WWE Raw 5 Takeaways: Lackluster Showdown For The Beast

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2. WWE Misses Golden Opportunity for Intercontinental Title Change

The on-screen tension between Samoa Joe and Roman Reigns has been building over the past few weeks.  These two forces on Monday nights have been at each other on and off throughout much of 2017, but on the first Raw of 2018, the stakes were high.

After Reigns’ frustrations got himself disqualified the week before in his Intercontinental Championship defense against Joe, it was announced that a rematch would be in place last night and if Reigns got disqualified again, he would lose his championship.  And as expected, the match was very good.

It was a pay-per-view quality encounter, but at the end of the day, Reigns retained the Intercontinental Championship.  Having The Big Dog as Intercontinental Champion has been very good, however, the WWE might have missed an opportunity to kill a couple birds with one stone as WrestleMania season approaches.

With Reigns likely vying for the Universal Championship against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania, he will likely need to drop the Intercontinental Championship.  And what better or more legitimate threat to drop the belt to than Joe?  It can still happen, but if Joe would have won last night, it would have been a big tone-setter for the first Raw of 2018 and could have helped set up key WrestleMania plans.

The situation can still be remedied, but last night would have been a great time to help accomplish that feat.