MONDAY NIGHT REIGNS-O-METER #77: Tracking Roman Reigns’s ability to beat the odds and come out on top

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.

I’ve written a lot about Roman Reigns in the pages of this here Reignometer. That’s only fair given that he is technically the greatest man alive. That said, with Roman on TV every week things don’t always make big leaps and instead they often take small plodding steps, meaning that you get a lot of similar instalments of Monday Night Raw from a Roman Reigns and in fact a WWE perspective.

Thankfully, this grants me some room to be inventive. Let’s talk about Reigns’s championship for a moment.

The Universal title has real potential to become a major title in the future of the WWE. Thus far all five champions have either been major draws or future major draws in Finn Balor, Kevin Owens, Goldberg, Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns. Other championships often have champions that perhaps aren’t at that very top table calibre. Not so the UV belt.

Thus far there have also been no automatic rematches for the Universal title. This should not be a novelty and yet it really is. Matches in which talent compete for the Universal Championship have definitive winners. Roman’s win over Brock Lesnar was so dominating, so powerful, so excruciatingly destructive that Lesnar literally vanished into the ether, potentially never to be heard from again. That’s not just a solid victory, that’s a cosmos defining moment.

So too, Goldberg, after all. He appeared the night after losing the title last Wrestlemania but made no effort to reclaim it. He knew that battle was far from surmountable. Finn Balor basically lost his arm simply from the massive weight of expectation. The only exception of course is Kevin Owens, who continued to wrestle for well over a year before finally succumbing to the damage of his defeat. Not two weeks ago he quit the company, knowing that the red belt would always and forever elude him.

He has not been seen again. By anybody. Ever. Seriously.

That said, the WWE championship is still the name of the game, despite being about as far from the main event scene as possible right now. Looking at its history though, there are some interesting names there that make the Universal Championship’s lineage look that much more impressive. Jinder Mahal immediately springs to mind. Sometimes it’s about elevating the belt. Other times it’s about elevating the talent, as Jack Swagger found out all too well all those years ago.

So what about Roman Reigns; current champion and master of the universe? Well, has anyone been made to look stronger than Roman Reigns in the last five years?

Other than Brock Lesnar.

Other than Braun Strowman.

Other than Charlotte Flair.

Other than AJ Styles.

Yup, that’s right. Nobody has been pushed stronger than Roman Reigns in the last five years. So, combine a title in its infancy that, while largely invisible has been held by top level talent with the actual top talent in WWE and you have a match made in heaven, right?

Well, now that Brock Lesnar has bored even the most ardent anti-Reigns supporter into screaming at their TV to just give him the belt, give him the belt, for the love of all that is pure and true just give Reigns the bloody belt that match is made. That red belt that earned chants of “Hey, we want a new belt” that summarily ruined a Seth Rollins and Finn Balor match has made its way to the mainstream around the waist of a big dog.

Does it deserve the main event spot over Styles vs Samoa Joe? I’m not sure. Maybe Reigns and Strowman will face in a cell with Mick Foley as special guest referee simply because it’s Reigns. Maybe simply because they’re desperately trying to establish the Universal title as the biggest and best. Maybe some people would rather see Styles vs Joe in a cell with Mick Foley as the special guest referee. Maybe we’d quite like to see Joe vs Foley in a cell. Who knows?

On Raw this week, Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman continued a power struggle that dates all the way back to the Royal Rumble 2017. Of his entire WWE career, Braun Strowman has spent more than half of it feuding with Roman Reigns. They feuded while in the Wyatt Family. They feuded in the build up to Roman’s match with The Undertaker and for eight months of 2017 in total and now here they are feuding again. This rivalry is as often seen as Rollins vs Balor. Strowman has been made by Roman Reigns.

Will he take the red and gold too? Only time will tell.

Odds Counter
– Braun Strowman

Did Roman Reigns beat the odds?
Yes

Oh, also Kevin Owens is back. Yay!

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S COLUMN: MONDAY NIGHT REIGNS-O-METER #76: Tracking Roman Reigns’s ability to beat the odds and come out on top