John Cena made his much-anticipated return to Monday Night Raw after disposing of Baron Corbin at WWE SummerSlam 2017, and he immediately stood face-to-face with the man who could take his place at the top of the ladder in the future – Roman Reigns.
There’s no doubt that John Cena and Roman Reigns are the two most polarizing superstars in the WWE today, so, naturally, everybody was salivating at the chance to see them go at it. When Cena picked up the microphone on Raw, he called out Reigns without even mentioning “The Big Dog” by name; it was just that obvious.
Cena and Reigns didn’t square off, but, rather, they teamed up to face The Miz and Samoa Joe after being verbally assaulted by “The A-Lister”. Although the two (surprise, surprise) won and had their hands raised at the end of the match, Reigns inadvertently hit Cena with a “Superman Punch” that was originally intended for Joe. Cena gave Reigns a look of distrust with a hint of veiled anger, whereas Reigns’s stare was menacing and unapologetic. Because even though Reigns is Raw’s biggest babyface, he’s quietly morphed into a true badass since retiring The Undertaker at WrestleMania 33 (after all, he did try to murder Braun Strowman with an ambulance).
This blatant show of tension between Reigns and Cena is merely a continuation of what has been boiling in the background. At the beginning of the segment, Reigns brought up Cena’s tweets about the former SHIELD member. And the dissent between them didn’t just happen in 2017 either. Back in 2014, Reigns said that he is better looking, more athletic, bigger, and has more hair than Cena.
Must Read: What Were The 5 Best Matches At SummerSlam?
Even though they may be the two most despised babyfaces in the company, Cena vs. Reigns is a dream match, if for no reason other than the fact that one of them must lose. The Wrestling Observer News’s Dave Meltzer is reporting that after Brock Lesnar’s successful title defense at SummerSlam, the plan for the main event of WrestleMania 34 is still Lesnar vs. Reigns. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather see Cena vs. Reigns over a main event that was scratched out by a Seth Rollins cash-in a few years ago.
Recently on Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer speculated (again, he did not report this) that Reigns vs. Cena could be happening in the near future. Raw’s next Pay Per View, No Mercy, is scheduled for the 24th of September, but I am guessing they will save Reigns-Cena for a marquee PPV. If it isn’t WrestleMania, it could be Survivor Series or the Royal Rumble, but it better be something. And in my book, it’s a huge waste if it isn’t WrestleMania.
Putting Cena and Reigns on the same brand and having Cena call Roman out so quickly couldn’t have been an accident, and there is a lot of money to be made from this match. Of course, a match between the two leads to a question of, which wrestler will turn, if either of them “go bad” at all? At this stage, it seems more likely for Reigns to be the one to turn, but with so much invested in him being “The Guy” for the next several years, will that actually happen? Even though Cena “buried” Baron Corbin at SummerSlam, there’s no way you can turn a guy who does stuff like this heel.
Next: What Lessons Did We Learn From SummerSlam?
Either way, this match has been brewing for at least a month, and now we have both an in-ring confrontation and a mislanded “Superman Punch” to further this slow-burn story, which has a chance to morph into WWE’s most compelling rivalry over the next several months. Due to Cena’s uncertain availability, it’s hard to predict how this feud will move month by month, but there’s definitely some magic in the air that will lead to a clash at a “Big Four” Pay Per View. Ideally, the WWE is either playing games by leaking that Lesnar/Reigns is still their plan for WrestleMania 34 or Vince McMahon will change his mind, because the only well-received WrestleMania main event for Reigns would come against Cena.