Since 2015, Fastlane has been the final stop on the road to WrestleMania. The final PPV before WrestleMania has always been crucial, as its where feuds for the big stage are set up, matches are confirmed, and almost all matches have major WrestleMania stakes on the line. During the second half of the Attitude Era and Ruthless Aggression Era (and even two years into the PG era), No Way Out was the defining PPV before WrestleMania.
It had big stakes, iconic moments and the perfect set-up for WrestleMania. Not that it wasn’t a disappointing time and again, but when the words No Way Out were mentioned, fans knew that things were about to go down as the picture for WrestleMania would be clear, but for a decade, it resonated in the minds of fans.
In the turn of the decade, Vince McMahon seemingly decided that it was time for change as he usually does for many things (Not that he’s wrong about it). Elimination Chamber took its place, in what would be a quick transition into “gimmick PPVs”. Before, stipulation matches like Money in The Bank, Hell in a Cell, Elimination Chamber and even TLC would be match stipulations that were reserved for specific storylines.
It was different then, as WWE wouldn’t have the stipulation for the sake of it. Matches of such sorts were reserved for the top dogs and for big stages, where the story required it for the payoff or to enhance it. However, with the turn of the decade, WWE decided that these stipulation matches were marketable, and they began to market these stipulation matches as the name of PPVs.
While Hell in a Cell, Elimination Chamber, MITB, TLC, etc. have stuck around, there were a couple of examples where they realized that it was best not to do so. One such example was the “Fatal-4-Way” PPV in June 2010. Regardless, WWE changed their approach, and instead of reserving the stipulation matches for stories that required it, they chose to build stories around the stipulation matches and PPVs.
Whether you agree with it or not, it’s just the direction they chose to go. Instead of waiting 10 years, they waited half a decade before changing the final PPV before WrestleMania to Fastlane. The Elimination Chamber PPV still exists, but it serves as the penultimate PPV rather than the final one.
In four different editions of Fastlane, it seems like only one out of them was actually enjoyed by fans. Unfortunately, the reason why many people blamed the lack of success of the PPV was due to a single name – Roman Reigns.
Reigns may be revered now after all the struggles that he went through medically, but it’s not difficult to forget the reactions that he would get prior to October 28th, 2018. WWE called him polarizing, but more often than not, that really wasn’t the case. At Fastlane 2015, i.e, the first edition of it, the main event saw Roman Reigns go up against Daniel Bryan.
Mind you, this was the period of time where the fans’ disdain for Reigns had begun. He won the Royal Rumble instead of Daniel Bryan, who was already the favorite at that point. The fact that he hadn’t won the prior year meant that fans truly believed this would be his year. Instead, he was eliminated early and Roman Reigns was booed out of the building in one of the most controversial Rumble wins ever.
WWE seemed to think that if Roman Reigns beat the fan favorite in Daniel Bryan, they’d cheer him against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 31. They didn’t. Despite Reigns beating him and securing his spot in the main event of WrestleMania, fans’ ire for him only grew further. WWE wisely decided not to pull the trigger on him that year.
The following year, the card was decent, but the main event saw Roman Reigns go up against Dean Ambrose and Brock Lesnar to decide Triple H‘s WWE title opponent at WrestleMania 32. While fans knew in the back of their mind that Reigns would win, there was a lot of hope that Ambrose would win. Mind you, Ambrose was bar none the hottest star in the company at the time, and the build to the match centered around Ambrose and Lesnar, with Reigns simply being a supporting character. Unsurprisingly, Reigns had won and the fans couldn’t stand it.
The third year, Reigns faced Braun Strowman, who was hot at the time and handed him his first pinfall loss. To add salt to the wound, Goldberg had finished Kevin Owens in 22 seconds to end a rather entertaining Universal Championship reign. For the third year in a row, fans were left with a sour taste in their mouths.
Fastlane had already developed a bad reputation at this point, with many questioning whether it was a worthy PPV before WrestleMania. One would think that a name wouldn’t make such a difference, but with a bad track record, fans’ perception of the show instantly goes down. Thankfully, 2018’s version of Fastlane was a good one, with AJ Styles winning an epic six-man match to retain the WWE Championship.
Hopefully, things go smooth from here on out and Fastlane can build a reputation similar to that of No Way Out.
