WWE Fast Lane: Roman Reigns vs Daniel Bryan (Mania main event spot)

[PeterSellersSTL]

I hope Reigns wins and they can resume, Reigns vs Bryan down the line. It was during that fantastic brawl that I thought Bryan could potentially be to Roman Reigns what Mick Foley was to the Rock.

It was that good of a brawl, but the face/heel element isn't there at all and I'm not interested in Reigns being a heel right now which is why I say Reigns wins and down the line you can re-visit Reigns vs Bryan.

 

[GeTiTT]

Roman Reigns needs to win clean as a heel! Simple as that. We do not need to see Daniel Bryan in the Main Event at Wrestlemania with a big Guy let alone 2 Big Guys. For What? so he can be torn apart and be out for another 6 months. Over Daniel Bryan, lets see some new stars.

 

[Mitch Henessey]

The uproar surrounding Reigns winning the Rumble is horribly overexaggerated, and you can't compare the backlash to Reigns winning and Batista winning the Rumble last year. The fans were genuinely pissed at the idea of Batista waltzing into the title picture after a four year absence, and winning the Rumble a handful of days after his return on Raw with no real build.

The anger towards Batista was more venomous, because fans were vehemently against Batista main eventing Wrestlemania over the likes of Daniel Bryan or CM Punk, and WWE basically handing Batista the spot on a silver platter didn't help the situation.

It's true, for someone in his spot, Reigns is not as over as he should be, but he still receives a fair amount of cheers and pops. On the flip side of that, you could not say the same thing about Batista last year, at all.

With that all that said, Wrestlemania crowds are notoriously smarky, and you can't underestimate the possibility of a hijacking in the main event, if Daniel Bryan is not in the match. If Bryan has another match on a lower spot in the card, and IF that match steals the show, you the fans will completely shit all over Reigns VS Lesnar.

The fans will see Bryan's show-stealer as surefire proof for Bryan deserving a spot in the main event, and it won't matter if Lesnar and Reigns pull off a five star classic. The fans will relentlessly heckle the match, and the match itself will be an afterthought, because the sideshow from the fans will overshadow everything.

I'll go with a controversial ending to set up the triple threat at Mania. A double pin, or a double count out, with Reigns spearing DB through the safety barricade to knock the wind out of Bryan, and Reigns is unconscious after his head slams into the barricade.

 

[L@RISANO]

Given how things have panned out since the Rumble, at this point, I'd readily accept Sheamus running in brogue kicking Reigns to cost him a Main Event chance.
I think Reigns' move back to the BadAss persona has done him a world of good and has won him back some fans, but the dumbass screwing of his character on his return post-TLC contributed too negatively to his momentum, ntm, his feud with the Big Slow which sort of never finished either...


Sheamus returning as a Heel and somehow costing Reigns his title shot, might be a blessing in disguise for the "Big Dog" in the long run, and I am sure those 2 can have a great 15mins hard hitting match at Mania with Reigns going over.


That said; the above is my ideal fantasy scenario going into Fast Lane, however, I fully expect that the rumoured Triple Threat for the Main Event will be confirmed tomorrow night, even if from a personal POV, I'm not too high on yet another 3-way this year whatsoever, and it makes a total mockery of the storyline aspect going into the Mania Main Event as opposed to last year's 3-way change from Orton-Batista to adding DB in that one given the long angle he was a part of.

 

[Navi]

Given how things have panned out since the Rumble, at this point, I'd readily accept Sheamus running in brogue kicking Reigns to cost him a Main Event chance.
I think Reigns' move back to the BadAss persona has done him a world of good and has won him back some fans, but the dumbass screwing of his character on his return post-TLC contributed too negatively to his momentum, ntm, his feud with the Big Slow which sort of never finished either...


Sheamus returning as a Heel and somehow costing Reigns his title shot, might be a blessing in disguise for the "Big Dog" in the long run, and I am sure those 2 can have a great 15mins hard hitting match at Mania with Reigns going over.


That said; the above is my ideal fantasy scenario going into Fast Lane, however, I fully expect that the rumoured Triple Threat for the Main Event will be confirmed tomorrow night, even if from a personal POV, I'm not too high on yet another 3-way this year whatsoever, and it makes a total mockery of the storyline aspect going into the Mania Main Event as opposed to last year's 3-way change from Orton-Batista to adding DB in that one given the long angle he was a part of.

I just said this on another thread, but I don't want to see a three way at Mania. Now is the time for Roman Reigns to stand on his own two feet. He can't be carried anymore, it just looks awful when your title holder can't hold his own in the ring.

