WWE WrestleMania 34 Results: Why Roman Reigns Should Have Defeated Brock Lesnar

WWE WrestleMania 34 did not end with Roman Reigns standing tall as the new Universal Champion.

Some diehard fans, in particular those who cannot stand Reigns, won't like to hear this, but WWE did not make the smart choice at WrestleMania 34. It was time for "The Beast" to drop the Universal Championship, and Reigns was the right man for the job.

Let's start with Lesnar, who held the Universal title for more than a year because he's considered to be WWE's biggest draw but during his title reign had done little to prove that's actually the case. According to WWE's Key Performance Indicators, Raw's TV ratings increased exactly 0% by the end of 2017, at which point Lesnar had held the title for nearly nine months. Likewise, the average WWE Network subscriber count dropped by more than 200,000 from Q2 (when Lesnar won the title) to Q4, while average live event attendance was at 4,900 in Q3, the lowest during any quarter over the last three years.

It seems that the supposed drawing power of Lesnar vanished into thin air in 2017 and that his on-and-off presence was, well, a major turnoff to fans, who didn't seem to be very interested in the happenings surrounding "The Beast." Yet, WWE inexplicably pushed Lesnar above anyone and everyone on Raw, having him mow through top stars like Samoa Joe and Braun Strowman in the process, which stifled their abilities to truly reach the pinnacle of WWE.

What made that decision even more baffling is that Lesnar May be in his way out of WWE.

Recent reports indicate that Lesnar could soon be on his way out of the company. Lesnar's contract expires shortly after the pay-per-view (as does Paul Heyman's), and according to the Wrestling Observer (h/t Cageside Seats), "Lesnar is leaning toward returning to UFC because WWE won’t let him fight in the Octagon while under contract to them again after he got bad press for his failed drug tests around UFC 200."

Lesnar, of course, has maintained quite the flirtatious relationship with UFC as of late, and the company's president, Dana White, recently said that Lesnar will indeed be heading to UFC in the near future, essentially confirming what Heyman has teased for a while now. Late last year, White revealed that WWE indeed would not let Lesnar fight for UFC again while still under contract with the company, so it certainly appears that Lesnar will be unable to have his cake and eat it, too.

He will have to choose between WWE and UFC, and with his drawing power diminishing in WWE, it's hard for Vince McMahon to justify bringing him back. WWE made a number of significant cutbacks last year, and the easiest one it could make is letting Lesnar walk given that he was WWE's second highest paid star last year, according to FORBES. Unless Lesnar is willing to take a substantial paycut or WWE has unseen evidence that indicates he's a much bigger draw than the publicly available data suggests he is, it's time for the company to move on from "The Beast."

But after Lesnar's surprising WrestleMania 34 win, there is doubt about whether we’ve seen the last of "The Beast."