Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman and the History of the WWE Ambulance Match

It's only fitting that Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman's WWE feud will come to a close on the strange and severe stage that is the Ambulance match.

Again and again, the powerhouses' rivalry has seen the ambulance serve as both weapon and battlefield. Strowman overturned an ambulance with Reigns inside. The vehicle was the site of their post-Payback brawl where The Monster Among Men barreled through one of the ambulance's back doors.

And when Strowman re-emerged on June 19 after undergoing elbow surgery, he did so by bursting out of an ambulance and braying at the heavens.

This fight between seething beasts has led to broken doors and bloody mouths. It cannot be contained by a standard bout, and so a new venue awaits.

Reigns and Strowman are set to collide at Sunday's Great Balls of Fire pay-per-view in a street fight that ends with one man stuffed inside an ambulance. 

This will be only the fifth Ambulance match in WWE history. WCW had previously showcased the contest, but it wasn't until the early '00s that WWE followed suit.

Kane battled in the first one in 2003. A nine-year gap followed before WWE returned to the gimmick. Once again, Kane suited up for it.

The Ambulance match has yet to produce a classic, but the bouts have gotten better each time. Reigns and Strowman's history together suggests they will eclipse the previous editions of the bout.

Under the rules of the straightforward stipulation, wrestlers club each other until one is beaten down enough to not resist being pushed inside an ambulance. That formula has created a number of unique moments born of emergency vehicle-assisted violence.

Even so, he Ambulance match is a spectacle that WWE has rarely tapped into.

Kane vs. Shane McMahon: Survivor Series 2003

Winner: Kane

In 2003, Kane terrorized Shane McMahon and his family. The stalking monster attacked McMahon's mother, Linda McMahon, and famously electrocuted his testicles.

To allow Shane O' Mac the chance at revenge, WWE resurrected the Ambulance match, a concept WCW used to showcase Mike Awesome in 2000.

Credit: WWE.com

McMahon and Kane spent much of the match fighting backstage, clubbing each other with anything that was within reach. When the battle moved to where the ambulance was parked near the entrance ramp, the vehicle proved to be an equalizer.

McMahon slammed the monster into the side of the ambulance and cracked him in the head with one of its doors. He leaped off its roof with his elbow cocked.

The spots were awkward at times, but this is the kind of bout McMahon was built for, one where he can use his stuntman skills to add to the action. 

A Tombstone Piledriver on the floor put McMahon's dreams of felling this beast to rest. 

Kane vs. John Cena: Elimination Chamber 2012

Winner: Cena

WWE waited nearly a full decade before pulling out another Ambulance match.

The second came as a result of Kane angering and unsettling Cena. The Big Red Machine urged Cena to let his hateful side come to the surface. He caused chaos in the hopes of inspiring that change, including pushing Cena's buddy Zack Ryder off the entrance ramp in a wheelchair.

And in an odd move, WWE made the Cena-Kane Ambulance match the main event of the PPV despite there being no championship on the line and two world title Elimination Chamber matches on the card.

Cena and Kane only mildly delivered.

They made everything inside that ambulance a weapon. The rivals attacked each other with a spine board, a stretcher and a wheelchair. The end result was only solid at best, though.

An Attitude Adjustment from off the top of the ambulance secured the win for Cena, allowing him to stave off the darkness Kane tried to coax out.

Ryback vs. John Cena: Payback 2013

Winner: Cena

When Ryback and Cena's feud climaxed in 2013, the Ambulance match had to share the spotlight as part of a Three Stages of Hell bout.

Their Last Man Standing match for the WWE Championship in May ended in a no-contest. The Big Guy had an idea on how to settle things afterward. Ryback stepped out of an ambulance, climbed atop it and challenged Cena to an Ambulance match.

Cena countered by making it a three-part contest that also included a lumberjack and tables match.

Ryback earned the first fall and lost the next to set up a rubber match of sorts.

The two hosses outdid the first two editions of the rare gimmick match thanks to added intensity. They were rhinos running at each other. And the ambulance element led to them conjuring violent, striking images from bending a crutch over their bodies and Cena whacking Ryback with a light torn off the ambulance.

Credit: WWE.com

Cena sent The Big Guy through the ambulance roof to become the only man to ever win two WWE Ambulance matches and to end the only time a title has been on the line in one of these with the champion clinging to the gold.

Dean Ambrose vs. Bray Wyatt: Raw, Jan. 5, 2015

Winner: Wyatt

Ambrose was moments away from tasting vengeance against Seth Rollins at Hell in a Cell 2014 when Wyatt appeared in a cloud of ghostly smoke. The Eater of Worlds weakened Ambrose to allow his rival to defeat him.

The feud that saw The Lunatic Fringe looking to pay Wyatt back ended on Raw in a match where he would feel quite comfortable. Ambrose and Wyatt battled in the first Ambulance match not on PPV.

The rivals battered each other in the ring as much as they did in and around the ambulance.

Like Kane and McMahon, Cena and Ryback before them, Ambrose and Wyatt used the vehicle itself to harm their foe. They pulled out every piece of equipment inside as a weapon. While Ambrose eventually lost, he delivered the most breathtaking moment of the action when he dove off the ambulance and sent Wyatt through a table with an elbow drop.

This was arguably the best WWE Ambulance match to date, although there is clearly not a wealth of competition with such a rare match. 

It will soon be Strowman and Reigns' turn to try their hand at this format. They will get to express their rage through swings of a crutch and slams into the side of a vehicle. They will join a short list of WWE gladiators to compete with an ambulance as their arena.

Metal will be dented, medical equipment will be misused and a rivalry will once more climax with the closing of an ambulance's doors.