He was carried when he was with the Shield, and by various tag team partners afterwards. If it does end up a three way then Bryan will carry most of the match, and we all know that, Reigns will show up spear Lesnar for the title. No it's time for him to either put up or shut up.

The WWE has created this situation and the fans have made their feelings known. I'm happy with Bryan having another match on the card, and I want to see Reigns do well, but I'm not holding out much hope. McMahon might learn a very costly lesson here, and Reigns will also. I just hope that he can recover from it. The WWE is giving us what they want, and the fans will give them hell for it.

 

[L@RISANO]

Reigns has been more than holding his own against Bryan these past few weeks, and it has been great to see the chemistry between the 2 of them which has got me interested in watching them go at it on Fast Lane tomorrow night.

As for a three way match, I have already gave my thoughts on the possibilities of it happening. I'm not too interested in it, but I think it can work out.


Needless to say, it is clear that this year's Mania season has been an overall clusterfuck and has been handled rather poorly by the WWE(in terms of storylines especially) given the quality of the Roster available(one of the main reasons I bothered to restart watching in the first place).

 

[Dagger Dias]

Well, here we have it. The Royal Rumble win's guaranteed Wrestlemania World Championship opportunity is being defended on PPV. That's basically what has happened here. As much as I like Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns both, this match should not even be happening. We should be having a World Heavyweight Championship match here. I don't care which one of the two wins here, or if both qualify for Wrestlemania by complicated booking, as long as one of the two defeats Lesnar to bring back the monthly World Heavyweight Championship match defenses. Lesnar has been the worst World Champion since The Miz 4 years ago due to lack of showing up. Saying it's due to the number of appearances in his contract is no longer a valid argument. He's been here more than enough times in 2015 alone to give him a chance to have defended the belt each month he held it even if the PPV is the only time he shows up in the whole cycle. Lesnar VS Bryan could be happening here and Rollins VS Reigns instead, or something. Nope. Instead Lesnar gets to not have to defend. AGAIN. And we get stuck with WWE putting their Royal Rumble winner in a spot where he has to defend his title shot. Stupid.

When you look past the idiocy behind WHY the match is taking place, it has the potential to be quite good. The only other match on the card that could possibly steal the show is Barrett VS Ambrose. This will absolutely be the final match of the night and it is my predicted moment to close the show. I'm thinking WWE will go ahead and do the triple threat route again this year. That means this match will have to end up getting some sort of complicated finish to where both Reigns and Bryan will be headed to Wrestlemania to face Lesnar. Maybe this will tie into the whole Trips/Sting confrontation also.... We shall see.

DAGGER'S PREDICTION
Nobody wins. Both are going to Wrestlemania after this match gets ended by some type of interference.

 

[El Rev sXe]

Match of the night definitely, I think it is a great storyline even if it's done just to say that DB lost and doesn't have the right to be in the main event of Wrestlemania. OR, we see a weird finish to the match where the winner is unclear (double pinfall, double count out, Db makes him tap and at the same time Reigns covers Bryan etc...). This is going to be an amazing match with a great storytelling and I hope a very interesting outcome.

 

[laodaron]

Not only was this the match of the night, Roman was easily the wrestler of the night. His performance was higher than even I expected it to be. He was taking awesome bumps, and he did his share of the damage.

Obviously, Daniel is a seasoned veteran, and I'm sure that his influence was incredibly important, but it takes someone with real skill to do what Roman did tonight.

 

[DB-Fan]

Not only was this the match of the night, Roman was easily the wrestler of the night. His performance was higher than even I expected it to be. He was taking awesome bumps, and he did his share of the damage.

Obviously, Daniel is a seasoned veteran, and I'm sure that his influence was incredibly important, but it takes someone with real skill to do what Roman did tonight.

I could have made some real money tonight on a bet about who would be the first in to talk up Reigns. But anyhoo...

Bryan C-L-E-A-R-L-Y helped carry Reigns tonight. No way could I call Reigns the wrestler of the night. He wasn't even the best wrestler in a 2 man match he was in tonight. Now don't get me wrong, this was Reigns best singles match ever. But that's not saying much when we are talking about a guy that's going to main-event Wrestlemania. Roman did his best, and I give him credit for that. But the best wrestler of the night? No way, no how.

While I fully expected this outcome (it's been obvious since the Rumble and anyone thinking the WWE was going with any other plan wasn't paying attention), I honestly think the company is going to have a tough time on its hands delivering anything but a so-so Wrestlemania Main Event. It might very well be painful - and I don't mean that in a good, wrastlin' way. Thankfully the fans are cool with Brock, so it shouldn't be a total boo-fest. But it might get ugly nonetheless.

