On tonight’s episode of WWE Raw, Roman Reigns will begin his reign as the Intercontinental Champion. Who will he face first?
Last year, Roman Reigns defeated Rusev at Hell in a Cell to win the United States Championship, but his time with the title was both short-lived and uneventful. Although he held the US Championship, Reigns was also in pursuit of Kevin Owens’s Universal Championship.
And while his matches, particularly the vicious Royal Rumble bout, with KO and Chris Jericho were entertaining, it never felt like Reigns was booked to make the US Title more prestigious. John Cena, whose open challenges became a thing of legend, brought this point up in his feud with Reigns at No Mercy.
Tonight on WWE Raw, Reigns begins his first full show as Intercontinental Champion after defeating The Miz for the title last week. The win made Reigns a “Grand Slam” champion, and he was the right person for the job. The WWE seems poised to allow Reigns to have his own “Open Challenges”, which will further enhance his character and allow him to produce the great matches he’s consistently given the fans for the last two years.
The show won’t just be about Reigns, however. Paige shook up the women’s division upon her return, as she’s the leader of a menacing stable. Meanwhile, Braun Strowman will continue to be a focal point, especially since he’s been butting heads with Triple H. And as for Reigns’s brothers in the Shield, they will have a big night ahead.
5. The Shield Win The Titles Back
Before Survivor Series, the WWE gave the fans a number of title changes in order to shake things up for the big brand vs. brand pay per view. AJ Styles defeated Jinder Mahal to win the WWE Championship in Manchester, and Charlotte Flair finally captured the SmackDown Women’s Championship from Natalya in her hometown.
But before those two major title switches, the Shield, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins, lost the Raw Tag Team Titles to Sheamus and Cesaro (The Bar) in Manchester. That title change came the night before Styles’s big win on SmackDown, and it set the wheels in motion for the Shield to defeat the New Day at Survivor Series.
The Bar lost their tag team match against the Usos at Survivor Series, and I expect them to lose the titles tonight. Reigns has the Intercontinental Championship now, so it makes sense for the WWE to go all-in and have all the members of the Shield holding gold. It will be a nice callback to when Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins were tag champs and Dean Ambrose was the United States Champion during the Shield’s original run.
Plus, it makes more sense for the Raw Tag Team Division to be centered around the Shield, because I have a feeling the Revival will be back shortly.
4. Reigns Will Beat Jordan In Another Great Match
The “Open Challenges” will only help boost everyone’s stock, because if the two men have a great match that takes Reigns to the brink, everyone comes out looking better. You know, just like the way the “Open Challenges” worked with Cena.
Jason Jordan has already accepted Roman Reigns’s “Open Challenge” for the Intercontinental Championship”, and I couldn’t be more disappointed. This is the last guy who needs to be elevated by Roman, since the two already put on a great match during Reigns’s feud with Cena. On top of that, Jordan also got a chance to wrestle Cena to the brink before ultimately losing.
The WWE’s “push” for Jordan is doomed to fail. Maybe this face vs. face match means they will finally turn him heel, because that’s all that can save him at this point. Fans groan when he appears on television, because his character continues to fall flat due to this doomed storyline.
On the bright side, Jordan is an incredible talent in between the ropes, so this match should be great. That said, Jordan will lose, and, again, it is a rehash of what we’ve already seen before. Hopefully, Roman will call this match in a way that makes it distinct, because it won’t be that easy to top their first excellent encounter.
I wish this spot went to someone else, but there will be more opportunities for others to challenge Reigns. Perhaps this match will advance a storyline involving Jordan, but some fans who were hoping for a potential challenge from a member of the 205 Live roster are likely disappointed.
3. Braun Strowman Defeats Kane
It looks like the WWE realized that having Kane run through important young talents on the roster, such as Seth Rollins and Finn Balor, wasn’t a particularly great idea. Kane has been built up enough after defeating those two and having a strong showing at TLC. He and Braun Strowman have been feuding for weeks, and it’s time for Strowman to definitively vanquish the “Big Red Machine”.
We recently saw Strowman powerslam Kane through the ring, and these two have given the fans some hard-hitting moments already. I believe these two will have a match tonight, and Strowman will top everything he’s done to Kane. This will be a signature victory for Strowman, who is ticketed for big things after teaching a lesson to Triple H at Survivor Series.
And on the note of Triple H vs. Strowman, it’s been incredible to see just how much Triple H’s character fears Strowman. He legitimately backed out of a fight against Strowman last week, instead opting to try to push Jason Jordan into competing in a match with Braun.
There’s no need to drag out the inevitable: Strowman is here to destroy Kane, much in the same way he demolished the Big Show in a steel cage match. Braun is one of the hottest wrestlers in WWE today, and his rise to the top has been nothing short of remarkable.
2. Paige, Mandy Rose, and Sonya Deville Continue Their Destruction
Paige had quite the re-introduction to the WWE Universe on Raw last week, as she and NXT call-ups Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville had a hell of a time ransacking the place. They caused a Fatal Four-Way No. 1 Contender’s match for the Raw Women’s Championship to end, and they brutally attacked the champion herself, Alexa Bliss, backstage.
From where I’m sitting, it looks like Paige will be the next challenger to Bliss’s championship, seeing as how she basically forced the issue with the attack. By interrupting a No. 1 contender’s match and beating up Bliss, Paige is essentially the No. 1 contender herself.
Although the WWE will likely build to a Bliss vs. Paige match, perhaps with “Five Feet of Fury” turning babyface, I don’t think that will happen this week. There’s still more destruction to be done, and the trio of Paige, Sonya Deville, and Mandy Rose is menacing enough to keep causing it.
I mean, this triumvirate of superstars looks like quite the stable. Paige is probably one of the best performers in the WWE, because few people are able to generate such strong reactions from the audience. Meanwhile, Rose has potential and Deville is a legitimate bad-ass in the ring. I’m excited to see what they do both tonight and going forward.
1. Samoa Joe And Finn Balor To Keep Crossing Paths?
Since before Survivor Series, Samoa Joe and Finn Balor have been fighting in brutal contests, as the two former NXT standouts have quite the history between them. After an inconclusive double count-out match before Survivor Series that led to Kurt Angle naming both superstars to his five-man team, Joe defeated Balor last week on Raw via the formidable “Coquina Clutch”.
I wonder why Balor and Joe have been facing each other so frequently, because there has to be a deeper meaning to all of this. It’s not like they would put two of their top superstars against each other in random matches for no reason, right? Could they be building to a Triple Threat against Brock Lesnar at the Royal Rumble? Could they even try to forge an alliance between the two by turning one of them face or heel?
Honestly, I have no clue, but I would find it baffling if they just allowed Balor to get choked out by Joe on a random episode of Raw without the “Demon King” having anything to say about it. The WWE usually 50/50 books everything, especially if two big names are involved, so I can’t bring myself to believe that this is the end of the story between these two.
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That said, they could just be building Joe up for a match with Reigns for the IC Championship, so maybe there won’t be another encounter between the two tonight.