MONDAY NIGHT REIGNS-O-METER #96: Tracking Roman Reigns’s ability to beat the odds and come out on top

By Tom Colohue, PWTorch Specialist

Roman Reigns comments on Brock Lesnar
Roman Reigns (artist Joel Tesch © PWTorch)

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Roman Reigns is one of the most dramatic, divisive, and discussed WWE performers in history. The company makes desperate play after desperate play to make him your favourite graps guy – with limited success. How do they do it? What do they do?

I’m Tom Colohue and this is the Monday Night Reigns-o-Meter.

Well, I think this week is finally the week where we can say it all got a little bit silly.

At WWE Stomping Grounds, Roman Reigns took on Drew McIntyre. He also, after a fashion, took on Shane McMahon. Shane just happened to be there and, thanks to his damn dirty McMahon DNA, he had to get involved and screw Roman Reigns out of victory.

Only he didn’t. He failed. While Shane McMahon crushes The Miz at every opportunity, the only loss that Roman Reigns has taken in any of this was at Name Redacted and, as such, didn’t actually happen. Just like that awful Undertaker Goldberg match never happened.

Honestly, Stomping Grounds was an even better event if you just completely forget that Super Showdown ever happened.

As you might expect, Drew McIntyre always eats the pin in order to protect the fresh, new, popular rising star Shane McMahon. I couldn’t even finish that sentence without chuckling to myself. We had a brief and very tantalising hint at a Reigns vs McIntyre no disqualification fighting through the crowd match that, let’s face it, would have been better than what we got so WWE is never going to do it. Then a match happened. A very plain, very obvious, paint by numbers match.

It’s a real shame that we have someone as talented and charismatic as Drew McIntyre and all he’s done since Wrestlemania is the same formulaic, predictable match with Roman Reigns. It’s a shame for everyone really. McIntyre should be challenging for championships. He should be challenging Rollins or Kingston. Instead, McIntyre has always seemed to be the follower. He followed Ziggler, he followed Ziggler and Strowman and now he follows Shane McMahon.

Although if all of this ends with McIntyre getting frustrated and going full on Batista mode with Shane, then I am certainly not going to complain.

Roman beat the odds. One day I’ll be surprised by this, but honestly it’s far more shocking when the odds beat him. It happens so rarely.

Determined to get his revenge, Shane McMahon would announce the first round of Shane’s Handicap Invitation Tournament. In this Roman Reigns, having beaten up both Drew McIntyre and Shane McMahon the previous night, was suddenly unable to handle both Shane McMahon and Drew McIntyre. Instead what we got was plentiful kicks to the cranium in the real life equivalent of WWE 2K19 finisher spam.

Oh, and The Undertaker showed up.

This would result in Roman being…

Hang on, what’s The Undertaker doing saving Roman Reigns from a Corporation beat down? Didn’t Reigns beat The Undertaker in his retirement match at Wrestlemania? I mean, it obviously didn’t stick but it’s The Undertaker; we’re supposed to just forget when people lose matches. Everybody knows that.

Is he coming for Shane McMahon, after beating him quite definitively at another Wrestlemania, the year before? Well that makes no sense either.

Is he coming in to set up a feud with Drew McIntyre? Let’s not mention that in case somebody reads it and decides to take it away from us.

So… why was The Undertaker there? Money? Probably money. I mean, he’s appeared at every Name Redacted show so he’s obviously not afraid to make some cash.

What does this mean for Roman then? Is he now the background player in his own Reignsometer? The best supporting actor? Well no that’s clearly Shane McMahon. Has anybody asked what Roman wants? Does he want to team with The Undertaker? Maybe he’d rather be using the wild card rule to chase the WWE champion Kofi Kingston on SmackDown Live?

I think that’s fair. If Shane McMahon is going to continue to dominate Raw, maybe Roman should pack his bags and use the wild card to temporarily move to SmackDown Live where there are championships and dream matches and opportunities.

Maybe it’s time he took his ball and went home.

Odds Counter
– Shane McMahon
– Drew McIntyre
– Shane McMahon and Drew McIntyre
– The Undertaker stealing the spotlight

Did Roman Reigns beat the odds?
Yes

What do you mean he’s already on Smackdown Live?


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1 Comment on MONDAY NIGHT REIGNS-O-METER #96: Tracking Roman Reigns’s ability to beat the odds and come out on top

  1. Reigns couldn’t get over with a box full of CM Punk ice cream bars. The black hole of charisma now needs a 60 year old Mark Calloway who made a total fool of himself in his last match with Goldberg. Vince is going to keep shoving Roman in every orifice of his Universe until they vomit him out. Oh, wait…too late….

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