MONDAY NIGHT REIGNS-O-METER #38: 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

Is Roman Reigns your hero, your saviour, your favourite person in the world? No? Oh. I expected a different answer there. I think WWE might have done too, given that the opening package to Raw this week involved Roman Reigns fighting hard against immense odds to a backdrop of cheesy inspirational music. He fought, he sparred, he stroked the air in front of The Miz with his fist like the gentle caress of silk bed sheets on booty.

Then he got beat up. Sometimes the important thing is to put the odds over. Roman’s time will come, as we all know.

Tonight, Roman gets a shot at the IC title, which he would hopefully treat much more positively than he did with the US title. Thankfully he’s not winning that belt any time soon. I mean, hopefully. It’s Roman, isn’t it? He wins things. That’s his deal.

By now we’re in full on Shield season, as anyone who has watched WWE recently will attest to. Rollins and Ambrose open the show by doing their best fish out of water impressions (they lie down and flop about a bit) after a Strowman and Bar beat down. Naturally this is going to become very important later.

Roman Reigns does not feature in all that many segments this week. You don’t get an hour of Romany goodness anymore but it does tend to mean that his segments end up being a little bit overbooked. You know, ever so slightly, what with the odds and all. Before the match we get a recap of earlier Shield business before Reigns gets interviewed about it.

Roman telegraphs his own overbooking by talking about The Bar but not mentioning Braun Strowman. He puts over his brethren and then puts over himself. There seems an odd wave of support for Roman Reigns winning the IC title. I don’t like it. I’m immediately suspicious.

And then there was The Miz; Raw’s own glorious one (they would make a great tag team, just being gloriously awesome) The Miztourage do The Shield entrance, because we’re being subtle now. The Shield of course stole this entrance from Edge so I think technically The Miz is doing The Brood entrance?

Are The Shield just a rip off of The Brood?

I mean, no.

We have another recap of last week to remind everyone about The Shield. Have I said The Shield enough? It’s kind of all anybody is talking about right now. The Miz gets some applause and scattered boos. Roman gets firm boos and then some applause.

Roman does the thing that everybody loves – beating people up – and for one shining moment Roman Reigns is everything that WWE keep telling us he is; brutal, dominant and popular.

The Miz just sort of watches. He doesn’t do that often; he actually isn’t portrayed as all that much of a coward normally but as we know Roman comes first. As The Shield gets closer, Roman gets more and more over.

The match itself really isn’t all that overbooked. Really it…hang on, Michael Cole isn’t there? I mean, we’re nearly two hours in, I know, but I just realised Michael Cole isn’t there. Sorry, got distracted for a minute there.

Roman goes in and out of the ring a lot so that everyone has a nice chance to admire his nice shaving routine. The match is kind of a throwaway event. The story of the day really is the fact that Roman is getting huge cheers in Denver. Oh my word, is that a Roman chant? What on Earth is going on? Maybe having the main event at the end of the second hour instead of the third is the right idea after all. Raw really is WCW.

And then the overbooking begins. Cesaro and Sheamus attack Roman, strongly suggesting that we will see The Miz, Cesaro and Sheamus lining up against The Shield at TLC. I’m sure The Shield have gone over Sheamus in six man tag matches before, back five years ago when beating up Sheamus was still cool.

So it took The Miz, The Miztourage and The Bar to put Roman Reigns down. You know the sheer star power in this TLC match is absolutely incredible. The crowd chant for The Shield but the moment passes without incident.

I feel like I’ve typed The Shield a lot tonight. Have I typed The Shield a lot tonight? I feel like I’ve mentioned The Shield a lot. The Miz hears the chants for The Shield and does a full The Shield doppelganger impression all over again. Hey, it’s nice to see that The Miz is clearly the leader of this here anti-Shield. He’s actually getting a pretty good rub out of all this.

Does mean that there’ll be no tag or IC title matches at TLC though. Possibly no UV title match either.

Asuka though, am I right?

Well at least I don’t have to mention The Shield any more.

Oh, look, there go The Shield.

Odds Counter
– The Miz
– Bo Dallas
– Curtis Axel
– Cesaro
– Sheamus

Did Roman Reigns beat the odds?
No

The odds are pretty over now, right?

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Like what you're reading? Help me get to 1,000 followers by the end of the year with a like or a retweet and have my eternal thanks. Thanks!

— Tom Colohue (@Colohue) August 29, 2017

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S COLUMN: MONDAY NIGHT REIGNS-O-METER #37: Tracking Roman Reigns’s ability to beat the odds and come out on top