7 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (September 17th)

2. Smoke And Mirrors Continue

Roman Reigns Baron Corbin WWE Raw
WWE.com

Since the main event of SummerSlam, we’ve seen a tremendous effort put into protecting Roman Reigns. WWE has gone to unusual lengths to distract from the usual booing that the Universal Champion would face.

We saw this at the last two PPVs with a lot of extracurriculars going on outside the ring, and Monday night was no different. After a DQ loss, acting GM Baron Corbin changed the match to no-DQ and restarted it. Then Braun Strowman ran down, followed by his running buddies, and then Roman’s Shield brethren.

All five men mixed it up, only for Roman to overcome it all and spear Corbin for the pin. There was so much going on that it was tough to get riled up or focus due to the frenetic action going on. And that seems to be the plan with Reigns lately: Keep fans on their toes and distracted so they can’t focus on booing him out of the building.

It’s somewhat brilliant, but it’s also mind-boggling the lengths the company has to go to to keep their top guy on top.

Advertisement
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.