Fan Backlash Against ‘Fastlane’ Results

WWE pay-per-view Fastlane took place on Sunday, March 5. During the event, Roman Reigns beat Braun Strowman, while Goldberg beat Kevin Owens for the WWE Universal Championship in 22 seconds. Fans online have been critical and vocal about their complaints regarding the booking at Fastlane.

On Reddit, a Fastlane discussion thread was posted, with many bemoaning the awful event. The top comments were all harsh criticisms of either Raw or Goldberg himself.

“Wrestlemania should be a Smackdown exclusive ppv”

“Goldberg’s son has yet to see his father wrestle, still.”

“This is all personal opinion, but I honestly think that might have been one of the worst PPVs I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m not really one for unironic hyperbole, but for me this really did feel like one of the worst PPVs I’ve seen in recent memory. It doesn’t even feel like hyperbole to me, I just didn’t enjoy a lot of tonight. I’m sure there are plenty of people who liked tonight, but, for me, tonight was just bad. I can go into detail if you want, I wrote out a long comment but I just felt like it wasn’t necessary. I still have it, but I felt like I just had to say that: I just didn’t like it. To each his own.”

“Very few results made sense.

• Charlotte lost her bigged up PPV record at the PPV prior to Mania.
• Braun lost clean to Super Roman. No signs of Taker.
• Squashed a Super Heel for a part-timer (they will complain that no-one modern can draw anymore, quelle surprise)
• Tag titles a joke.
• Rusev went from dominant US Champ to jobbing to Big Show.
• Nia lost any hope of being the monster of WWE Women by losing to am injured Banks.

This was an end-of-WCW levels of shoddy PPV. But it’s working I guess. I miss Roman as Champ now.”

“I for one was not sports entertained tonight.”

Fans were critical of the match between Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman. Few were expecting Reigns to lose, but many decried the manner in which he was booked to win. Strowman performed a running powerslam on Reigns through the announcer’s table. That powerslam is effectively Strowman’s “finishing move”, as he had handily dispatched Sami Zayn, the Big Show, Mark Henry, and countless other superstars with that move.

After performing the slam, Strowman rolled Reigns into the ring. Reigns then proceeded to perform his finisher, “The Spear,” twice on Strowman before pinning him and winning. Many felt this was a waste of time and effort from WWE, who had spent seven months building up Strowman as a monster. He spent the first few months of his solo run squashing enhancement talent, and Strowman got over with the fans. He had a highly acclaimed match with The Big Show just two weeks before Fastlane. Many feel that WWE has undone more than half a year’s work by having Strowman lose in such a manner.

The main event of Fastlane, which saw Goldberg fight Kevin Owens for the WWE Universal Championship, was critically panned by many people. Erik Beaston of Bleacher Report gave the match a C- grade.

“At some point, the WWE Universe will come to the realization that Goldberg cannot hang with today’s Superstars, thus necessitating the short matches, and it will turn on him.”

Many knew Owens would not win after Goldberg squashed Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series, but fans feel that making Goldberg look better than the rest of the roster will have negative effects on the product. This ties in with a larger complaint people have regarding part-timers, especially part-timers who pick up wins and go over full-time wrestlers. It makes the rest of the roster look weak and hurts WWE’s ability to produce new stars.

WWE will have a lot of work to do defusing the backlash and earning the fans’ goodwill come Raw until Wrestlemania.

[Featured Image by WWE]