WWE Raw Review: 10 Big Talking Points (Jan 18)

9. Roman Reigns vs. Rusev

Jericho steals Mike Chioda's referee shirt during the break to make it clear who's in charge. Reigns works a headlock but Rusev takes a powder and stalls. I remain amazed and how quickly WWE turned Rusev from a potential title contender into a midcard joke with the Lana storyline. It just completely killed the character and moved Rusev so far down the card that he might never recover. Rusev dumps Reigns to the floor and hits a clothesline after a distraction from the League of Midcarders. Back in., Rusev misses a headbutt and Reigns makes his comeback with punches. A sloppy spinning neckbreaker gets two and the heels run another distraction, allowing Rusev to hit a spinning heel kick for two. After a break, Reigns does some goofy selling while Jericho panders to the crowd to try to drum up some crowd noise. Reigns breaks a headlock with a back suplex and makes his second comeback to very little reaction from the crowd...not a good sign. Repeated clotheslines in the corner stun Rusev and Reigns unloads with yet more punches. Reigns really needs to expand his moveset if he wants to be world champion, he's going to have to go 20 minutes quite a bit and his offense is only good for maybe 10 minutes right now. Rusev catches Reigns with a kick to the back of the head but that only gets two thanks to a slow count from Jericho. Isn't that a heel move? Rusev puts Reigns on his shoulders and climbs to the top in an impressive show on strength but Roman wiggles out and hits a sit-out powerbomb for two. Reigns looks to finish but another distraction allows Sheamus to interfere and slam Roman into the ringside barrier. Jericho has finally had enough and ejects the League from ringside like Leslie Nielsen from the Naked Gun. With the distraction gone, Reigns hits a spear and gets the pin. My Take: Rusev gave it the old college try but he is not the guy to carry Reigns to a great match. Reigns simply doesn't have the moveset or the crowd heat to bring a crowd to its feet, so what we're left with is a fairly average television match. Jericho was fairly entertaining as referee so at least his star power elevated the match a bit. It wasn't terrible or anything but it was just a match **.
Contributor
Contributor

Mike Shannon hasn't written a bio just yet, but if they had... it would appear here.