WWE Greatest Royal Rumble 2018 Results: Why Roman Reigns Should Have Defeated Brock Lesnar

WWE Greatest Royal Rumble 2018 ended in controversial fashion with Brock Lesnar defeating Roman Reigns to retain the Universal Championship after "The Big Dog" speared him through the steel cage and the referee declared him the winner.
Going way back to March 2017, the reported plan was for Reigns to slay "The Beast" at WrestleMania 34 in order to officially become the new face of WWE . The company apparently changed course when Lesnar signed a new contract to extend his deal, which was
slated to end the day of WrestleMania 34 , and now, Lesnar is staying with WWE on a deal that will pay him a much higher salary but apparently will end before SummerSlam.
Given the outcome of Reigns vs. Lesnar at Greatest Royal Rumble, it looks like reports that Lesnar may have only signed that short-term deal to drop the Universal title to Reigns in Saudia Arabia were wrong, after all. But either way, with Lesnar apparently set to return to UFC at some point in the near future, there was no other choice but for him to lose to Reigns at the Greatest Royal Rumble.
WWE backed itself into a corner here with the entire Reigns/Lesnar feud. Reigns probably should have won the WWE Championship from Lesnar at WrestleMania 31, but he didn't. And because he didn't, that had a domino effect on Raw over the past few years in which the Lesnar/Reigns narrative, which was always hinted at even when the two weren't exactly feuding, superseded everything else on Raw, only for WWE to fail to give fans the big payoff at WrestleMania 34.
Even though Reigns winning the title from Lesnar isn't necessarily something your diehard fan (you know, the ones who refuse to like Reigns no matter how much he improves) wants to see, it is a necessary move for Reigns, Lesnar and WWE. Lesnar left his best days in 2013, and there is a multitude of reasons why
WWE simply no longer needs him , ranging from his half-hearted in-ring performances to his exorbitant salary to his nonexistent effect on the WWE Network subscriber count.
As WWE proved at WrestleMania 34 when the WWE Network hit a record 2.12 million subscribers , no one is bigger than WWE. And certainly not Lesnar.
In 2012, WWE caught lightning in a bottle when "The Beast" stepped out of the octagon and back into the squared circle for the first time in nearly a decade. It was fresh, exciting and downright exhilarating, well, at least for a few years. That was until his match quality fell off a cliff so much so that the days of him delivering an all-time classic with John Cena at Extreme Rules 2012 seemed like the exception rather than the rule.
Then came the Reigns quandary.
Lesnar and Reigns have been forever linked since that fateful night at WrestleMania 31 in 2015, when everyone thought Reigns would defeat Lesnar but didn't. WWE repeated that same mistake just a few weeks ago at WrestleMania 34, but as Reigns said on the post-WrestleMania edition of Raw, this storyline always had to end with Reigns winning the Universal Championship, one way or another. That didn't happen at Greatest Royal Rumble, but it should happen soon.
Truth be told, it is the only fitting end to a rivalry that, though on and off, has lasted more than three years and has always seemed to end with Goliath failing to be slayed. Reigns did not win at WrestleMania 31, WrestleMania 34 or SummerSlam 2017, his three best chances to end the tyrannical reign of the man WWE has seemed to push harder than all others over the last several years, and he didn't win at Greatest Royal Rumble, either.
Sure, there may have been better and more logical choices to dethrone Lesnar at different points. Braun Strowman, for example, should have beat Lesnar at No Mercy 2018, but he didn't and the two stars showed remarkably little chemistry that night, while WWE made it clear that it doesn't see "The Monster Among Men" as someone who needs to be in the title picture. WWE also could have gone with a wild card to defeat Lesnar, perhaps someone like Daniel Bryan (what a story that would have been) or Rusev, who is yet another classic case of WWE failing to capitalize on the popularity of a star because it didn't fit WWE's plans.
But with Bryan only just getting clearing to return and Rusev getting so frustrated with his role that he reportedly asked to be released , WWE had remarkably few options to finally topple Lesnar. Samoa Joe already lost to Lesnar, who has also faced Seth Rollins, isn't a believable foe for someone like The Miz and has already destroyed every other star in his path, ranging from John Cena to Triple H to The Undertaker to Dean Ambrose.
The bottom line is that WWE needs Lesnar's first loss after holding the Universal title for more than a year to mean something, and the only star who could make that loss mean as much as it will is Reigns. By winning the Universal title for the first time, Reigns could continue to push merchandise at an impressive pace to the fans who love him while still being Cena-like in the way he's hated by the so-called "smarks" who boo him just to boo him.
It would keep Reigns right where he belongs while finally giving fans, Lesnar, and most importantly, Reigns a payoff to a rivalry that has lasted for more than three years and can only end one way: With Reigns winning the title he's never held.
But at this point, we have to wonder if that will ever happen.