Last night on Raw we saw technically the longest match in WWE history. It was a gauntlet match that pitted all 7 of the participants in this Sunday’s Elimination Chamber match against each other.
Rollins started the match against his fellow Shield brethren, Roman Reigns.
Rollins vs. Reigns lasted around 30 minutes with both guys hitting all of their big spots (aside from Roman being able to hit his Spear).
Their match ended with Rollins reversing a pin attempt from Reigns into one of his own for the surprise victory. The crowd went NUTS for this win because it was totally unexpected, as most believed that Roman would advance farther into the gauntlet match.
What made this win even more special is the fact that Rollins won the match 100% clean.
Now, we can’t forget that Rollins defeated Reigns clean at Money in the Bank 2016 in Seth’s return from injury (right before Ambrose came out to cash in his MITB briefcase and win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship from Rollins), but this had a much different feel considering how differently the two have been booked over the past year.
Source: WWE.com
Rollins defeating Reigns already had the crowd hooked and invested into the rest of this match, when all of a sudden John Cena’s music hit and out came the 16-time World Champion.
Rollins vs. Cena was very interesting because Rollins was already spent physically before Cena even entered the match. The story here was that Cena just wanted Rollins to stay down. Cena tried pinning Rollins multiple times, tried getting him to stay out of the ring for a 10 count, and tried to get the ref to stop it over and over. Cena just couldn’t understand why Seth wouldn’t stay down and “save himself” for the Elimination Chamber.
Seth scratched and clawed, once again hitting all of his moves while garnering major sympathy from the crowd. After close to an hour total in this match, Rollins successfully pinned Cena after hitting the Blackout. He had just defeated Roman Reigns & John Cena in back-to-back matches, and he had done it completely clean.
After around 1 hour and 5 minutes, Rollins was eventually eliminated by Elias. The crowd HATED this but that was the exact goal of booking this match the way that they did. Rollins literally had nothing left and the fresh Elias took advantage after beating Rollins down and hitting him with a Drift Away to advance on to face Finn Balor next in the gauntlet.
Source: WWE.com
Just a few weeks ago, Rollins was teaming with Jason Jordan in a storyline that was clearly heading to a split and fued with a match between the two at WrestleMania. The way I saw it, Rollins vs. Jordan was being used to elevate Jordan to the “next level”.
Whether Jordan or Rollins was actually going to win that match was kind of irrelevant because the goal of the rivalry was to have Rollins make Jordan look better. The Jordan injury wound up being a blessing in disguise because it has freed up Rollins to do something completely different. Now, we have a Seth Rollins with no clear path to WrestleMania if he doesn’t win the Elimination Chamber. But we also have a Seth Rollins that is focused on becoming known as the new “Mr. Monday Night”.
The last “Mr. Monday Night” was RVD, who we all know Seth looked up to as a fan when he was trying to break into the business. That nickname comes with great responsibility though because you’re basically telling the fans that you’re going to go out there and steal the show every Monday night and you can be relied on to have the best match every time you go out there. If there’s anyone that can fill those shoes, it’s definitely Seth Rollins.
I think that this gauntlet match was executed flawlessly from the perspective that Seth Rollins looked the best he ever has as a babyface in the WWE. Rollins as a babyface has been pretty stale up to this point and I was even calling for a heel turn as soon as possible but now the gauntlet match last night has changed my opinion. This might have been his career-defining performance when we look back at his career years from now.
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The way that the crowd got behind Seth gave his character much-needed new life and immediately gave him the credibility he had been missing for the last year or so to be a possible threat once again to the Universal Championship. Before this gauntlet match, I don’t think anybody thought Rollins had a chance in hell to win the Elimination Chamber match on Sunday. Now, Rollins has to be considered one of the favorites to win the whole thing.
Even if the doesn’t win in the Chamber, the future finally looks bright again for the new “Mr. Monday Night”.