Why are Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns fighting at Wrestlemania 38?

In what the WWE is billing as the biggest Wrestlemania main event in history, WWE Champion Brock Lesnar will collide with Universal Champion Roman Reigns to close out Night 2 of Wrestlemania 38 on Sunday.

This epic showdown at AT&T Stadium will be a title unification match, as both belts will be up for grabs in this fight between these two longtime rivals. Let’s take a look at how we got here.

Why are they fighting?

Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns have been two magnets sitting at the top of the mountain in the WWE for the last seven years, always ending up being drawn right back to each other. We’ve seen these giants in the main event of two prior Wrestlemania’s, with matches like Hell in a Cell sprinkled in between.

This current iteration of the feud began following the main event of SummerSlam last August, where Lesnar returned to the WWE and made his intentions of hunting Reigns down for his Universal Championship very clear. The two met in the main event of the Crown Jewel pay-per-view a few weeks later, a match where Reigns got over with help from the Bloodline and Paul Heyman.

The “Beast” continued to stalk Reigns throughout the fall and winter and even re-acquired the services of Heyman as his manager after Reigns seemingly fired him. The two were set to meet for the title again at the Day 1 pay-per-view on New Year’s Day but unfortunately, Reigns tested positive for COVID-19 and couldn’t participate in the match. Having to audible on the fly, the WWE inserted Lesnar into the main event match for the WWE Championship and he won.

Defending his belt against Bobby Lashley at the Royal Rumble a few weeks later, Lesnar lost his title due to interference by Reigns and a double-cross by Heyman. The “Beast” would respond by entering and winning the men’s Royal Rumble match later that night, officially setting up the showdown with Reigns at Wrestlemania. He would add higher stakes by winning back the WWE Championship at the Elimination Chamber ppv a few weeks later, making the ‘Mania main event “winner take all”.

Since then, the two have traded promos on weekly WWE television and Lesnar even chased Reigns and the Bloodline around with a forklift on a recent episode of Smackdown.

What should we expect from the match?

The WWE may dedicate a full 45 minutes to an hour to the main event segment as these two will get plenty of time to tell a story. This will most likely be the final time we see Reigns face Lesnar in a high-profile match and we’ll get all the bells and whistles, from interference, to table spots, to both guys kicking out of the other’s finisher.

Consequences of outcome

A Reigns win would continue his year-and-a-half reign as Universal Champion and would solidify it as one of the most dominant championship runs in WWE history. However, it would leave a potential crisis of not having any credible opponent left who could potentially knock him off his throne.

A Lesnar victory would once again place him at the top of the food chain in the WWE and the company has been down that road several times. However, the goofy, cowboy hat wearing persona that he’s donned over the last several weeks is a side of Lesnar that we’ve never seen, creating the possibility of presenting him in a brand new light as the champ.