WWE Raw Results: Highlights, Analysis, and Grades for January 23

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Roman Reigns Opens Raw

Reigns would enter the Quicken Loans Arena to open WWE Raw, mostly to boos but with scattered cheers from the younger fans. He puts over the Royal Rumble and mentions how Chris Jericho will be in the shark cage, making it a one-on-one with Kevin Owens. Reigns guarantees a win for himself, which leads to Owens and Chris Jericho coming out.

Owens calls Reigns delusional and brings up powerbombing him through the announce table last Monday, name-dropping a handful of top stars. KO mentions how him powerbombing Reigns singlehandedly is an incredible feat, as he’s the only one to do so. Jericho calls the Big Dog a stupid idiot and says it was hilarious when he beat Reigns for the United States Championship two weeks ago.

Jericho says even though he will be hanging from the Alamodome, “like a sexy pinata”, he’ll still be around to get to Reigns and wants to go down there now to fight him. Reigns thinks this is U.S. title rematch offer, and makes the challenges. Owens accepts it for Jericho, much to Y2J’s dismay. Reigns says he will win the title and beat Owens at the Rumble.

Not one of Reigns’ best moments on the microphone, as Jeri-KO outclassed him all the way through these 5-7 minutes they stood across the ramp from each other. He came off stiff and very heel-ish, which, of course, isn’t WWE’s goal here since Reigns is the top babyface of Raw and has less of a chance of turning heel than John Cena did in his heyday.

As for the rematch, the Quicken Loans Arena fans seemed in favor of Reigns vs. Jericho in a title bout, which is great. I’m not thrilled about seeing this happen again, but it had to at some point given WWE’s “rematch clause”. This shouldn’t main event, however, especially with Brock Lesnar and Goldberg both around for Raw. Them and others will likely close the show to put over the Royal Rumble match.