Wrestling is supposed to be relatively straight forward: Cheer for the good guys, boo the bad guys and chant when appropriate.
The dose of reality — kafaybe, if you will — injected has led to fans reveling more in the well-executed heel character and lambast the poorly executed face. That has been a lot of the problems facing Roman Reigns since his seemingly inevitable Royal Rumble win last year.
Storytelling too though has left Roman Reigns out to dry a bit and Monday night’s episode of Raw showed the confused nature of the current WWE heading into its first pay-per-view event of the year, one of its biggest and tradition-rich shows on the schedule and the first step toward its hallmark WrestleMania event.
In the opening and final segments of Raw, Roman Reigns was setting to square off against Brock Lesnar — already somewhat problematic as the two fought each other at last year’s WrestleMania and a repeat match seemed more than possible with John Cena’s injury likely knocking him out of the headlining event.
That is fine. Reigns and Lesnar are likely two of the bigger draws — Reigns the dutiful champion playing the renegade face and Lesnar the more seasoned veteran behemoth that impresses with his physical stature and performances.
Yet, in both segments it remained unclear who Reigns is going to fight. The stakes are not entirely clear.
In the opening segment, Reigns invited himself to the showdown with Lesnar at the end of the show only to be interrupted by The League of Nations stable. The whole segment ended in a match between Reigns and Rusev. Reigns will fight the whole League of Nations — Sheamus, Barrett, Alberto Del Rio and Rusev — in Thursday’s airing of Smackdown.
The final segment saw Reigns face off head to head with Lesnar. In predictable fashion, the League of Nations interfered and both Reigns and Lesnar disposed of them. The lights dimmed and the Wyatt Family surrounded the ring. Bray Wyatt took out both Reigns and Lesnar, leaving he and his stable alone in the ring gloating over their victims, Bray proclaiming himself the favorite to win the title at the Royal Rumble in an odd and unexpected push.
It leaves an unclear question for the WWE: Who exactly is Roman Reigns fighting here?
The WWE is continually pushing a Reigns-vs.-everyone storyline. Booking the Royal Rumble match for his title defense continues that storyline. Reigns has seemingly fought everyone to get his title shot — from losing it to Seth Rollins with a Money in the Bank cash in at WrestleMania, appeasing fans who had not bought Reigns’ initial title push, to the McMahon’s rigging the Royal Rumble draw to make Reigns the first entrant this year. There is a constant need it seems from the WWE to prove Reigns is a worthy champion and force the crowd to believe so too.
The lead up to the Royal Rumble though leaves no clarity over who Reigns is fighting. What is the push? What is the promotion trying to set up?
The constant overlapping stories have confused exactly who Reigns is supposed to be fighting. Obviously his motivation is to win the Royal Rumble and retain his championship, something he seems very likely to do to set up either Reigns-Lesnar at WrestleMania or Reigns-Triple H as the Internet seems to think. But who is he fighting?
Reigns clearly wants Lesnar. That is his mountain. The man he should have defeated at WrestleMania last year for his title.
Everyone else seems to be going after Reigns in one way or another. Instead of focusing on Lesnar, why wouldn’t Reigns keep his focus on his true tormentors — The Authority? In last night’s show there was no interaction between Reigns and the McMahons.
And the interlacing storylines have taken away much of the juice from the undercard fights.
Dean Ambrose has built a nice feud with Kevin Owens, one of the rising stars in the promotion, for the intercontinental title. That has been put on the backburner because of Ambrose’s connection with Reigns as Ambrose fought the League of Nations on Monday. He will go face to face with Owens on Thursday in Miz TV.
The other stories on the main card seem to have no juice. Calisto is a nice story, but it is hard to see him winning cleanly over Del Rio for the United States Championship or that advancing very much forward.
This is all a sign of the WWE’s general weakness. There are injuries to the roster that have caused lots of retooling on the fly — John Cena was likely to face Del Rio at the Royal Rumble before his injury and it sort of feels like Lesnar was supposed to fight someone else in his return too. Seth Rollins’ injury in November most of all changed things for the promotion.
Without clarity and motivation, it is hard for the WWE to see too far into the future. And that has muddied up their handling of the Royal Rumble and the run up to it. Maybe it has increased the unpredictability, but it has not created a compelling story.
Orlando fans will be watching a story still figuring itself out and a WWE trying to put things in place for WrestleMania rather than the conclusion of much of anything.
