once Rollins got hurt, though, the entire card was shuffled - Triple H was out of an opponent, and the decision was made to give him Roman Reigns.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013