#3 Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar – WrestleMania 31
As WrestleMania 31 rolled around, it was clear that Roman Reigns’ babyface push had failed miserably. The disastrous 2015 Royal Rumble match, coupled with Reigns’ unpopular victory over Daniel Bryan at Fastlane had ensured that the fans were well and truly against him; Roman would head into his huge WWE Championship clash with Brock Lesnar as the man that barely anybody wanted to win.
However, due to his magnificent performance that night, Reigns won many people over.
What really stood out about Reigns’ performance against Lesnar was his selling and his facial expressions. The smug, smirky, superhuman Roman that we see on our screens today was absent that night, and in his place was a man who simply oozed passion and a will to win.
Following the brutal manner in which Lesnar hurled Reigns overhead with his usual display of Suplex-based dominance, Reigns actually allowed himself to show some vulnerability. Everybody could sense that there was a real chance that Reigns could actually get beaten, and beaten badly, and this actually got a large portion of the crowd behind Reigns at points during the match.
His sympathetic portrayal of the stalked prey was truly magnificent, but something that is sadly yet to be replicated since. As Reigns withstood everything Lesnar could throw at him, eventually going so far as to slap him, the match built at a beautiful pace until finally, everything broke loose and Brock ended up busted open by the ring post. Reigns rallied at this point, hitting Lesnar with three Superman Punches and two Spears, but this was still not enough.
Lesnar recovered to drop Reigns with an F5, leaving both men down and out. Alas, the dream ending was not forthcoming, as Seth Rollins entered the fray at this point to shockingly cash in his Money In The Bank briefcase, snatching the WWE Championship and robbing everybody of the chance to see a proper finish to Reigns and Lesnar’s epic battle in one fell swoop.
Reigns may not have won the title, but he sure did earn a tonne of respect from everybody watching.
