MONDAY NIGHT REIGNS-O-METER #2: 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

As with last week, Roman Reigns comes out quickly, doing his part to defuse the happiness generated by a moving Martin Luther King tribute. We all need to know who the star is here. We find out quickly because ladies and gentlemen, I was wrong! The cage is back! Singles push resumed. I was scared another great talent would go wasted then. It’s like the Raw Ellesworth, that cage.

Reigns sucks a little more out of the memory of The Shield before cutting a halfway adequate promo, reminding everyone that he’s going to be winning the Universal title at the Royal Rumble. He gets a little distracted by the cage glaring menacingly at him but other than that comes in, says his piece, then shuts up.

As usual a whole slew of people come out to revolve around Reigns in his eternal quest to turn into a planet one day. Paul Heyman actually asks permission to enter the ring with the statuesque Adonis that is Reigns. Roman threatens an old man, is less popular than the word “it,” squares up to Rollins – which the crowd either don’t notice or don’t care about – then gets utterly schooled by Sami Zayn in how to sell a german suplex.

But Reigns is a warrior. Reigns is a god. Reigns is beautiful! Reigns comes back in and plants Lesnar. He does his finisher that never finishes anyone on Lesnar, Owens and Jericho, then gets mauled by a Lesnar F5.

So Reigns has already been heavily beaten up. A handy excuse to lose is in his back pocket. Lesnar did it.

Watch it again. You know you want to.

Despite both cheers and boos for all but Sami Zayn in a bloated opening segment, Roman gets put on what I’m assuming is the face team. Your guess is as good as mine. Reigns and Rollins are elitist dicks draining yet more of that sweet sweet Shield nectar at Sami’s expense and Roman even name drops the far more popular Dean Ambrose.

That’s right folks, Raw superstars are name dropping Smackdown superstars to try and leech some of their popularity. We’ve reached that point. Well done Roman.

Roman is the last to enter before their big match because he’s the real shining star here. He comes out to a rapturous chorus of bile and hatred because everyone loves him just that much, obviously. He even had a replay of that F5 to remind everyone how tough he is. He tough. He damn tough!

And my word this was an odd match. 2 hot tags for Reigns? Sure. Have both Zayn and Rollins hide after the second to create the 1 vs. all illusion? Definitely. Have Reigns triple teamed relentlessly to expand the badass reputation? Got to. Reigns even got a cheer when held in a chinlock? It was a cheer for Sami Zayn, but be certain that WWE heard a cheer supporting 5 more months of Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens. They hear what they want to hear, babe. They hear what they want to hear.

After the match – in which the non-main eventer brought in to be pinned somehow manages to be the one pinned – Roman keeps fighting. He spears Strowman to the ground, with no help from Goldberg this time. He tough.

He then gets mauled by Kevin Owens. Kevin Owens, confused though he is about Battleground being Road Block, puts Roman’s sexy sexy ass through a table and stands triumphant.

Odds Counter
-That damned cage
-Brock Lesnar beat down
-Pre-match beatdown
-Relentless triple teaming
-Chairshots
-Table spot

Did Roman Reigns beat the odds?
No!

I’m starting to think I started this at a bad time.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S ARTICLE: MONDAY NIGHT REIGNS-O-METER #1: Tracking Roman Reigns’s ability to beat the odds and come out on top

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