#2 Nobody is ready for The Beast
Long term wrestling fans will know all about the feeling when something just doesn’t feel realistic. This is a pretty bold statement when talking about Pro Wrestling – a world in which an old lady can give birth to a hand. Even though the secret is out and everyone accepts wrestling is a ‘work’ with pre-determined winners and losers, sometimes buying into the kayfabe reality of it all just doesn’t do the trick. This is how it feels at the moment with the Universal Title picture.
This week we had the announcement of a fatal five-way match at Extreme Rules to determine who gets to face Lesnar. In theory, this is a very clever move. Not having the champion on the show every week is actually doing the product a world of good. Normally if this match was announced and the winner was going on to face somebody like Kevin Owens or Randy Orton, we wouldn’t be that enthralled.
When the champion is Brock Lesnar, however, a man we haven’t seen compete since that epic showdown with Goldberg at Wrestlemania, the result of the five-way suddenly feels that much more crucial and intriguing. The winner isn’t just going on to have a title match, they are facing somebody who is portrayed as almost unbeatable.
That being said, it’s quite possible that the WWE have gone a tad too far with the unbeatable angle. If we’re honest with ourselves, does anybody on that roster look and feel like they could win against the Beast? Perhaps the closest person to that right now is Roman Reigns, as his victory over The Undertaker at Wrestlemania is still fresh in our minds. But wrestlers like Seth Rollins, Samoa Joe and Fin Balor are all doing a fine enough job on RAW, but are all struggling to beat even each other.
All three have been victims of WWE’s 50/50 booking over recent months whereas they continue to portray Lesnar as this unstoppable monster. True, his feud with Goldberg last year did make Brock look slightly more vulnerable than usual, but this is Bill Goldberg we’re talking about, a man who squashed Owens in less than five minutes. Those two are on a different level in the WWE’s eyes, and it gets more and more difficult to take anyone seriously when they say they’re getting ready to face Brock Lesnar.
Things get even worse when we consider Bray Wyatt. The very thought of this match taking place is a joke right now. Bray is coming off the back of one of the worst WWE Championship reigns of all time, and couldn’t even beat Randy Orton – in his own match idea – without the help of Jinder Mahal. This may not be a popular thing to say at the moment, but Reigns is really the only one to be taking seriously at this point.
