REAL Reason Brock Lesnar Vs. Roman Reigns Was So Short At WWE WrestleMania 38

The truth behind why the main event of 'Mania 38 Night 2 played out as it did.

by Andrew Pollard
Roman Reigns
WWE

Billed as the biggest match in the history of WrestleMania and the history of WWE, period, Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar at this year's Showcase of the Immortals caught many off-guard for how relatively short it was.

While it's obviously commonplace for certain Lesnar matches to handily go under the five-minute mark, the build of this battle of the behemoths had some thinking we might get a match more in the 20-minute range. Instead, Roman vs. Brock clocked it at just over 12 minutes, with the immediate aftermath of the bout seeing certain viewers speculating that the match was cut short due to an injury to the Tribal Chief.

Reigns would be victorious in the main event of WrestleMania 38 Night 2, putting the Beast Incarnate away after hitting a fourth Spear, yet there were rumblings that Roman had dislocated a shoulder or suffered major muscle damage to his arm whilst he was in Lesnar's Kimura Lock.

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According to Dave Meltzer, Reigns did not suffer any injury in this match, and the reason why the contest was shorter than some expected is quite simply because that's how WWE wanted it. By all accounts, the bout came off exactly as the company had intended.

Speaking on the Sunday Night's Main Event podcast (via WrestlingNews.co), Meltzer addressed those prior rumours:

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"That's not even true. That was the match. That was the match that was laid out. That's the nature of the way they put Lesnar matches together, which is, 'Boom, boom, boom, big move, big move'. It was not a bad match by any means. It was a Brock Lesnar match, no different from many others."

The belief now is that Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar are done with each other for the foreseeable future, with last week's SmackDown seemingly setting up Shinsuke Nakamura as the first challenger for Roman's Undisputed WWE Universal Championship.

As for Brock, he was previously advertised for next month's WrestleMania Backlash event, although it remains to be seen if the Conqueror will indeed appear, and if so, what he'll be doing at that premium live event.

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Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.