I’m not totally surprised that Roman Reigns put Bobby Lashley to the sword on Monday Night RAW, to win yet ANOTHER opportunity against Universal Champion Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam. It makes you wonder when this is going to end, if ever.
This has nothing to do with Brock Lesnar’s value of the Universal Championship and whether he actually cares about performing, defending, showing up, WWE or professional wrestling in general. It has nothing to do with his return to the UFC which is set to take place in January. It has nothing to do with his schedule that he’s been on for three/four years or the contract that he even negotiated to more or less guarantee that he would be Universal Champion despite never actually being around. The last time we saw Brock Lesnar was at the Greatest Royal Rumble. That was April 27th…it’s honestly maddening.
Despite what some, maybe most people are thinking, this isn’t about Roman Reigns either. Roman Reigns has been pushed to the moon since 2013. Some fans believe he deserves it and others are bitterly against this special treatment he continues to receive. This isn’t about Roman’s abilities as a professional wrestler or whether or not he can even cut a promo to a decent standard. Roman Reigns is the most polarising figure in the WWE since John Cena but, this isn’t about that either.
This isn’t a recap. I’m not here to discuss the mess that has been going on for years and what should have ended at WrestleMania 34. This has nothing to do with the quality of matches that we have seen between these two. It’s not about the story, the booking. Any of that stuff.
This is about the end. This has gone on way too long and fans have endured too much. WWE have teased countless times that Reigns would finally defeated The Beast, winning the Universal Title in the process. They have pulled the plug at every opportunity, sometimes at the very last minute.
This feud and Lesnar’s title run will go down as one of the worst. Nobody is going to have fond memories of this or look back in the history books and think “Hey, Lesnar…500 days. Oh yeah, he defended it like 6 times and 3 of them were Roman Reigns”. It’s just not attractive. It’s not exciting and it blows my mind how WWE can’t see this. This has to end at SummerSlam. Whilst I talk about the quality of their matches together which I personally think haven’t been great. It makes me want it to end all the more. I’ve never seen as many power moves and finishers as I have when I’m watching these two compete. It’s boring. It’s not exciting. Matches between Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns are a slow death. It’s extremely frustrating that the Universal Championship is being held hostage like this.
I don’t think many people would be upset if Brock Lesnar lost and we didn’t see him again. I’m a big fan of Brock generally speaking but this title run, I say “run”, when he shows up and actually defends, It’s just bland. Nobody is excited to see Lesnar anymore. His matches rarely go over 10+ minutes and the whole “One F5” angle was just awful. WWE treat fans like goldfish and think we’ve got no memory. People were kicking out of the F5 in 2012-2013 and now its suddenly an unstoppable force? Unless you’re Reigns and kick out of 5 of course, and then still LOSE.
At this point, I don’t care if Reigns wins. I don’t even dislike Reigns. I feel sorry for him. Roman is a great worker, ask anybody. They’ll tell you. Fans just struggle to watch him mindlessly pushed to the moon when there are so many better options. Roman Reigns needs to win at SummerSlam. Win the way he was supposed to win. The conquering babyface who will no doubt get booed to oblivion after he wins. At this point, it shouldn’t matter what the WWE are or aren’t hoping for. They just need to end this and we need to move on.
My ideal scenario and booking would be for Braun Strowman to cash in his Money in the Bank mid-match at SummerSlam and eventually go onto pin Reigns. That way it will make Brock still look strong if he ever does return again, as he was never actually pinned.