Brock Lesnar Vs Omos & 9 Other Times WWE Wasted A Legend At WrestleMania

WWE announcing Brock Lesnar vs Omos as a match for WrestleMania 39 has many fans upset about a legend being wasted. Any legendary superstars becoming part of WrestleMania season will create strong interest for the audience. Unfortunately, WWE has made their fair share of mistakes when booking these iconic names in lackluster matches.

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The best-case scenarios will see legends having strong performances to use their name value to improve the show. Every time WWE misses out on that experience will show how badly things can go. A bad match is one thing, but fans feeling that a beloved figure is being wasted is even worse. The following legendary names saw WWE wasting their WrestleMania matches.

10 Brock Lesnar Vs Omos (WrestleMania 39)

WWE booking Brock Lesnar vs the giant Omos for WrestleMania 39 has been the most criticized thing about the WrestleMania 39 card so far. Brock has been having one of his best runs of his career playing the more authentic and compelling babyface.

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Omos has not been viewed as a credible name in a long time since WWE slowed down his push. WWE not having any better options and Lesnar not wanting to face Bray Wyatt still doesn’t excuse this. Brock wasting away one of his final prime WM matches feels like a disaster.

9 Kurt Angle Vs Baron Corbin (WrestleMania 35)

Kurt Angle’s retirement was one of the worst-case scenarios for a legend on the biggest stage. Rumors began circulating about Angle retiring at WrestleMania 35 with fans having dream match ideas against the likes of John Cena, AJ Styles or Samoa Joe.

WWE ended up picking Baron Corbin since he was the one feuding with Angle over an authority figure role in the previous years. Angle and Corbin felt like one of the least relevant matches on the card, despite a generational talent having his final match.

8 The Ultimate Warrior Vs Triple H (WrestleMania 12)

The return of Ultimate Warrior became a part of the WrestleMania 12 build with an advertised match against Triple H. This was around the time of the Hunter Hearst Helmsley character when Triple H was struggling to get any momentum.

Warrior squashing Triple H was WWE’s idea with the hopes of seeing the legend being enough for fans. It came off odd and felt like a waste of time. Warrior returning on Raw to build a program with a more credible name would have led to more success.

7 Jerry Lawler Vs Michael Cole (WrestleMania 27)

One of the worst matches in WWE history actually stemmed from a decent idea. Jerry Lawler still wrestled well into color commentator days and still wrestles on the independent circuit today. WWE used the story of Lawler never challenging for the WWE Championship when putting over The Miz.

Lawler gained some momentum, but the next idea turned out to be a disaster. Michael Cole’s heel run led to him entering a long-term feud with his commentary partner Lawler. WWE booked an all-time terrible match between the two, instead of finding a credible opponent for the legend to wrestle his first WrestleMania match.

6 Steve Austin Vs Scott Hall (WrestleMania 18)

The New World Order coming to WWE in 2002 was a great idea that unfortunately didn’t pan out. Hulk Hogan vs The Rock turned into the biggest match from that storyline heading into WrestleMania 18, when Steve Austin didn’t want to wrestle Hogan due to past issues.

Austin needed a WM opponent and WWE felt he needed to remain in the feud against the nWo. Hall was the singles opponent for Austin in a pointless match fasting the beloved legend. Kevin Nash may have been a better rival since he was coming off a bigger run as a former WCW main event and world champ.

5 Goldberg Vs Braun Strowman (WrestleMania 36)

WWE doesn’t deserve all the blame for wasting a Goldberg match at WrestleMania 36. The decision to have Goldberg win the Universal Championship off The Fiend and head into WM with the belt was a bigger regret than what happened afterwards.

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A dream match of Goldberg vs Roman Reigns was what WWE wanted out of this story. Unfortunately, the pandemic and shutdown led to Roman sitting out the rushed event. Goldberg instead put over Braun Strowman with no build in a match and title change that led to all negative results.

4 Trish Stratus, Snookie & John Morrison Vs LayCool & Dolph Ziggler (WrestleMania 27)

WWE is currently in a new stage of building the women’s division up to the point where legends can return to face active stars. Previous years saw it a tougher task for the company to slot female legends on the card since they rarely even had women’s matches on WrestleMania.

Trish Stratus was easily the biggest legend from the women’s division when she returned for WrestleMania 27.WWE chose to have her team up with D-List celebrity Snooki and John Morrison in an utterly pointless match against Dolph Ziggler and LayCool.

3 Chris Jericho Vs Fandango (WrestleMania 29)

Chris Jericho was already in the legend category ten years ago at the time of WrestleMania 29. It felt like a strange move when WWE booked Jericho to face the newcomer Fandango in Fandango’s first match since introducing his new dancing gimmick.

The previous plan of Jericho facing Ryback saw him mad about the change and not wanting to face Fandango feeling it was a waste of his role. Vince McMahon was adamant about this match and even had Fandango win in the upset of the night.

2 Randy Savage Vs Crush (WrestleMania 10)

WWE wanted to phase out some of the legends of the Golden Era when moving forward into the New Generation Era. Randy Savage remained on the roster longer than Hulk Hogan when WWE tried moving him into a color commentator position.

The desire to wrestle more did see Savage talking Vince McMahon into a WrestleMania 10 match. Unfortunately, it was against a lackluster opponent in Crush for a mid-card match. Savage putting over someone of greater importance would have made better use of his status as an all-time great.

1 John Cena & Nikki Bella Vs The Miz & Maryse (WrestleMania 33)

John Cena branching out to Hollywood in the 2010s made it clear that he was on borrowed time by the time of WrestleMania 33. A part-time schedule made that one of the final WM matches that Cena would have enough time to create a build for.

WWE gave Cena the freedom to pick his own idea of working a match with then girlfriend Nikki Bella. The duo of Cena and Nikki defeated The Miz and Maryse are weeks of build. Cena proposing to Nikki after the match was the bigger selling point for WWE, but they broke out later that year to make that moment pointless now.