Wrestlemania XXXI Preview: WWE World Heavyweight Title: Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns

And then there’s this.

This is one of those matches where there are so many different ways it could go that it makes me want to see it. I’m not entirely sure that’s how they meant to get there, but it makes me want to see the main event more than I did otherwise. I’m not even sure where to start with this one.

So Reigns won the Rumble after everyone knew he would for like a year, then beat Bryan to defend his title shot at Fast Lane. Much like HHH vs. Sting, it all started coming off the rails after that because they had no idea where to go with it after that. They’ve tried things like Roman wanting to be the monster that slays the bigger monster or Reigns living up to his family’s history of being all dominant and such, but it seems like they really don’t know where they’re going.

That of course leaves the problem of people not caring about Roman Reigns. They’ve done a horrible job at making him a guy that we’re going to connect with because he doesn’t have much of a personality. Look back at the two stories they’ve tried. Not many people are going to be able to connect with the idea of being a Superman who can beat up anyone in the world and is going off to fight the big dragon. At the same time, most of them can’t connect with the idea of being part of a legendary family with a huge reputation to live up to.

On the other hand, there’s a major risk of having Reigns booed out of the stadium because Brock Lesnar is the easiest guy in the world to cheer for because fans like seeing Brock destroy people like Godzilla crushing buildings in the abandoned warehouse district of Tokyo. He’s a guy people are ready to cheer for (because they can forgive the Streak being broken that quickly) but instead we’re supposed to cheer for Reigns because of…..hey isn’t that Reverend Slick over there?

They just haven’t done a good job of setting this match up because there’s no reason to want to see the showdown. Reigns is pretty much the same guy he was a year ago but now he has the stupid promos on his resume. He’s been SO much better when he’s the Batista type who lets his fighting do the talking and spears people in half after punching them in the face. But instead, for some reason WWE decides that he needs to be a guy with a personality because that’s how WWE thinks people are supposed to be.

You know who works as a powerhouse who doesn’t say much and shows off with his physical abilities? Brock Lesnar. He’s actually a really good standard for someone who doesn’t need to do much talking and can be a huge success by just letting his power and dominance do all the talking he needs. Let Reigns be something like a Batista instead of trying to make him the new John Cena.

I don’t even see why Reigns needs to win the title at Wrestlemania. Why does Reigns, age 29, NEED to get his first World Title here? Most wrestlers don’t win their first title at Wrestlemania and they wind up being fine. Let him win it somewhere else first and then come back and get his really big win later on? Why have him win here and throw him out in deep water? It’s like asking him to win a gold medal in the Olympics and not even giving him a broken freaking neck. It doesn’t work that way.

All these issues aside, it seems very obvious that it’s going to be Reigns taking the title from Lesnar because the story seems to be that Cena couldn’t do it so let’s get someone even bigger and stronger to take the title from Lesnar. That’s a pretty lame story to tell because it’s just going and getting the next guy up instead of finding someone we might be interested in seeing.

Then Lesnar re-signed and everything changed.

That signing turned this match on its head and made it a completely different story. The idea was that Lesnar was going to lose the title because he might have been on his way out of the promotion to MMA so Reigns had to be the guy to take it from him. However, now that he’s staying and there’s a chance Bryan and Cena will be winning the midcard titles to headline the house shows, why not leave the belt on Brock?

There are a million ways to go with Lesnar if he sticks around as champion, including turning him face. Like, for instance, Reigns sees that he can’t win the title on his own and needs some help. Maybe two guys in black? One of whom says Reigns is his brother? Or you have him fight the Authority and finally clear them out. There are a million options.

Then there’s one more option: the cash-in. I’ll keep this short: if Lesnar retains, I think there’s a cash-in tomorrow on Raw. Otherwise, nothing.

So for the official prediction, I’ll take Lesnar retaining because he’s sticking around. At the end of the day, I think WWE is going to throw the brakes on at the last minute and let Reigns lose here to build him up again for later. I know Vince wants to pull the trigger on him, but hopefully HHH can talk him out of the itchy trigger finger for now. No cash-in at Wrestlemania if Lesnar retains.

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