7 Ups & 5 Downs For WWE Raw (14 July - Results & Review)

1. Drama Club Hams

Roman Reigns’ return to WWE after his annual post-WrestleMania vacation came right on schedule, two weeks before a Big Four PLE, so he only has to put his working boots on for a month.

Even if you were hopping up and down with excitement for the return of the OTC… err, OTC1, Reigns’ arrival to exact revenge on Paul Heyman and his charges yielded an unintentionally hilarious moment at the end of Raw. Roman dispatched Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed, sending them up the aisle to regroup. There, the three men made the most comically bad scared/upset/angry faces imaginable.

Heyman contorted his visage like a high school drama club dropout, while Bron’s anguished look of terror screamed, “Roman is going to expose my deepest secret about my Spotify playlist and ruin my career.”

It was awful, awful stuff from supposedly the lead heel stable on Raw. Sure, Seth Rollins’ injury changed the tenor of this scene a bit, but all three men acted like Roman had levitated to the ring and fired lightning bolts from his fingers.

Reigns himself adds little to the product at this stage. It appears that he will team with cousin Jey Uso to face Reed and Breakker at SummerSlam, which could be a pretty good match, but still would be a tag match rather than the Bron/Roman battle that could actually generate some serious buzz.

The longer Roman stays away, the more he feels like a Brock Lesnar-esque special attraction rather than a connected part of this universe. The Bloodline story has dissipated, and Rollins is out of action, leaving Reigns tethered to WWE by Jey and Jimmy, and his quest for revenge against Heyman. That’s not exactly “main character” energy.