Roman Reigns Should Cheat to Beat Brock Lesnar

lesnar
Source: WWE

If we cast our minds back to 2015, there was a certain sense of impending doom about WrestleMania’s main event. Roman Reigns had won the Royal Rumble and was set to dethrone the seemingly unbeatable Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship. WWE had booked themselves into a corner. Either Roman won and Mania ended with a chorus of boos, or Brock won, and all the time, effort and money invested into Roman would be rendered moot.

As we all know now, however, there was a third option. Seth Rollins sprinted down to the ring like a man possessed to cash in his Money in the Bank contract to take the title for himself. It was an instant classic WrestleMania moment, one that sent everyone home happy (apart from Roman’s dad).

Now we’re in 2018, and the same match is about close WrestleMania. It’s Brock vs. Roman with the Universal Championship on the line. Only there isn’t a third option this time, Roman winning clean as a whistle is the obvious conclusion, Brock winning would be a swerve, but not a very realistic one. What if there is a Plan C though? And what if it gives some much-needed edge to Roman’s character?

Roman Reigns isn’t going to be turning heel, that’s not what’s being pitched here. But look at the booking leading up to this match; Roman has been cutting worked shoots on Brock, who has been consistently absent from Raw. Earlier this week, our very own Chris Pilkington broke down the booking and whether or not this match could deliver, consider this a sequel of sorts. The crux of the storyline has been Brock being a part-timer, so Roman’s motivation should be to bring the Universal Title back home, right?

brock vs roman
Source: WWE

Then Reigns should do anything and everything possible to achieve this. He’s acting as the champion of the full-timers, he’s stepping up to the plate as the locker room leader. If Brock doesn’t play by the rules, why should Roman? Picture the scene: Brock Lesnar is doing his thing, he’s punishing Roman with a barrage of suplexes and F-5’s. Roman has a few rallies, sneaking in some Superman Punches and a bunch of Spears. But nothing is keeping Brock down, he’s just too much.

Roman’s frustrated, he can’t finish Lesnar off and everything’s riding on him doing just that, what the hell can he do? Reigns has been criticised for having a character that isn’t relatable, one who doesn’t have struggle or obstacles. This is how you solve that. It’s a simple story, Roman cannot beat Brock, nobody can beat Brock, he’s just something else, maybe he isn’t even human. Conventional means aren’t enough, something else is required.

Maybe Reigns starts off doing a couple of nefarious things, an eye rake, perhaps. But that’s not enough to fell “The Beast Incarnate”, you’ve got to get more creative than that. After a ref bump, Roman can really start to lay it on thick. Low blows, chair shots, clocking Brock in the head with the Universal Title belt, go the whole hog. At this point, it doesn’t matter how Roman wins, all that matters is that he does.

This would be much more satisfying than the expected “Roman takes a beating, gets a second wind, hits his finisher a few times, wins” scenario. Seeing Reigns resort to underhanded tactics in his quest to end the undedicated part-timer is actually quite noble. He’s leaving his pride at the door to bring the title back where it belongs, giving everyone else on the roster a chance at competing for the gold. In a sense, Roman would be restoring the main event scene on the red brand, is a little bit of rule breaking all that bad in the grand scheme of things?

brock vs roman
Source: WWE

Roman has been doing some of his best mic work these last few weeks, and the intensity with which he’s directed vitriol towards Brock needs to come across in the actual match. To just have a straight forward, back and forth bout would do a disservice to the work WWE have done to get this feud over. We could forgive cheating because Brock has cheated us by being a lazy champion. It all makes sense.

Regardless of the finish, Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar II will be solid at the very least, they’ve come to blows in an in-ring capacity in three different matches now, and they have an undeniable chemistry. A WrestleMania main event needs something special, and just having the exact same match as last time play out – only this time with a clean finish – isn’t all that inspired. Many people already resent the fact that Roman is going to be sold as the only one who can stop Brock, so would it hurt to have him go to dark side to accomplish it?

Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site. We cover gaming news, movie reviews, wrestling and much more.