MONDAY NIGHT REIGNS-O-METER #105: 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 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.

Going into this Sunday, one of the biggest nights of the year on the WWE calendar, the most important thing is Brand Supremacy. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been drinking my Brand Supremacy Kool-Aid. It’s on my bedcovers. It’s in my cereal. All I care about is whether the blue brand has a higher score than the red brand or if the gold brand’s women look better than the blue brand’s men.

Most importantly, what matters most isn’t championships or who ends up with a higher score than whom. What matters most is leadership and the never-ending battle between Baron Corbin’s style of leadership – where everybody just ignores him and keeps talking – and Roman Reigns’s style of leadership. You know, the one where Dana Brooke says shhh. That’s real leadership. Dana Brooke didn’t say shhh for Baron Corbin, did she?

Of course, that was all made to look silly by Sasha Banks, who decided to take over the stage and then go to battle against fellow captains and brand opponents Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley?

Isn’t Roman magnanimous to cede the stage. Not like that creepy Baron Corbin fellow who totally did the exact same thing. What a monster.

Roman Reigns, our hero and secret best friend, opened and closed the show on Smackdown. A lot may have happened in between, with an NXT invasion, an NXT invasion, a Fiend invasion, and an NXT invasion before we got to the main event, which totally didn’t end in an NXT invasion. This brand split is going really well so far, isn’t it?

In our main event, Roman Reigns led a version of The Shield missing a few pounds and a few inches. A mini Shield, if you will. Shorty G, whose name is actually Shorty G for some reason, and Mustafa Ali. Yes, Mustafa Ali. The artist formerly known as Ali, who was also the artist formerly known as Mustafa Ali. Anyone else feel like the world has full on gone mad?

The mini Shield would be taking on Baron Corbin, Dolph Ziggler, and Bobby Roode. How these three men came to be together is still a massive question mark. You ever watch a TV show and accidentally skip an episode? It feels like that. Like I’ve missed an hour of TV in which literally the only thing that happened is three guys looked at each other and said “wanna be best friends?”

Okay, yes, I know it doesn’t sound like a great TV show. Bear with me here.

After making his entrance, Roman would punch the floor and wait for some pyro that never came. Ali, heavy on the blue and Shorty G, wearing a Smackdown t-shirt would happily represent their brand. Meanwhile Roman would wear his standard D-Lo Brown tribute gear. It’s not branded. When Reigns arrived at the ring, his pyro did finally fire. Bit anticlimactic in the end, but you can’t have everything.

Even Dolph Ziggler, suffering the ignominy of the jobber’s entrance, would be wearing Smackdown-branded gear. Baron Corbin, who feuded with Ziggler for months, would be brought down to the ring on a carried throne after his team mates.

We have a politician in the UK called Jeremy Corbyn. He’s essentially in the Nancy Pelosi position. I keep calling him Corbin. Wrestling has ruined my life.

Roman Reigns would start hot before very quickly getting beaten down by, well, everyone. He would eventually tag out but would quickly tag back in and the exact same cycle would repeat. Later, the brawl would go outside and Roman would add some jumping around to his punching. So athletic. So tall. So wet. The bucket of ice water he pours on himself before every match is still in play even after all these years.

Fortunately, it would not end there and we would get some extra added Roman. Corbin would win the match with a Deep Six. Roman would return, hitting Corbin with a spear in a way that WWE announcers would refer to as exploding out of something. Then, the big distraction. Seth Rollins, leading an army of red-shirted faces and heels to battle, would assault former best friend Roman Reigns for the crime of being on a Friday night.

People would chant for C.M. Punk, which is just a thing that’s going to happen during Seth Rollins matches now. We unfortunately have to accept that, just like we have to accept watching Rollins and Drew McIntyre teaming up on Roman. Drew’s always been Rollins’ best pal. If you don’t know that then clearly you haven’t been paying attention.

Oh, and then there’s an NXT invasion. Didn’t see that coming, did you? At least they’re wearing their t-shirts.

Odds Counter
– Baron Corbin’s Ego
– Sasha Banks’ Ego
– Bobby Roode
– Dolph Ziggler
– Baron Corbin
– Seth Rollins
– The Entirely Of Raw
– The Entirely Of NXT

Did Roman Reigns beat the odds?
No

And in the end, Triple H still went over.

CATCH UP… MONDAY NIGHT REIGNS-O-METER #104: Tracking Roman Reigns’s ability to beat the odds and come out on top