Was The Fiend's return at WWE Fastlane worth the wait?
By Ryan Satin
FOX Sports WWE Analyst
WWE Fastlane featured a big return, hard-hitting action, the split of a faction and a Universal title match that seemingly set the stage for a change to WrestleMania’s main event.
Considering this show clocked in at less than three hours, a lot more happened than you’d expect.
- The Fiend reappeared in his most flame-retardant attire.
- Sasha Banks slapped the taste out of Bianca Belair’s mouth.
- RETRIBUTION turned on Ali.
- Drew McIntyre and Sheamus destroyed some ThunderDome screens.
- Edge finally snapped.
Oh, and Roman Reigns kinda sorta maybe tapped out to Daniel Bryan (but please don’t send him a screenshot of this saying I wrote that because I don’t need stress on a Monday).
Now, with all the other pay-per-views behind us on the Road to WrestleMania, WWE's biggest event of the year is less than three weeks away, and there’s a lot to be excited about.
Here are my five biggest takeaways from Fastlane:
Resurrection of The Fiend
I commend WWE for being able to wait three months before bringing Bray Wyatt back after he was burned alive in the middle of the ring at TLC in December.
His return at Fastlane with a new burned-up twist on The Fiend’s original getup was badass and worth the wait.
There’s literally no better reason for a WrestleMania match than one Superstar attempting to murder his rival, only for the thought-to-be-dead person to rise from the grave as a zombie version of their character looking for revenge.
God, I love wrestling. Don’t ever tell me it doesn’t rule.
Alexa Bliss has done a stellar job of covering Wyatt’s portion of this feud while he was gone, and her work Sunday at Fastlane against Randy Orton in the buildup to The Fiend’s return was entertaining as hell, but the time had come for her other half to return.
It’s fair to say the feud between Orton and Wyatt has been polarizing amongst fans, and it's time to end it. Many love the horror antics and crazy visuals these two have provided over the past few months, but other more traditionalist fans seem to be turned off by the extreme level of spooky antics.
One thing I think both sides can agree on, though, is that this feud deserves a big ending on "The Grandest Stage of Them All" in order to properly pay everything off.
I had thought they might do battle in another Firefly Fun House match at WrestleMania, but I’m not sure that gimmick is the proper way to finish a feud of this magnitude.
Like I said, Bray Wyatt had to return from the dead to get his hands on Randy again.
A match in which he forces Orton to face the demons of his past would be awesome, but without a clear-cut winner, fans will be left disappointed – even those of us who loved the FFH match against John Cena last year.
It also seems highly unlikely that WWE would put on another cinematic match at the first show in more than a year for which fans will be in attendance, so a different gimmick match makes more sense.
Rookie of the year
Following weeks of unnecessary plot points, Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair finally took a step in the right direction after their tag match at Fastlane with a slap heard round the world.
WrestleMania is three weeks away. It’s time to get serious about this headlining title match and stop having Sasha/Bianca bested by people such as Nia Jax, Shayna Baszler, Tamina and Natalya.
At least the storyline revolving around whether Sasha and Bianca can coexist or not finally appears to be done.
Banks' calling her upcoming opponent a rookie when the match was over and smacking her so hard you could feel it at home seems to answer the question as no, just as everyone already thought, they cannot coexist.
Hopefully the focus of this program now shifts in the proper direction so we can get these two looking as strong as possible before WrestleMania next month.
Don’t ruin their special moment by keeping the focus on Reginald or something less important over the next three weeks.
RETRIBUTION breaks away
Well, it looks like T-Bar wasn’t just listening to a lot of Kelly Clarkson last week when he was liking tweets about her song "Break Away" – though, no judgment if he was.
Instead, we saw RETRIBUTION attack Ali on the Fastlane kickoff show after finally growing tired of their leader berating them on a weekly basis.
This needed to happen.
The group had a rocky start to begin with due to the silly name changes and elaborate masks, but once Ali was revealed to be the leader and they continued to lose on TV each week, it became impossible to look at them as serious threats.
The elaborate masks and silly names were difficult to overcome as it was, but the constant losses were a death sentence.
Worst of all, every single member of the group is an incredibly talented wrestler who can put on fantastic matches, so it has been confusing seeing them wasted in these roles.
Now, however, with the way things played out at Fastlane, WWE has one last chance to make a positive out of all this, and they could ACTUALLY MAKE IT COOL with the right story. T-Bar, MACE and Slapjack are super entertaining on Twitter with these characters.
Get creative with the follow-up so that all the TV time devoted to the group wasn’t for nothing.
Bring the pain
When you strip away the storylines and pageantry, wrestling at its core is just two people beating each other up to assert their dominance over the other, and Drew McIntyre vs. Sheamus on Sunday was a brutal example of that.
Yes, it had a layered story behind it – which I’ve quite enjoyed – but this was one of those matches in which the two competitors clearly didn’t hold back on each other, and it showed.
The backs of Drew and Sheamus can attest to that after all the kendo stick shots they took.
My favorite part of this match was seeing Drew toss Sheamus through some of the ThunderDome screens causing a bit of a blow-up, which made for a pretty cool visual.
Sometimes using pyro in this fashion can look a bit too staged for my liking, but the way they did it Sunday looked believable to me since there’s gotta be a lot of electricity powering all of those ThunderDome screens.
I’m also not an electrician, so I could be wrong. Thankfully FOX isn't paying me to wire anyone's house.
Either way, the disregard these two performers had for their bodies needed to be talked about. It was intense.
YES! YES! YES!
As I suspected, it looks like Daniel Bryan is poised to be added to the Universal title match between Edge and Roman Reigns at WrestleMania.
I’m still unsure of how they officially get there, but now there are multiple options after Jey Uso and Edge both caused him to get screwed out of a victory over Roman Reigns.
Before I unpack the finish, I first want to say this was a great main event. We all remember a time not too long ago when there was a negative perception from a portion of fans regarding Roman’s in-ring acumen. Those people have been eating their words for months since his return, and that continued this weekend after the match against Daniel Bryan.
Reigns and Daniel wrestled their asses off, and if a live crowd were there, they would’ve been going nuts — especially each time it looked like "The Tribal Chief" was close to tapping out.
Speaking of tapping out, let’s get back to that finish.
Bryan overcoming Jey Uso’s interference, accidentally hitting Edge with a chair and getting Reigns to submit (without a ref looking) were all pulled off to perfection. Edge reverting back to his chair-loving roots afterward was the icing on the cake, too, since we all know he’s a heel at heart.
I mean, his nickname is "The Ultimate Opportunist" for God’s sake.
Adding Daniel Bryan to the WrestleMania program between Edge and Roman Reigns was a great decision. This has undoubtedly been the best WrestleMania storyline this year.
If the Universal Championship is defended at WrestleMania in a Triple Threat match, we’re going to be in for a treat.
Ryan Satin is a WWE analyst for FOX Sports. Satin previously appeared on FS1's "WWE Backstage" and founded Pro Wrestling Sheet, where he broke countless news stories as editor-in-chief.
