WWE: Seth Rollins, John Cena, And The Power Of The Open Challenge

The November 26th Raw was, by most accounts, fairly horrible. There was, however, a saving grace that kept me watching through all the childish jokes and terrible promos: Seth Rollins Intercontinental Championship open challenge. Given how much excitement surrounds these matches, perhaps its time for the open challenge to become a weekly mainstay on WWE TV again?

The November 26th Raw was objectively atrocious. WWE somehow found a way to insult its fans’ intelligence while simultaneously forcing them to watch an endless stream of overbooked and unnecessary promos and angles.

Somewhere around the time Drake Maverick absconded with Bobby Roode’s jacket and ran off to the bathroom, I started to wonder if I could even actually make it through watching the entire episode.

That’s when I remembered Seth Rollins’ Intercontinental Championship open challenge.

Despite the fact that I wasn’t sure I could bear seeing another segment with Baron Corbin, the promise of watching a potentially spectacular Intercontinental Title match between one of the best workers in WWE and a surprise superstar kept me going.

The intrigue and excitement surrounding that match, and who the opponent for Rollins would be, led me to forget all about the awful promos and potty joke segments I was forced to sit through that night. When it came time for the open challenge, I was on the edge of my seat during Rollins’ promo, waiting for his surprise opponent to burst onto the entrance ramp.

That opponent turned out to be Dolph Ziggler who, despite having fought Seth Rollins a multitude of times in recent months, managed to put on the most entertaining match and segment of the show. The match even managed to get me to buy into a near fall, a rarity for me these days in WWE, when Ziggler hit Rollins with the Zig-Zag and went for the surprise win.

That match got me thinking about all the other great open challenge matches we’ve had since John Cena began his weekly United States Championship open challenges in 2015.

Cena produced some of the best matches in WWE when he held those open challenges. From his wars with Cesaro to the surprise debut of Sami Zayn, the open challenges were a highlight not just of the episodes they were on, but of the entire year of WWE TV itself.

That’s precisely why weekly championship open challenges need to return to WWE TV.

They were the perfect way to set up great promos, memorable matches, and surprise debuts. In other words, the open challenges basically were everything you would want out of an episode of WWE programming condensed into one segment and match.

The match between Rollins and Ziggler was further proof of this, as it was far and away the best match and angle on what was otherwise a very disappointing episode of Raw.

Speaking of Rollins, what better competitor to carry on the open challenge torch from John Cena than arguably one of the best wrestlers on the entire WWE roster? Every week, Rollins could issue an Intercontinental Championship open challenge that could easily capture the same buzz and excitement John Cena’s open challenges created in 2015.

From a debuting Lars Sullivan to a returning Bray Wyatt, Rollins could face them all in veritable show-stealing matches if he were to start a weekly open challenge series. It would instantaneously become one of the most anticipated and talked about segments on Raw each week.

Not to mention, if Raw’s recent trend of delivering horrible segments and lackluster angles continues, an Intercontinental Championship open challenge might actually give fans a reason to be excited to watch Raw again.