On This Day in 2022: Roman Reigns buries Brock Lesnar under a tractor at SummerSlam 2022

Four years ago, WWE drew a line under one of the most exhausting rivalries of the modern era by having Roman Reigns bury Brock Lesnar under a tractor. That’s not hyperbole — that’s the finish. Last Man Standing, the stipulation designed to produce definitive conclusions, delivered exactly that: Lesnar pinned beneath heavy machinery, unable to answer a ten count, and the feud officially, mercifully, concluded. Whatever you think of how the rivalry was booked across its multiple chapters, nobody can argue the ending lacked commitment.

What the moment actually served, more than any burial of Lesnar, was the elevation of the Bloodline as a collective force. The Usos’ involvement wasn’t window dressing — it was the whole point. Roman Reigns winning clean was never really the Bloodline’s style by that stage, and that was by design. The story being told was about a family that operated as a unit, and a finish that weaponized the environment itself felt consistent with a faction that had been bending every rule in the book for months. This was the Bloodline era making its statement: you don’t just lose to Roman, you get erased.

The debate worth having is whether ending the feud this way cost Lesnar something permanent or simply acknowledged what the audience already knew — that his time as a genuine challenger at the top was behind him. Spectacle has always been currency in professional wrestling, and a man under a tractor is, undeniably, spectacle. The best conclusions to long rivalries don’t just close a chapter; they make you feel the weight of everything that came before, and on that measure, this one at least understood its assignment.