I hope Roadblock: End of the Line, really is the end of the line for some of these feuds. Don’t get me wrong, I love long feuds, but tonight felt like these feuds have brewed for so long or have been forced to the point where any care is just gone out the window.
For starters, the opening bout between Rusev and Big Cass. This feud started over Enzo baring all the bones for Lana, which, through convoluted storytelling, wound up with Enzo lying facedown on a hotel floor, and Cass vowing revenge in a series of uneventful confrontations. Enzo was at ringside, and after Rusev beat the tar out of him, again, Big Cass eats a count out because he is too worried about his friend to continue. Rusev wins by countout and please let this stupidity end.
Cesaro and Sheamus defeated The New Day to become WWE RAW Tag Team Champions
This could be seen coming a mile away. The New Day beat the record set by Demolition for longest tag team reign. As much as I love New Day, now that they have accomplished the goal of longest tag team reign, they can now lose the titles, and other teams can now believably be legit contenders, such as Gallows and Anderson. I would include other teams, but are there any other teams on RAW? It seems SmackDown has them all. Post match saw New Day hand the belts to Cesaro, who embraced them with a hug. Classy. Question now, is The New Day done?
Sami Zayn lasted 10-minutes against Braun Strowman. To be honest, this is more for some angle with Zayn and Mick Foley, who attempted to throw in the towel. The game of cat and mouse lasted for a very long ten minutes, however I was impressed with the conclusion seeing Zayn clock Strowman with the Helluva Kick as time ran out. This should have felt special, but it didn’t.
One would have thought a match between Seth Rollins and Chris Jericho would have been good, but felt as though this would have been better served as a main event of RAW. Not sure if there was miscommunication, but overall the match didn’t have the “big” feel it should have. Owens interfering was inevitable, which cost Jericho who got planted via Pedigree, Seth Rollins pinning him for the win. Inevitable post-match argument.
This one had me confused. Rich Swann retained the WWE Cruiserweight Championship against both TJ Perkins and Brian Kendrick. The crowd seemed to have turned on everyone, and at this point just died. I thought the match was good, but of course, as anyone can tell you, watching the Cruiserweight Classic Tournament and now 205 Live, this was still a watered down version of what we were led to expect from cruiserweights. Shockingly, the crowd came to live when Neville returned, and beat the hell out of everyone. This was the liveliest the crowd could be.
Charlotte defeated Sasha Banks to become a Four-time Women’s Champion.
So, let me understand, are they just going to rush 15 title reigns so she can recycle her father’s gimmick? Sasha wins titles on RAW, while Charlotte wins it on Network events. Got it. The match, as we have come to expect was great, but the live crowd’s lack of interest put a damper on it. The conclusion also seemed odd. It was as clean as it could be, but something felt off. I think the loss really killed the crowd, and like most of us, had zero interest in watching the next match.
Kevin Owens retaining the WWE Universal Championship against Roman Reigns was predictable, although I was surprised at facebook threads and posts online who though Reigns would suddenly be a dual title holder like Seth Rollins. Remember? Rollins held both United States and WWE Championships at the same time. The match was slow, however picked up with Owens going Frog-Splash crazy and put Reigns through as may tables as possible. Owens retained when Jericho jumped in the ring, and hit the Codebreaker on Owens! Oh boy! Guess Jericho hates… Ow…ens… Waitasec, he just got Reigns disqualified… Oh! This was a plan all along! They ARE still friends!
Yeah, because even a blind guy could have seen that one. At least Reigns doesn’t win, he didn’t lose clean, so insert cliché here: Keep Roman Reigns Strong.
This could have been so much better, but the slow plodding of the matches and the lack of interest from the live crowd told a stronger story than any match, that it’s time to break from the current storylines and start coming up with better matches.
Tonight on RAW… The hype for the Royal Rumble begins!
