411 Wrestling Fact or Fiction: Do You Want to See Reigns vs. Lesnar at WrestleMania One More Time?

Welcome back to the 411mania Wrestling Fact or Fiction. I’m your host Jake Chambers.

Wrestlemania has been over for a few weeks now and we’ve all had substantial time to decompress. And now with that appropriate distance, I’ve invited two of wrestling punditry’s finest to help us grapple with the fallout from the Wrestling New Year. Let’s welcome to our debate stage the king of the countdown and despot of review, Mr. Steve Cook, and his cohort, the eye-gouging essayist and piledriving podcaster Mr. Blake Lovell.

C’mon fellas, give us the old verbal neck brace for our collective Wrestlemania whiplash!

Statement #1: Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar should headline one more Wrestlemania.

Blake Lovell: FICTION – I’ve learned to never say never with WWE, but the Reigns/Lesnar trilogy is more than enough. I enjoy both, and by flipping the dynamic for WrestleMania 38 by having Reigns as the heel and Lesnar as the face, it at least felt different from their previous WrestleMania matches. But the WrestleMania 38 match gave me no reason to want to see it again, especially not in the main event spot on the biggest show of the year. I’m just not intrigued by a fourth WrestleMania match between the two.

Steve Cook: FICTION – You probably could get another WM main event out of these guys if you wanted to, and it seems unlikely that anybody outside of Rock or another name from the past is going to supersede either Reigns or Lesnar in popularity anytime soon. They didn’t have a great match at WM, but the crowd was into it and I don’t think anybody saw it as a tremendous letdown. Thing is, Reigns & Lesnar already had their WrestleMania trilogy. These classic feuds always come in threes, you just don’t go over that number or you’re asking for trouble. I’d expect Rock/Reigns for next year, or even maybe Austin/Reigns. 

Statement #2: FTR vs. The Briscoes was the best match on Wrestlemania weekend and will likely end up being your Match of the Year.

Blake Lovell: FACT – FTR has had a hell of run as of late. I also loved their Dynamite match against The Young Bucks, but I find it hard to see anything topping what they did with The Briscoes. As with everything in pro wrestling, your enjoyment of a match is subjective and based solely on what you prefer as a fan. I prefer the style, the psychology, and all the little things that were featured in FTR vs. The Briscoes at ROH Supercard of Honor. Obviously, I have no idea if it’ll actually wind up being my Match of the Year, but it’ll undoubtedly be a frontrunner.

Steve Cook: FACT – I’ll admit to not watching every single show on WrestleMania weekend. Perhaps something on one of GCW’s many offerings topped it, or maybe something on the Impact show or another event did. I did see AAA, ROH & WWE’s presentations, and FTR vs. Briscoes was the best match I saw. Not surprising, as we all figured that the two teams would mesh well together & produce some classic tag team wrestling the likes of which we hadn’t seen in a long time. It managed to exceed the high expectations we all had going in, and reminded people of just who the hell FTR were. Then they went out the next Wednesday and had another classic with the Young Bucks. I gave FTR vs. Briscoes five snowflakes, feel pretty good about it, and expect it to be in the MOTY convo at the end of the year. I do hope something passes it in may rankings though, as I’d like to see as many outstanding wrestling matches as possible in 2022. 

Statement #3: Cody Rhodes will defeat Roman Reigns for at least one of his championship belts.

Blake Lovell: FACT – I outlined my reasoning in a recent 411 column on why this is a likely scenario. Cody is really one of the few options WWE has at this point based on the fact that he hasn’t yet been dragged down by a long feud (Drew McIntyre), been the victim of 50/50 booking (pretty much every other main eventer), etc. The story is already in motion of Cody chasing after the WWE title, so I’d be surprised if Cody vs. Reigns isn’t the direction for the SummerSlam main event. Cody wins, his story comes full circle, and the downfall of Reigns begins on the road to WrestleMania 39.

