Dean Ambrose opens up on his disappointing WrestleMania match with Brock Lesnar

Published Nov. 15, 2016 1:41 p.m. ET

Nick Schwartz

Current WWE Champion Dean Ambrose had arguably the most disappointing match of WrestleMania 32 earlier this year, a "No Holds Barred Street Fight" with Brock Lesnar that failed to deliver the type of brutal and chaotic action WWE had been promising fans for weeks.

In the run-up to WrestleMania, WWE brought back a few legends like Mick Foley and Terry Funk to present Ambrose with a series of deadly weapons to use against Lesnar, implying that it was the only way Ambrose stood a chance. Fans expected Lesnar-Ambrose to be a throwback Attitude Era hardcore match - but what actually happened in Dallas in front of 100,000 people was a relatively standard Lesnar match. Lesnar took a few shots with a kendo stick, and responded by German suplexing Dean Ambrose into oblivion. The bout was over in 13 minutes, and the prevailing feeling when it ended was "that's it?"

Lesnar was gone for months afterward, but Ambrose later delivered a truly hardcore match against Chris Jericho at Extreme Rules, which ended with Jericho being slammed onto a bed of tacks.

Ambrose joined the Stone Cold Steve Austin podcast after Monday's episode of Raw, and Austin asked Ambrose to give his account of the match - and the WWE Champion didn't hold back with his criticism of his "lazy" opponent.

“Ambrose: I went to the ring that night pretty pissed off, but then I really started to enjoy … as I walked to the ring. I had no idea what was going to happen. Went out there with not much of a plan, so to speak.

Austin: What were you pissed off about?

Ambrose: I felt like I was pulling teeth to turn that match into something epic and so forth.

Austin: You’re an MMA fan just like I am, was it a disconnect in styles? Artistically, in the ring?

Ambrose: Artistically, Brock didn’t want to do anything, if we’re going to be perfectly honest. Brock’s gonna Brock. He’s all about Brock. I had a vision for that match to be the craziest thing imaginable, you know what I mean, and I was trying to pitch everything to everybody and had every idea. I put so much effort in and so much work in, and other people did too, and I was met with laziness.

I kept thinking at the end of the day, ‘once we get in the ring, it’s all going to be OK. We’ll figure it out once we get in the ring.’

We went out there, whacked each other with weapons, I got suplexed a bunch of times.”