#2 Roman Reigns vs Daniel Bryan – Fastlane, 2015
Early 2015 was a very difficult time in the career of Roman Reigns. Just as WWE pulled the trigger on the Reigns mega push, the fans decided that they no longer wanted him at the top. A victory in the Royal Rumble match confirmed to everybody that Roman Reigns was the priority at this point in time, not Daniel Bryan, and this did not sit well with the WWE Universe.
WWE quickly noted the fans frustrations and decided that the best course of action would be to confront the uneasiness of the fans head-on, in an effort to deal with the anti-Reigns portion of the crowd quickly and get them back on side as WrestleMania 31 fast approached. Reigns vs Bryan was booked for Fastlane, with the winner going on to challenge Brock Lesnar for the title at WrestleMania.
Whilst the original intention of the match failed, as Reigns still entered Mania as arguably the biggest heel in the company, the content of the match itself certainly lived up to expectations. Daniel Bryan is a notoriously stiff worker, his kicks particularly damaging, and it was with this in mind that Reigns was to face him at Fastlane, in an effort to slightly prepare him for the monstrous strikes of Lesnar.
Reigns took everything that Bryan could throw at him and came back stronger, impressively displaying his power and athleticism to full effect on the night.
Seemingly everything Bryan did, Reigns had an answer for. If he hadn’t done so already, then this was the night on which Reigns marked his arrival as a talent who could easily have main event calibre matches. The match was hard hitting, to say the least, as both men unleashed some very nasty kicks and strikes throughout the course of the bout. Going just over 20 minutes, Reigns vs Bryan reached its conclusion when Roman countered an attempt at a running high knee by Bryan, into a Spear to get the pin and the win.
Bryan stood in the middle of the ring and endorsed Reigns following the match, shook his hand and told him that he needed to “kick Lesnar’s ass” at WrestleMania. Unfortunately, despite the solid match and the handshake, this was not enough to get the crowd on board, as the post-match interaction between the two men was greeted by boos from the audience.
Regardless, Reigns had just given us his first truly great main event PPV performance, and this surely boosted him and helped to ensure that his second would come just over a month later.
