Best and Worst of WWE Fastlane 2021: 4-time World Champion gets first PPV win in 7 months, Big mistake made with WrestleMania title match
Fastlane 2021 exceeded expectations in a big way. Welcome to the final pay-per-view edition of 'Best and Worst' on the road to WrestleMania. This event was meant to set up the biggest show of the year, and there have been quite a few indications of what lies ahead in the coming three weeks.
We only have three more episodes of RAW and SmackDown until WrestleMania, but we'll get to that when the time comes. Fastlane was an impressive pay-per-view as the second half of it saw four incredible matches. The road to WrestleMania is exciting, and low expectations only result in great delivery. Here are the ups and downs of the Fastlane pay-per-view:
#3. Best: Seth Rollins steals the show at Fastlane
Seth Rollins' paternity leave has put a lot of things into perspective, and his win at Fastlane was a big one. It proved how much WWE had missed him between late November and January - though he had a valid reason to be away.
But what was interesting about this was the fact that this was Rollins' first singles pay-per-view match since SummerSlam 2020. Post-SummerSlam, he wrestled in a tag team match at Payback (and lost), skipped the Clash of Champions and Hell in a Cell pay-per-views. At Survivor Series 2020, he took the fall on Team Smackdown and was eliminated instantly.
The Royal Rumble was his last pay-per-view appearance and he was eliminated. His match against Shinsuke Nakamura was arguably the best of the night at Fastlane. It's even more impressive considering how the final four matches were all incredible and unique in their own way.
But the most staggering statistic coming out of this is that Seth Rollins has won his first pay-per-view match in over seven months. The last man he beat? Dominik Mysterio. This match against Shinsuke Nakamura was also a great showing for the Japanese Royal Rumble 2018 winner - who seems to be having the best set of matches in his WWE career in 2021.
Who would have thought that it would take five years to get a more motivated Nakamura? His match at Fastlane was also better than his previous Survivor Series encounter with Rollins back in 2018.
Seth Rollins vs. Cesaro seems to be a clear direction for WrestleMania 37.