3 Ups & 8 Downs From WWE Raw (27 Jul - Results & Review)
2. An ‘Epic’ Rivalry
You’re kidding, right?
Seth Rollins versus Roman Reigns is going to main event night two of (and thus close) SummerSlam? Over Cody Rhodes versus CM Punk? That’s a joke, right?
Rollins and Reigns have faced each other either in singles or multi-man matches about 20 times since The Shield broke up 12 years ago. Their rivalry has played out on WWE programming throughout the 2010s, and it’s never captured the imagination of fans or moved the needle. They headlined exactly one PPV/PLE as a singles match, and even then, it wasn’t the last match (Dean Ambrose cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase to close the show).
Despite his protestations Monday night, Roman has phoned in large parts of this build, almost unbothered by it all, while Rollins seems to have invested everything into it. Seth has spent most of the time complaining about how WWE (the same company he professes to love and bleed for) has handed everything to Reigns, which makes little sense. And despite there being numerous Shield reunions through the years, we’re being asked to believe this feud has been constantly simmering and bubbling over occasionally for the past decade-plus.
Meanwhile, there’s a genuinely captivating rivalry and first-time-ever matchup between Punk and Rhodes that has now been shunted to a night one main event, which defies logic.
The only justification for this move is that there is a huge angle coming on the backend of the Rollins/Reigns match, which probably means another Samoan is debuting to join the Bloodline. Yippee.