9 Times WWE's WrestleMania Main Event Was The Worst Match On The Card
2. WrestleMania 34: Roman Finally Takes Down Brock, Right?
And to complete the Roman Reigns Main Event Debacle trifecta, let’s take a look at WrestleMania 34, which was the Big Dog’s fourth consecutive Mania main event.
WWE clearly viewed Roman and Brock Lesnar as arch-rivals, diametrically opposed wrestlers at the top of their profession. In hindsight, they did have chemistry at certain points, but some of their collisions were downright abysmal – particularly in the early going.
Heading into WrestleMania 34, Lesnar had been built up as an indestructible champion, defeating all comers with a single F-5. He had taken the Universal Championship hostage, rarely defending it during the previous year. Roman called him out on it, clearly being cast as a man of the people who would liberate the WWE title and bring it back into the light.
Mania started out hot, with an excellent first half of the show (including Ronda Rousey’s tremendous debut in the mixed tag) that trailed off as the night wore on. No worries, the epic main event would save the day, and this time fans would accept Reigns as the babyface hero.
Only… none of that happened.
Despite having a script clearly laid out with a reasonable conclusion, WWE delivered a hellaciously bad main event. After building the F-5 back up as a true killshot, when Roman kicked out of the first one, there was no reaction. Then he kicked out of four more F-5s. Still no reaction. It’s OK though: Brock survived four spears and three Superman punches, while Reigns also endured six German suplexes. And that rundown should cover about 95% of the offense in this heatless, dull match.
Worse, Roman, bloodied and trying to mount a comeback, delivered a series of spears to set up his triumphant moment… only to walk into a sixth F-5 that put him down for the three count. When the fans are loudly chanting, “This is awful!” during the climactic sequence of the main event, you know you’ve screwed up something fierce.
That one match took a WrestleMania that still might have rated in the upper third and dropped it several rungs down the ladder. It left a sour taste in fans’ mouths – yes, plenty would have booed Roman winning, but at least that booking would have made sense to them. This was just a horrific match with no rhyme or reason.