5 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE Raw (18 May - Results & Review)

4. Magic Words

There are two different ways to view the Jacob Fatu/Roman Reigns match coming up at WWE Clash in Italy.

Roman apparently was more than fine with Raw GM Adam Pearce firing Fatu once he had been sufficiently beaten down. And Pearce was more than ready to can him for his dangerous behavior. But apparently, two words from Jacob – “Tribal Combat” – is more than enough for Reigns to forgo his commitment to getting rid of Fatu, and also for Pearce to be stymied and somehow unable to follow through on his own management decision.

To be fair, authority figures wanting or threatening to fire wrestlers has always been fraught with issues, because the GM ultimately has the power to let someone go (in storyline) and then gets sidetracked or goaded somehow into not taking action.

Here, GM Pearce was powerless to follow through on his threat because babyface Roman – and his two cousins – had ganged up on Jacob, who uttered the only two words in the English language that could convince Reigns to grant him a stay of execution.

Just stop with the threats to fire someone. We see a half-dozen wrestlers every other month who cause the same degree of chaos, and they’re rarely even sent home from television that week.