At Wrestlemania 30 the unthinkable happened when Brock Lesnar ended the Undertaker’s 21 match streak. It is probably the most shocking moment in WWE as well as Wrestlemania history. But as per the original storyline, the DeadMan was supposed to defeat the Beast. However, last-minute changes by WWE CEO Vince McMahon made the unthinkable happened.
The Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s Dave Meltzer (h/t talkSPORT’s Alex McCarthy) said in March that McMahon decided the day of WrestleMania XXX to have Lesnar win and end The Undertaker’s undefeated streak. The Deadman corroborated the report last month on Barstool Sports’ Pardon My Take podcast (h/t Jason Ounpraseuth of Wrestling Inc) and recounted the story again with CBSSports.com’s Brian Campbell.
“We had gone back and forth depending on the day,” he said. “It changed very often, but it had been that way [with Lesnar losing] for about a week, and I showed up thinking I was going over. I found out about 1 p.m. that I wasn’t. It is what it is.”
Undertaker provided McMahon’s reasoning before adding an opinion voiced by many fans at the time and in the years since: “Obviously, in Vince’s mindset, if it’s not Brock, then who? My biggest concern was I just wanted to make sure that [McMahon] was sure and that’s what he wanted to do. I didn’t feel like Brock needed it. Brock was already a huge star, and it wasn’t going to help him one way or another. My only concern was there might have been someone down the line that could have benefitted from it more and that probably would’ve been Roman later on.”
Roman Reigns had beaten the former world champion in the main event of Wrestlemania 33, which probably would have been more meaningful if “Taker hadn’t fallen three years earlier in the Showcase of the Immortals”.
Not only the Bulldog, Lesnar too did not gain anything after defeating The Phenom as the Wrestlemania XXX main event is largely forgotten.