WrestleMania: 5 big mistakes WWE made in the last 5 years
Without a shadow of a doubt, WrestleMania is WWE's biggest show of the year.
It is a celebration of a year's worth of wrestling that showcases WWE's best. From its epic storylines to its larger-than-life production value, WrestleMania truly is the Grandest Stage of Them All. The spectacle of the event is unmatched in all of wrestling, but it's not a perfect show.
WWE has held some truly classic editions of the Show of Shows in the past, with WrestleManias 17 and 19 instantly coming to mind. The last one to truly fit that description might be WrestleMania 31, which took place in 2015. WWE has not hit those heights with recent 'Manias, although some of them came close.
The company does tend to make a few booking errors at WrestleMania, and some of these mistakes are much more prominent than others. The consequences of these errors have varied over the years. Some of them affected the entire event while others did not factor too much into the fans' overall enjoyment of that year's show.
Here are five big mistakes WWE made at each of the past five WrestleManias.
#5 WrestleMania 32: WWE mishandled Roman Reigns' win
WrestleMania 32 was supposed to be one of the greatest shows in WWE history. The company had grand plans for the event, which was set to take place in front of a record-breaking crowd at AT&T Stadium. However, several top stars got injured, and they subsequently missed WrestleMania.
Without key main event stars like John Cena and Seth Rollins, WWE stumbled into a predictable headliner for WrestleMania 32 between Triple H and Roman Reigns. The storyline was telegraphed in its entirety once it was announced that Reigns would defend his WWE Championship in the 2016 Royal Rumble Match.
Triple H made a "surprise" return one month after The Big Dog savagely attacked him. The Game won the Royal Rumble and claimed the WWE Championship in the process. Reigns then challenged The King of Kinga at WrestleMania 32, but the fans were completely against the former champion at the time.
WWE didn't even have a crutch to fall back on, like Rollins and the Money in the Bank briefcase at WrestleMania 31. Instead, Reigns and Triple H put on a 25-minute snoozefest that ended exactly the way everybody had feared. The show concluded with a standard babyface victory for Reigns that motivated 100,000 fans to boo him relentlessly.
This development was the result of WWE's failure to repair Reigns' damaged reputation after WrestleMania 31. Other top bouts like Undertaker vs. Shane McMahon and Brock Lesnar vs. Dean Ambrose weren't great, either. But the main event of WrestleMania 32 left a very sour taste in the fans' mouths.