2 Highs and 3 Lows from Dean Ambrose's WWE WrestleMania appearances

WWE WrestleMania 35 will take place at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, April 7. A total of 14 matches have been announced for the event, including Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins and Drew McIntyre vs. Roman Reigns, but there has been no word about a possible match for Dean Ambrose.

It was confirmed by WWE in January that the Shield member will leave the company when his contract expires in April. At the time of the announcement, many fans questioned whether he really is going to leave or whether his contract situation could become part of a storyline.

Given the way that “The Lunatic Fringe” has been booked in recent weeks – he has lost seven of his last eight singles matches, including four times against McIntyre – it seems clearer now more than ever that he will be on his way out of WWE after WrestleMania 35.

As for the event itself, Ambrose's best chance of featuring is if he is added to the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal, which is being built around Braun Strowman, Michael Che and Colin Jost this year, or if he interferes in a match involving Rollins or Reigns. If he does neither of those things, then there is a serious chance that the Shield member has already competed at WrestleMania for the final time.

With that in mind, let’s take a trip down memory lane to look at the highs and lows of Ambrose’s past WrestleMania appearances.

---

#5 High: The Shield remains undefeated

Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins burst onto the WWE scene in November 2012 by attacking Ryback in the main event of the Survivor Series pay-per-view. They quickly became known as The Shield and built up a ton of momentum over the next few months heading into WrestleMania 29.

Still undefeated as a trio by the time that WWE’s biggest show of the year came around, they picked up a statement victory over the makeshift team of Randy Orton, Sheamus and The Big Show in the opening match of the night.

“The Hounds of Justice” had only been part of the main roster for a little over four months at this point, so it was a big deal for the up-and-comers to win a match on “The Grandest Stage of Them All” at such an early stage in their WWE careers.

#4 Low: WrestleMania 30 match shortened

One year on from their impressive victory over Randy Orton, Sheamus and The Big Show, The Shield faced Kane, Road Dogg and Billy Gunn in a six-man tag match at WrestleMania 30.

The build-up to the match felt very underwhelming, especially considering that Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins had played a major role on Raw and SmackDown in the 12 months leading up to the event, but at least WWE fans were able to see the trio work as babyfaces for the first time on the main roster.

In the end, The Shield picked up the victory following a Triple Powerbomb on the New Age Outlaws, but the match was the victim of time constraints – the promo segment between Hulk Hogan, The Rock and Steve Austin ran long – and it lasted just 2 minutes and 56 seconds.

The following year, Ambrose competed in a seven-man Intercontinental Championship ladder match. Considering that Reigns and Rollins closed the show that year, you could argue that the moment should go in the ‘low’ category, but we’ll leave it off this list because the match itself was still widely praised.

#3 High: Featured match at WrestleMania 32

By the time WrestleMania 32 came around, there were few WWE Superstars who were as popular as Dean Ambrose. The Shield member was the guy, as far as the fans were concerned, in late 2015/early 2016 and he was the people’s favourite to win the 2016 Royal Rumble.

As it turned out, although he had a decent showing in the Rumble, he finished runner-up to Triple H, who won the World Heavyweight Championship in the match, and he went on to lose a title match against “The Game” at the Roadblock event six weeks later.

“The Lunatic Fringe” retained the support of the WWE Universe and featured in one of the marquee matches of WrestleMania 32 – a No Holds Barred Street Fight with Brock Lesnar – at a time when Seth Rollins was out injured and Roman Reigns was preparing for his second WrestleMania main event in a row.

Although WWE was plagued by injuries at this time, it was still a huge show of faith for the company to give Ambrose the spotlight in a match against Lesnar, whose appearances were even more limited then than they are now.

But, as we will explain in the next slide, the match did not go exactly as planned…

#2 Low: Underwhelming Brock Lesnar match

WrestleMania 32 was essentially built around four major matches: Triple H vs. Roman Reigns, The Undertaker vs. Shane McMahon, Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch vs. Sasha Banks, and Brock Lesnar vs. Dean Ambrose.

The match against Lesnar was the biggest of Ambrose’s career up until that point, so it was only natural that fans had big expectations about what carnage might go down, especially with the added stipulation of a No Holds Barred Street Fight.

As Ambrose later recalled on the Stone Cold Podcast, he had lots of ideas for the match but he was “met with laziness” by Lesnar, who went on to win the underwhelming match in 13 minutes and 6 seconds.

Despite the stipulation, which was presumably put in place to make a possible Ambrose victory seem more realistic, it never looked for a moment as if “The Lunatic Fringe” could win the match, and Lesnar picked up the victory when he hit an F-5 on his opponent onto a set of steel chairs.

#1 Low: Demoted to the kickoff show

Dean Ambrose missed WrestleMania 34 due to injury, so WrestleMania 33 might turn out to be his final ‘Mania before he leaves WWE at the end of his contract later in April.

WrestleMania 33 was also the first “Show of Shows” following the 2016 brand split, which took place at a time when Ambrose held the WWE Championship. Due to the separate rosters, more storylines than ever before had been built on Raw and SmackDown Live before ‘Mania, and it was obvious leading up to the event that “The Lunatic Fringe”, just three months after his WWE title storyline ended, was not exactly WWE’s priority.

Originally, he was supposed to defend the Intercontinental Championship against Baron Corbin on the main pay-per-view. However, after fans voiced their displeasure about the SmackDown Women’s Championship six-pack challenge taking place on the kickoff show, WWE switched the two matches and placed the IC title match at the end of the kickoff show instead.

Ambrose vs. Corbin was nothing more than what you would expect to see on regular WWE television, so perhaps WWE made the right call, but it was still a major low in Ambrose’s career to be demoted to the pre-show broadcast.