 

[MartialHorror]

I agree Bryan carried him, but Reigns managed to keep up. If it was Kane, Big Show or Rowan in his spot, I don't think they would've been able to perform the cooler spots. I agree with the win, as I don't feel Bryan needs to headline mania and I don't believe WWE should change it to a three way. Even though we all probably want to forget the rumble, if they had Bryan win, they might as well cancel the event.

On the other hand, Reigns needs to be carried. Lesnar needs to be carried. 'Lesnar Vs Reigns' is an intriguing novelty, but I don't see how it will be an exceptional match.

 

[SinCityBlitz]

RR held his own against Bryan tonight.

RR vs Lesnar will be good if they just allow them to go at it big man style. Don't try to be cute just stick with what works. Let them pummel each other.

 

[Navi]

It was definitely Reigns best match to date, but disappointing that the best wrestler in the ring lost. Reigns was carried by Bryan throughout the match, so this doesn't bode well for Mania. Reigns either sold that Bryan kick really well, or he might have got hurt tonight. He can't afford an injury now, he only has 5 weeks till Mania.

It will be interesting to see what he can do against Lesnar.

 

[Kidpolean]

What in the blue hell is carrying someone? This is an overused meaningless term that I see get thrown around here. Its a team effort! Allowing a wrestler to get more offense is not being carried, its called "calling a match." Wrestlers probably laugh when they see people on the internet use terms like this. If you are the veteran than the majority of calls go your way, that doesn't mean you are carrying someone its simply the smartest way to book a match. This is normal especially in this situation. You can't bash Reigns because he had a match with an extremely talented veteran.

 

[kadroan]

What in the blue hell is carrying someone? This is an overused meaningless term that I see get thrown around here. Its a team effort! Allowing a wrestler to get more offense is not being carried, its called "calling a match." Wrestlers probably laugh when they see people on the internet use terms like this. If you are the veteran than the majority of calls go your way, that doesn't mean you are carrying someone its simply the smartest way to book a match. This is normal especially in this situation. You can't bash Reigns because he had a match with an extremely talented veteran.

Yeah true. I'd say Brock carried Taker in their WrestleMania match because he literally did carry Taker throughout the match since Taker had that bad concussion. Who knows what Taker would have done if he had to call the match in his condition.

 

[Wald]

Last night was weird in that two things conflicting things happened that I wanted to happen and now I'm just confused!

First off, I'm happy Reigns won clean and that the WWE didn't go with a three-way match for the second year running. I feel had they done that it would have done irreparable damage to the idea of the Rumble winner going to Mania. I just hope next year they actually pick the right winner from the start though and that brings me to my conflicting happiness and point two.

Last night has me convinced more than ever that Reigns isn't ready for this spot. Lets put a few things on the table here, he wasn't awful but he wasn't great either. He was able to allow, arguably, the best wrestler in the world today work a great match with him. Bryan had about three times the offence and they built it well for Reigns' to hit his big spots. However, Brock Lesnar isn't Daniel Bryan when it comes to laying out a match and leading it. Brock Lesnar needs to work with a Daniel Bryan in the same way Roman Reigns needs to work with a Daniel Bryan. Putting Lesnar v Reigns together at this point is a mistake and I can see the Mania crowd turning on the match/Reigns' big moment.

As for Daniel Bryan. Well if proof were ever needed that Vince views him as an upper midcarder than the past few weeks is it. Bryan comes back from a potential career threatening injury as the most over guy in the company to be meekly eliminated from the Rumble, piss and moan about it to get a match against Reigns and then losses that match to Reigns. His road to Wrestlemania is a shambles and his character has been hurt by it. If I were a stockholder in WWE I'd genuinely be livid with Vince for pulling nonsense like this.

 

[#1druid]

This is the wwe telling us whoever is most popular doesn't matter. It was one thing when "cena sucked" there wasn't an alternative. Now there's a hand picked guy the crowd is in love with and the wwe told us to go screw. How does your most popular performer become an afterthought?

 

[Dave]

This was a great match actually, almost made Fastlane worth watching in all honesty. We all knew that Daniel Bryan was going to lose the match, right? The WWE has put its faith in Roman Reigns and the task for the WWE now is to make him seem like he can legitimately beat Lesnar at WrestleMania. Putting him over a crowd favourite like Bryan isn't going to do wonders for his popularity but it did make him look like he can take part in a WrestleMania main event and stand his ground.

