WWE Matches That Were PAINFUL To Watch

6. Brock Lesnar Vs Roman Reigns (WrestleMania 38)

Keith Lee Karrion Kross paIN
WWE.com

The game was gone. There’s an obsession amongst wrestling fans to categorise periods of years by “Era”, mostly because the lines of demarcation for Attitude were broadly clear enough that the most popular one could be easily defined.

The rest are a fallacy though. Nobody called it “Golden” or “Hulkamania” as it was happening - they simply lived it. “Ruthless Aggression” got said on about three shows but it came to apparently sum up most of the grotty and grimy mid-2000s. 2016 preposterously flirted with “The Reality Era”, but the only reality any of us experienced then was that all the NXT faves were going to drown on the main roster.

There are a hundred different synonyms for “worst ever” that could be applied to 2017-2019 WWE, but no one match captures the mood more than Brock Lesnar Vs Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 34. A crowd thinking it’s going one way and hating it, WWE trying so hard not be owned that they book it the other way, and two wrestlers with not a single solitary chance of salvaging it thanks to agenting that had long outlived its relevance. And all as part of, ostensibly, the biggest match of the entire year.

The farce concluded with Lesnar scooping Reigns’ brains out with the point of his elbow. Looked less painful than how being forced to sit through the rest of the match.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett