A purple-laden main event took center stage at Wrestlemania 38 on Sunday night as former Minnesota Vikings players, Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns, clashed for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship.
What has been deemed as the biggest feud in the world of professional wrestling ended anticlimactically—a spear off a rope whip from Reigns to sing Lesnar’s lullaby with a one, two, three count for the victory.
Reigns, whose real name is Joseph Anoa‘i, signed with the Vikings shortly after going undrafted in the 2007 NFL Draft.
However, his time was cut short with the team after being diagnosed with Leukemia during a team physical. He earned first-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) honors at Georgia Tech University after posting 40 tackles, including nine for a loss and 4.5 sacks in 2006.
The Jacksonville Jaguars gave him a look as well, and he even went on to start in at least three games for the Edmonton Eskimos in the Canadian Football League.
#WrestleMania Mode!
The Tribal Chief @WWERomanReigns has finally defeated @BrockLesnar on The Grandest Stage of Them All to become the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion.@HeymanHustle pic.twitter.com/9iR1O0ngc3
— WWE (@WWE) April 4, 2022
Lesnar joined the Vikings a few years earlier than Reigns and lasted through the preseason, despite having not played a single snap of football since high school.
He spent his college years on the wrestling mats at the University of Minnesota, where he won the 2000 NCAA Division I heavyweight championship as a senior.
Former NFL veteran receiver Nate Burleson told a story of how Lesnar once came to the defense of former Vikings quarterback Daunte Culpepper by suplexing a Kansas City Chiefs player to the ground at a training camp practice.
“You remember Brock Lesnar, WWE? He came out and somebody cheap-shotted Daunte Culpepper late, and Brock was like, ‘Who did it?’ The next play he went and suplexed a guy,” said Burleson. “Different type of nasty but he picked up a grown man, and after the play, it was a Royal Rumble—Minnesota and Kansas City in Mankato during training camp. That was a nasty suplex on the football field.”
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