6 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (23 March - Results & Review)

1. Roman A Guest Star In His Own Title Feud

The rub against Roman Reigns for the past three years has been that he’s little more than a part-timer, a guest star in WWE, showing up periodically in big roles but not really contributing to the overall product beyond his own segments.

Reigns’ feud with CM Punk has certainly had its moments since everything began, but if there has been weak point, it has been Roman himself. His mic work last week was subpar, and WWE might have recognized that, because he was limited to basically three sentences Monday night, none of which were addressed to Punk.

In fact, Reigns’ screentime was only a fraction of the main event segment, with the Tribal Chief emerging only after Punk had spent a great deal of time running him down, taking potshots at the Usos, and offering to fight Jey.

Perhaps the worst part of Roman’s contribution to the segment came from Michael Cole.

Punk made the point that Reigns can’t do anything without his cousins backing him up. And indeed, Roman got the jump on Punk Monday night with unwitting help from Jimmy and Jey. After Punk punched out Jey, Jimmy grabbed him to stop the confrontation. Roman sprung into action, hitting a Superman Punch on the World Champion while Jimmy had his attention.

In the closing moments, Cole blurted out something to the effect of, “Roman Reigns proved he doesn't need his family to handle his business,” a line that was completely undercut by what happened literally two minutes earlier right in front of his face.

While you can’t hold that against Roman, if Cole’s line is the direction they’re aiming for, they missed horribly. The Tribal Chief couldn’t engage in a promo exchange with Punk, and he couldn’t drop him without a significant distraction from his cousins.

There’s plenty of room to turn this bug into a feature of the feud, but the clock is ticking.