“You take a Mark Henry… and you say, “His finish is a headlock”…. No one uses a headlock, and Mark Henry comes out on TV for… 30 weeks [and makes people tap out to the headlock immediately]…. I guarantee you within 30 weeks, that’s gonna be a finish that people are talking about.
“…And at WrestleMania, when someone powers out of that headlock, it will be one of the biggest moments of the year.”
-Paul Heyman, The Stone Cold Podcast, 2015
WWE clearly took this booking strategy to heart when they planned their WrestleMania 34 main event. In the three years since Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar’s first encounter…
…WWE had little luck endearing The Big Dog to the WWE Universe.
Two abysmal Mania main events against WWE’s senior circuit didn’t help matters for Reigns.
So WWE got to work putting over Brock Lesnar’s F5, which, unlike the hypothetical Mark Henry headlock, was already an established finisher.
First, Lesnar put away Goldberg with a single F5.
Then, Samoa Joe.
Then, Roman Reigns (in a four-way match).
Then Braun Strowman…
…AJ Styles…
…and Kane.
By WrestleMania 34, Lesnar had not only a perfect 1.000 batting average with his F5, but, as Michael Cole pointed out, the third-longest title reign of the past 30 years.
To finally get over, all Roman Reigns needed to do (said the conventional wisdom) was kick out of Brock’s finisher and dethrone the champ.
But if that’s what WWE was counting on, their hopes were soon deflated like some kind of plastic beach toy.
.
Right out of the gate, Brock hit three German suplexes…
…which Roman answered with three Superman punches.
Brock responded with two belly-to-bellies to the floor, the second of which looked like it dropped Roman right on his head.
Showing exactly how concerned they were for the Big Dog and this main event, the fans at the most important and expensive show of the year chanted, “CM Punk”.
In keeping with the match’s theme of Do Everything Thrice, Do Everything Thrice, Do Everything Thrice, Lesnar attempted a third belly-to-belly onto an announce table.
Roman, however, wouldn’t flip (because it was kind of impossible).
Between two more German suplexes and two more belly-to-bellies (they were doing twos now), fans began to actively jeer the match.
Outside the ring again, Reigns speared Lesnar onto a table…
…but (seemingly) got showered in boos just for rolling the champ back into the ring. I can understand not liking the guy, but this seemed a bit extreme!
After a Superman punch and two spears, Lesnar kicked out, and fans cheered.
These cheers weren’t coming from Brock fans, though, as more cheers came after Roman kicked out of a Lesnar pin. But not, like, immediately after. Odd.
..
Finally, Brock hit the F5, the move WWE had protected all year just for this moment. Roman kicked out…
…Brock milked the drama in his close-up…
and the fans… made no noise whatsoever. So what happened to derail the would-be biggest moment of the year?
For one thing, unlike in Paul Heyman’s hypothetical, Brock hadn’t been doing the F5 every week. Well, maybe he was—he could have been F5-ing grizzly bears during his months off—but as far as WWE went, he’d only wrestled a handful of matches since last year.
For another thing, the F5 had been around a lot longer than a year, and fans had already seen people (like Undertaker and Triple H) kick out of it, especially at WrestleMania.
Third, everyone could see this kick-out coming a mile away when the opponent was Roman Reigns, arguably the most fetch superstar in WWE.
The company was always trying to make Roman Reigns happen, despite being told repeatedly that he was not going to happen.
And last but not least, beach balls.
The fans in attendance, restless after sevenhours—and aggressively indifferent to the main event—turned their attention to beach balls instead.
The random boos? Those were for whenever a security confiscated one.
The random cheers? Those were for whenever a fan blew up another ball and started batting it around.
Comparing these pops to the feeble, “Let’s go Roman/Roman sucks” chants, the crowd’s allegiance was about 10% Roman, 10% Brock, and 80% Beach ball.
For the viewers at home, these crowd reactions seemed inexplicable…
…but all the shots of fans with their backs to the action suggested there was something else in the arena vying for the crowd’s attention.
…
Undaunted, Brock and Roman continued on with the planned finishing sequence, which saw Lesnar deliver F5 after F5, only for Roman to kick out each time.
To compensate for the diminishing returns on each finisher, WWE cranked up the under-the-ring mics to full volume.
Despite more thuds than Dusty Rhodes’s bubble bath (if you weeel), the crowd was still unimpressed.
After spotlighting a whole section of fans transfixed by beach ball drama, WWE stopped cutting to crowd reaction shots between F5s.
“I can’t remember the last time someone kicked out of one F5,” noted Corey Graves, “let alone three.” And I couldn’t remember the last time fans chanted “Boring” after one of them.
Now running out of funny animal noises to make…
…an ungrateful Lesnar destroyed the Germans’ announce table with a fourth F5.
Back in the ring, Lesnar delivered a record fifth F5, Roman kicked out once more…
…and the crowd reacted just as tepidly as they did first time.
Now the champion, aided by legitimate frustration, pounded Reigns in the forehead with bare fists and elbows…
…all while the biggest audience of the year chanted, “This is awful!”
And they weren’t even the ones getting their heads split open!
The flurry of brutal offense was enough to fill up Lesnar’s Smackdown meter once more, so he attempted a sixth F5.
This time, Roman hit L2+R2 at just the right time, countering with two spears.
When Brock kicked out, Roman Reigns mugged for the camera. His face completely drenched in blood, with more gushing out by the second, the challenger hyped himself up for the coup de grace.
This should have been an iconic WrestleMania image to be replayed for years and decades to come. But no one remembers it now because no one cared then.
Well, that, and because Roman immediately lost…
…getting caught with a sixth F5 for a three-count. At this, the crowd erupted in cheers, but only because they could finally go home.
Right away, the champion rolled out of the ring, grabbed his title, and walked up the ramp without so much as posing.
Instead, the lasting post-show image of WrestleMania 34 was one that didn’t even air that night: Brock chucking his belt at Vince McMahon.
“WrestleMania moments were made,” rationalized Cole, “but in the end, the Beast still reigns supreme!”
….
WWE still wouldn’t give up on making Roman Reigns “The Guy”, however, so they booked a rematch just weeks later, this time in a cage.
Lesnar once again won when his feet were the first (besides Roman’s) to touch the floor.
At long last (after Brock Lesnar had surpassed CM Punk’s lengthy title reign), Roman Reigns finally dethroned him—and without being roundly booed! This time, WWE booked a much quicker, shorter match…
…and, by promising in advance an immediate Braun Strowman cash-in (which didn’t happen)…
…tricked the audience into momentarily tolerating the Reigns win.
WWE would finally get Lesnar-Reigns right at WrestleMania four years later, but by then Roman was the heel.