The "hand shake" in the post match said a lot about how the WWE were trying to handle this scenario and it was never more obvious that Daniel Bryan was just trying to accomplish what the Rock set out to do; out Romania Reigns over.

In all honesty, thus match checked all of the boxes for me. A good match for a B-PPV that will likely clock in at about 4 stars. More importantly, it made both guys look like stars.

 

[Navi]

I think it's a stretch to say that Bryan's career is in a shambles. Yes it's true that he's being treated as an afterthought, but I put it down to the fact that they really didn't know when he was coming back and if he would be healthy.

Let Reigns have his moment at Mania. Quite honestly I think unless they rehearse the shit out of this match, it will be a disaster and Bryan will be back in the thick of things again.

I don't know what the WWE is doing right now with most of their players. Wade Barrett was made to look like a loser last night even though he won, and Rollins doesn't even have a match at Mania yet. All round they've been so focused on Reigns, they've lost sight of the bigger picture.

 

[Mustang Sally]

What in the blue hell is carrying someone? This is an overused meaningless term that I see get thrown around here. Its a team effort!

I agree, and thought the two worked very well as a team. Plainly, someone has been working overtime with Roman Reigns and the results were evident last night. His movements are cleaner and crisper and he certainly wasn't blowing spots as we've seen him (and everyone else) do in the past. We also wondered if he could work a match that ran longer than 15 minutes; now we know he can.

In football, you know how it's said a young quarterback improves when the game "slows down" for him, allowing him to see things he couldn't see before due to his inexperience? That's what I'm seeing with Roman Reigns now. He works better with his opponent because his understanding of how to tell a story with a series of moves instead of just performing a bunch of unrelated tactics is increasing.

He's getting it and it showed last night.

 

[laodaron]

First of all folks, Daniel Bryan didn't carry anyone, but he did a great job working with Roman Reigns. He worked at a pace conducive to making Roman look good. But Roman looked like a phenom. If you looked at that match and saw that Daniel Bryan was the better of the night, well, there probably isn't any way to remove the bias.

Roman Reigns could have had that match with anyone, and the results the same. I have no idea how someone watched that match and didn't instantly realize that Roman is ME material, and he's easily in the upper crust of the company.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

Roman Reigns could have had that match with anyone, and the results the same.

So why did he/WWE wait so long?

Spam rules - didn't watch last night, happy people enjoyed this match. Doesn't sound like the crowd gave a shit. I'm just disappointed #HotLesbryanAction won't be trending on Twitter today.

 

[CyberPunk]

I'm just disappointed #HotLesbryanAction won't be trending on Twitter today.

Congrats to Reigns. In all honesty, the match was as good as it could've been. Reigns needed this win and showed he can work a longer than 15 minutes match. In doing so, he was also able to show more of his power moves. I still think that at times the match's flow was a bit awkward but all in all a decent outing for both. Working with Bryan gives Reigns that much important experience. It'll be interesting to see how he pulls them off against Lesnar though who is almost 80 lbs and 5" on Bryan.

I only caught this match from the whole crowd, so I don't know how other matches were. The crowd seemed dead for most part of the match with occasional "Yes/Daniel Bryan/Roman Reigns" chants. It was kinda turn off for me. From what I saw, Reigns entrance and win didn't get much of a reaction (positive or otherwise) and Daniel Bryan's usual Yes chants were only half of what I've seen before. Is Memphis crowd usually this quiet? I've heard and read that other matches didn't get much of a reaction either.

 

[laodaron]

You can't guage the crowd in this. Sting got a no pop, Bryan got a minimal pop, and Bray got nearly no heat. The crowd was not interested in the entire event.

 

[#1druid]

I think it's a stretch to say that Bryan's career is in a shambles. Yes it's true that he's being treated as an afterthought, but I put it down to the fact that they really didn't know when he was coming back and if he would be healthy.

Let Reigns have his moment at Mania. Quite honestly I think unless they rehearse the shit out of this match, it will be a disaster and Bryan will be back in the thick of things again.

I don't know what the WWE is doing right now with most of their players. Wade Barrett was made to look like a loser last night even though he won, and Rollins doesn't even have a match at Mania yet. All round they've been so focused on Reigns, they've lost sight of the bigger picture.

We've seen how hard vince kicks and screams when his pick doesn't pan out and given the way cena has been he might not even care anymore. I know the same thing could be said about me and the iwc in general but we're the customers, its like ordering steak and getting chicken and then being told not to complain. I want bryan in the main event obviously but they treat him like a chump when the crowd isn't carrying torches and pitchforks so I don't trust them to put him back in the title scene til it's a multiman scenario or vince strokes out and Hhh takes over.