MONDAY NIGHT REIGNS-O-METER #102: Tracking Roman Reigns’s ability to beat the odds and come out on top

ReignsRomanWK1_3x2_600 — Roman Reigns (photo credit Wade Keller © PWTorch)

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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 favorite 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.

So, to the apparent surprise of everybody but me, Roman Reigns did not get attacked by a microwave this week. Color me stunned. I could have sworn they were going to continue the theme of household objects like kettles and toasters, but instead what we have is Roman Reigns, exclusively on Smackdown Live and exclusively provided the downest of beatings.

Essentially, I believed that WWE could tell a proper story using a murderous electric cheese grater and, because of their ineptitude, I no longer have a house. How dare they do this to me!

Our grand mystery continued to unravel this week, while at the same time getting a lot more confusing. For one thing, what happened to fake Erick Rowan? No, seriously, where is he and why did they bring him in only to forget about him completely?

We opened the show with questions asked of Roman Reigns. In response to those question, he would announce his intention to do something else for two hours.

I’m guessing he had a lot to do in the back. Fantasy football? Actual football? What else can you do in two hours while you’re waiting for a main event segment to become available? Dance Dance Revolution? I can’t pretend I wouldn’t enjoy watching that.

Of course, this leaves us with one massive problem. Roman Reigns just sort of doesn’t do very much this week. But that’s okay; there’s a whole episode of Smackdown for me to Reigns-o-Meter all over!

In a rehash of this time last year, Randy Orton plays Samoa Joe to Kofi Kingston’s A.J. Styles. What this means is that they continue to play out exactly the same storyline from last year, just with a whole lot less oh Wendy moments. So yeah, we lost the best bit.

There’s a big brawl backstage, which is nice. Naturally, this was all so that the officials get the chance to watch some wrestling live tonight instead of having to watch it on TV.

Buddy Murphy lost to Ali, which makes perfect sense if you think about it. Murphy might be able to beat Daniel Bryan, but you know who else can beat Daniel Bryan? Ali. I think we all know that even if you’re better than me, if I beat someone better than you that makes me better than you, right? Them’s the rules.

Anyone else remember when Roman Reigns would be featured in three or four segments per night? Wouldn’t it be great it we could work through this whole great mystery by just throwing four short segments into a show? Whatever happened to being afraid of low ratings? Hashtag We Want Roman, am I right?

Instead, the Intercontinental Title continues on its mission to find its way back to The Miz where it belongs. Admittedly, Sami Zayn and Nakamura are trying desperately to hold on to it, but let’s face it, they’re fighting a losing battle. It just wants to go home now.

The whole Roman and Bryan story plays out again over the course of the night via the wondrous medium of the recap package. I don’t think it should be underplayed how we’re literally seeing more of Roman via replays than we are of the man himself at this point. He occasionally has a match, though, and that seems to work out pretty well for everybody.

Bayley and Lacey have a long match. This is Lacey’s first appearance on either side since her loss alongside Baron Corbin back at Extreme Rules. We probably won’t see her again for a while after this one.

By this point I would imagine Roman’s probably wrapping up his backstage business. He’s watched his boy Buddy lose. He’s watched Orton beat up Kofi in the backstage area. He’s read through his Chest Protector Weekly magazine a couple of times and played half a game of risk with Brock Lesnar. His toenails are painted. And he’s even spent some time with Alexa Bliss’s pig, Larry Steve. It’s all good. He’s ready. He’s totally ready to walk out and get into a fight.

Randy Orton pops up for his second segment of the night, taking on Big E. Using a combination of The Revival and the actuality that he’s Randy Bloody Orton, Randall gets the win. There’s a lot of injustice going on tonight. Unfortunately for the good guys, Roman’s having a hot tissue massage right now.

Elias would find his performance interrupted by famously lovable good guy Kevin Owens. Roman would have interrupted himself for sure, but he was too busy having a heart-to-heart with his old nemesis, the grilled cheese sandwich. I hear they’re good now. The feud is over. God bless us, everyone.

Chad Gable beat Shelton Benjamin. No comment. Roman didn’t want to come out during that match. It was Gable’s moment. Nobody wants to step on that.

Finally. Finally, we get to the main event. Just like that, there is nothing left for Roman to do. He walks down to the ring. He flexes his muscles, both metaphorical and physical. After all the dust has settled. After all the smoke has cleared, Roman Reigns decides that he has had enough. Through all the hiding, through all the lies, he has had enough.