Steve Cook: FACT – Cody’s return to WWE has gone very well, which isn’t all that shocking. WWE will be looking to take top talent from AEW when their contracts expire, so it behooves their cause to make people that come over to their company from AEW look good. It was fun to joke about Cody wearing polka dots, but WWE was never going to humiliate him like that. Certainly not this early in his tenure. The better Cody looks on WWE television, the more likely it is that some of Cody’s friends & students start thinking the grass may be greener on the other side, What better way to convince them of such things than by having their friend/mentor defeat the Head of the Table? As things stand right now, there aren’t too many other people in WWE I can see defeating Reigns. 

¡SWITCH!

Statement #4: Samoa Joe should dethrone Jonathan Gresham for the ROH World Championship on the first Tony Khan-owned ROH TV show.

Steve Cook: FICTION – I can see Gresham losing the championship early in the new ROH’s run, but not in a champion vs. champion match with a fellow good guy. As much as we all love Samoa Joe, him winning both the World & Television Championships wouldn’t serve much of a purpose right now. I’m sure they’ll probably have a match at some point, just not now. I think Jay Lethal would be the most likely person to dethrone Gresham anytime soon, given the fact he’s the frontman for a group that Tony Khan hopes will open up the Indian market to his programming. 

Blake Lovell: FICTION – I’ll say FICTION despite thinking one part of this statement would actually be a good idea. Joe is the ROH TV Champion, so unless the belt switches to Jay Lethal and they do a Title vs. Title Match or something months down the road, the scenario of him defeating Gresham seems unlikely. But from a business standpoint, the argument could be made for Joe winning the title on the first Khan-owned ROH television show. It could provide a nice ratings foundation right off the bat, and it would immediately capture interest since Joe is still a big name to a lot of wrestling fans. So, from that standpoint, there’s value in making him the main attraction of a new television entity. But I don’t think Gresham should be or will be the one he’d defeat in that scenario.

Statement #5: Stone Cold Steve Austin will have a match with Goldberg in Saudi Arabia this year.

Steve Cook: FICTION – I haven’t really been paying attention to the wrestling news lately. Too much going on. Is this something that people are actually talking about happening? Jeez, I sure hope it doesn’t come to pass. Austin did look good in his return match, largely due to the nature of the match and the fact he was wrestling Kevin Owens. Owens knew how to make Austin look good. Bill Goldberg has a lot of positive qualities as a human being and strengths as a pro wrestler, but he’s never been great at making other people look good. I wouldn’t be shocked if MBS decided he wanted to see Austin vs. Goldberg and paid them a ton of money to do it, but it’s nothing I have any desire to see in 2022. I might have liked to see it in 1998, but not too many times after that.

Blake Lovell: FICTION – Gonna say FICTION so that I can try to do my part to make sure this doesn’t happen. Austin’s sendoff at WrestleMania 38 was perfect. I don’t think you could have done it any better. Therefore, my hope is that he never wrestles again. I’ve seen the comments from him that leave open the possibility for another match, and let’s be honest, there’s enough money involved in the Saudi Arabia deal that him wrestling there would be an easy deal to make from a financial standpoint. But I have no desire to watch two 55-plus-year-old men with a history of injuries go at it in that setting. I just don’t.

Thanks again to Steve Cook and Blake Lovell for joining us to pre-lash of our post-Wrestlemania thoughts before the Backlash flashes us forward into the wrestling summer season.

Check out Blake on Twitter – https://twitter.com/wrestleblake – and watch out for all of his daily news postings right here at 411!

And you must follow Steve over at Twitter – https://twitter.com/stevecook84 – where he’ll keep you updated on all his column adventures, but be sure to stop by and pay your respects to his weekly (and potentially final?) ROH TV review: https://411mania.com/wrestling/cooks-roh-tv-review-4-15-22/

Hopefully ROH will be on TV again soon, but we’ll be back next week with more FoF madness!