This Sunday, World Wrestling Entertainment will present its
final pay-per-view before its biggest event of the year. WWE Fastlane will take
place from the FedExForum in Memphis, TN, and it will feature a key matchup
that will shape the main event WWE World Heavyweight Championship match at
Wrestlemania 31.
It is no secret that WWE seemed to have originally intended
to have Roman Reigns win the Royal Rumble, march into Levi’s Stadium, and
proudly dethrone the reigning and defending champ, Brock Lesnar, in front of a
roaring and adoring crowd. However, the reaction that Reigns received at the
Royal Rumble and at the Raw and Smackdown events since has apparently caused
WWE to rethink their setup for the biggest match of the year.
At Fastlane, Reigns and Daniel Bryan, the man that many
believe should have won the Royal Rumble, will face off in a match to determine
who goes on to the main event match against Lesnar at Wrestlemania 31. Who that
man will be is anybody’s guess.
If Reigns wins, then the odds of various social media sites
erupting with comments filled with rage and displeasure over Reigns securing
his Wrestlemania spot are pretty great. At the Royal Rumble, Reigns did not
even eliminate the perennial fan favorite Daniel Bryan, and the reaction he
received was still brutal. Imagine if he actually defeats Bryan. The internet
wrestling community might burn down Titan Towers.
On the other hand, there is a scenario in which Bryan
defeats Reigns. A majority of wrestling fans will be overjoyed should that be
the result, but it would completely nullify the Royal Rumble, which is one of
WWE’s biggest events of the year behind Wrestlemania and SummerSlam. As much I
want to see it happen, I have a very hard time believing that WWE would book
Bryan over its handpicked successor to John Cena and ignore the result of the
Royal Rumble match.
So what will happen at Fastlane? Will the Roman Empire rise
or will Yestlemania return for an encore performance? I think we will get both,
and Bryan and Reigns will advance to Wrestlemania 31. There is no way this
match ends cleanly with either Bryan or Reigns as the clear winner. WWE is not
going to abandon Reigns, and they will not want a similar reaction to that of
the Royal Rumble. The match will end in a shady manner, and it will set up a
triple threat match at Wrestlemania 31 between Lesnar, Reigns, and Bryan for
the WWE World Heavyweight title.
If I were in charge of writing the WWE’s programming, I
would have Lesnar and Paul Heyman sitting at ringside for the Bryan vs. Reigns
match. After 20 minutes of action, I would have Lesnar jump into the ring and
destroy both Bryan and Reigns. The match ends with no winner, and Reigns and
Bryan both come out of it looking like underdogs. This helps build their
characters as they both chase Lesnar in hopes of pulling off an upset, and it
continues to build Lesnar as a destructive storm of a man. It also bails the
WWE out of having to either nullify the Royal Rumble or initiate a riot.
That’s how I would book the match at Fastlane. However the
decision is ultimately the WWE’s to make. No matter how they book it, they are
probably going to be criticized. If Reigns wins, a majority of wrestling fans
will march to Stanford with torches and pitchforks. If Bryan wins, then the
Royal Rumble will essentially be nullified, which will tarnish its reputation
of being one of WWE’s premier events. If there is no winner and a triple threat
match is booked, then people will complain that the main event is a copy of
last year’s WWE World Heavyweight Championship match.
And to think that all of this could have been avoided if
Daniel Bryan won the Royal Rumble.
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