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WWE ‘Greatest Royal Rumble’: AJ Styles And Brock Lesnar Retain Their WWE Championships

By Carter Lee
Published on: 09:09 PST, Apr 27, 2018

Out of the seven WWE title matches that were featured at the Greatest Royal Rumble, only one saw new champions crowned and that’s because the Raw tag titles were vacant. Both the Brock Lesnar and AJ Styles matches featured controversial endings, but the live audience at the WWE event seemed to enjoy both of them nonetheless.

As expected, the AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura match didn’t take long to heat up. It wasn’t a very long affair, which was the theme of the night, but for a moment this contest actually made the Greatest Royal Rumble feel like a WrestleMania-like event. But then the ending happened, and the WWE universe was reminded that this was designed like a house show.

The match started off slowly, with Styles and Nakamura carefully measuring each other. But they quickly shifted gears and it was stiff-shot city from there. Both competitors told a really good story with their passionate performance as they exchanged blows and counter-strikes in the middle of the ring. The audience reacted with loud enthusiasm as the two built to the finish.

The action spilled out of the ring to the floor as they battled one another until the referee counted them both out. Since the match ended with a double count-out, AJ Styles is still the WWE champion. The action continued at ringside as the two continued to pummel each other with stiff shots. AJ Styles came out on top from their after-match brawl, and he delivered a phenomenal forearm on Nakamura at ringside before making his exit. Expect to see more from these two soon as nothing was settled here.

Brock Lesnar defended the WWE Universal Championship against Roman Reigns inside of a steel cage. Since you can win the match by escaping the cage WWE fans were anticipating Reigns finally beating Lesnar; Roman would be able to become the new champion, and Lesnar would be protected and still be a monster. But like WrestleMania, the WWE swerved audiences again and Brock retained. But this time the match featured a unique finish.

The contest was essentially a series of signature moves and finishers and the crowd was really into it from beginning to end. Samoa Joe was shown in the back watching the contest. It was suplex city right away as Brock delivered his stapled German suplexes. It didn’t take long for “The Beast Incarnate” to hit an F-5, and Roman Reigns kicked out. Reigns countered a second attempt by Lesnar to deliver the F-5 and landed a Superman-punch. After a few physical moves exchanged by the two, Reigns would hit three spears.

Roman Reigns nearly escaped over the top of the cage but Lesnar pulled him back to the ring. Lesnar then tried to escape but Reigns powerbombed him back into the ring. Roman almost successfully left the cage again but, with shades of Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, Paul Heyman slammed the cage door into the head of Reigns. Roman ended up spearing Lesnar through the cage.

Because Lesnar landed first outside of the cage, even though Roman was the one to drive him through the side of the cage, Lesnar retained the WWE championship. Michael Cole pointed out that this was controversial because the winner must have both feet touch the ground first. Though Lesnar was the first one out, he landed on the mesh and Roman’s feet actually hit the arena floor first. Regardless of the rules, it was declared that “The Beast Incarnate” was still the champion.

This will probably put an end to the duo’s feud, well, at least for now. The ending protected Roman since it could be argued that he should be champion. Roman Reigns is set to face Samoa Joe at WWE Backlash, and it will be interesting to see who Brock will face next after being victorious at the Greatest Royal Rumble.

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