5 Ups And 7 Downs From WWE Raw (May 4)

3. Erasing Reigns From History

Roman Reigns WrestleMania 31
WWE

By now, we’ve all heard the stories that Roman Reigns has been removed from WWE’s lexicon. He’s not mentioned on TV at all these days, and it went a step further on Monday.

On Raw, they counted down 10 Money in the Bank moments, which varied between the match itself and cash-ins. Naturally, the #1 moment was Seth Rollins’ heist of the century. If you know your history decently, you remember that Rollins cashed in during the WrestleMania 31 match between Brock Lesnar and… Roman Reigns. And it was Seth’s Stomp of Reigns that led to his first world title win.

However, the countdown item showed Rollins stomping Lesnar, and then the screen went dark as you heard the sound of the crowd counting to 3, only to come back on with Rollins celebrating the win. If you had never seen this match, you’d have no idea Reigns was involved in the match, much less the person who got pinned.

It was a complete whitewashing of history. You can understand WWE not mentioning Roman on its programming to remove any anticipation of his return when it’s so uncertain right now. But to selectively edit footage to remove Reigns from one of the most memorable moments in recent WWE history is just ludicrous.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.