MONDAY NIGHT REIGNS-O-METER #3: Tracking Roman Reigns’s ability to beat the odds and come out on top

Roman Reigns is one of the most divisive and talked about WWE performers in history. The company makes desperate play after desperate play to make him their number one star – thus far to no avail. How do they do it? What do they do?

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

Monday Night Reigns-o-Meter

We open the show with a recap of all the odds Reigns didn’t manage to beat over the last two weeks. Savvy Raw viewers have of course kept up with their Monday Night Reigns-o-Meter and don’t need no recap, thank you very much.

The recap is heavily slanted and clearly wasn’t listening to the facts in the previous two weeks. They pipe boos in over Jericho. Reigns is painted as a sympathetic hero, doing everything that he can and just coming up short. Root for the guy who loses, folks. I mean, it worked for Daniel Bryan, right?

And once again, Roman Reigns is the first person out on Raw. Third week in a row this.

His gleaming hair second only to his hitherto unseen sexy chest. Hitherto in this instance means still not seen because he always wears D-Lo Brown’s old chest protector.

Roman gets a little pop and a whole lot of boos which we should all just shut up about, okay? Roman’s a hero. He’s a good guy. He’s got muscles. Why isn’t that enough for you? He delivers his promo well, reading a tiny script written across a cage that has been planted in that ring.

I was really wrong about the push for that cage. It’s getting over. It all started here, folks!

Jericho and Owens come out to Owens’ music. This protects the crowd from having to cheer the overtly talented and charismatic Chris Jericho. The crowd don’t play ball, cheering and chanting for the one person in all of this that they actually like and the guy who continually loses despite his talent: Y2J. He feed it, saying his catchphrases, cracking his jokes. Sadly, he is let down by a few flubbed lines that he gets wrong so that Roman’s promos look better. Consummate professional like that.

Owens namedrops some huge stars, including Orton, Lesnar, and Undertaker, to remind people that Roman has been in the ring with all of those people. Has he beaten any of them? That’s not important. Probably, I mean he’s just that damn good.

Owens calls himself “the one,” joining the the club and instantly becoming much cooler than either “the dude,” “the guy,” or “the man,” because all of those nicknames suck.

Reigns actually gets a yes chant. Hell has officially frozen over. Next people will be chanting for Cena. He tricks Jericho into a rematch for the U.S. Title, which people actually wants to see. He then suggests he might also win the Universal Title, which people most definitely do not want to see.

Of course, this means that we have to suffer through Reigns-Jericho again. Again. Again. Joy of joys.

Owens is on commentary to read a salty poem about how scary Reigns is. I don’t know what he actually said; I was too transfixed by that gorgeous behemoth in the ring. You know Vinnie Mac got it right when he said book them sexy.

After that it’s standard Roman really. Wins by DQ because he can’t have both titles and the crowd so obviously want him to win the Universal one. He asks the crowd a question and they respond positively. What the hell is going on? Having outsmarted Jericho with the match he then outsmarts Owens by locking him in a cage. He beats up an old man a bit more, then Foley’s like “aw mate, that Roman’s damn sexy, I should give him a no DQ match so Roman can hit people with chairs n’ ting.”

Odds Counter
-That cage out-charisma-ing him again
-Jericho’s massive popularity
-A crowd that hates him
-Jericho rematch
-Jericho-Owens double team
-Almost locked in cage

Did Roman Reigns beat the odds?
Yes

And normal service is resumed. Phew.