You don’t essentially should be a giant WWE fan to know that Roman Reigns is the present and reigning WWE Champion. He seems in sufficient exterior media sporting his championship belts for most individuals to concentrate on that.
We are saying “belts” as a plural as a result of Reigns isn’t simply the WWE Champion; he’s additionally the Common Champion and has been for over a thousand days. He’s a record-breaking champion; reigns (no pun supposed) of this size merely don’t occur within the trendy period.
Most followers, by and enormous, settle for that Roman Reigns is the largest star that WWE has proper now. He’s the almost definitely to observe the trail of his cousin Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson into the world of films, and he’s the automated cowl star of each product WWE publishes.
The proper instance of that’s that Reigns is the star of the WWE: Conflict of the Wilds on-line slots sport, which was launched to the Leovegas sister websites and different on-line casinos just lately.
Except for being the proper instance, that’s additionally the proper metaphor; in on line casino video games, WWE sees Reigns as its most secure wager, and so it’s put all of its chips on him. On line casino references is likely to be made extra typically with reference AEW than WWE, however they’re completely legitimate right here.
Conserving with this on line casino theme for a second, there must be a time when WWE cashes in its chips. Reigns is getting older and has begun to work a part-time schedule. He received’t be round perpetually.
The corporate’s drawback is that it’s sacrificed so many different stars to make Reigns dominant that there are few viable contenders left.
The time to money in these chips has most likely come already if WWE doesn’t need to give itself an enormous drawback sooner or later, however who would or ought to the corporate wager on as a substitute?
A paper champion
Some may argue that WWE has briefly solved this drawback by creating an “different” world championship for its RAW model – the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, which was received by Seth Rollins on the latest Night time of Champions occasion in Saudi Arabia.
Probably the most ardent WWE supporters would say Rollins is the champion on RAW, Reigns is the champion on SmackDown, and so Rollins is there to do the heavy lifting whereas Reigns is on certainly one of his many holidays.
There’s an issue with that concept, and it’s a primary one; Rollins has been declared “world champion” and given a championship belt with out beating Reigns. Positive, he received a match, however the reigning world champion wasn’t in it.
The corporate didn’t even take certainly one of Reigns’ present titles off him and put it up for grabs within the match, so now there are technically three variations of the world title floating round, which is a ridiculous state of affairs.
If the corporate actually thought Rollins was the person, they’d have put him over Reigns. They didn’t, and so the second-string stature of each Seth Rollins and his new championship belt is there for all to see.
The unfinished story
If we had been in a position to ballot each WWE fan on the earth, we suspect that we’d discover that the majority of them count on “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes to “end the story” and change into the following WWE Champion, dethroning Roman Reigns within the course of.
The difficulty is that WWE had the perfect second to do this at the newest WrestleMania occasion, and so they selected to not pull the set off.
The obvious choice to drag Rhodes up simply wanting his goal wasn’t nicely obtained by followers on the time, though once more, die-hard WWE followers declare that Rhodes is being “made to work” for the title and can win it at subsequent yr’s WrestleMania as a substitute.
That’s potential, but it surely wouldn’t be as large a “second in time” as if it had occurred in 2023. WWE probably had lightning in a bottle there, however they handed on it.
Since shedding to Reigns, Rhodes has change into embroiled in a deeply predictable feud with Brock Lesnar through which he’s had a win and a loss and can ultimately “overcome the chances” and beat Lesnar of their rubber match.
He was a non-factor within the match that led to Rollins changing into a “world champion,” and has technically now been drafted to the flawed model for him to be difficult Roman Reigns – though model splits have by no means counted for a lot in WWE.
Rhodes was a perennial mid-carder in WWE previous to enjoying a pivotal function within the creation of AEW, however by no means turned a world champion there both, settling for a number of reigns with the mid-card TNT Championship as a substitute.
The mid-card is likely to be Cody’s stage, and if he was ever going to interrupt out of it, it will have been at WrestleMania 39.
The proper-hand man
Probably the most dramatic challenger for Roman Reigns, and the one who’d take advantage of sense as his final conqueror in a storyline sense, is Jey Uso. It was Jey Uso who turned Roman’s “right-hand man” when The Bloodline started greater than two years in the past. It was Jey who was on the forefront of the latest angle between The Bloodline, Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens.
We all know that Jey has been conflicted over his loyalties to Roman earlier than, which is why it was all of the extra stunning when Jimmy Uso blasted Roman Reigns with a superkick at Night time of Champions. Jimmy was performing out of affection for his brother, however Jey remains to be the extra outstanding of the 2 Usos.
The perfect pay-off for this record-breaking Roman Reigns championship reign could be for Jey Uso, the person Roman Reigns basically used as a slave and an errand boy, to stand up and depose him.
It will tick each field by way of traditional, old-school storytelling, and it will be a becoming finish of the narrative. Does that imply WWE will do it? Nearly actually not. Jey Uso has by no means actually been a singles star and is nowhere close to a match for Roman Reigns in the case of measurement. We’d like to see it occur, however we predict it’s unlikely.
Who does that depart? Nearly no one. Sami Zayn ought to have been given at the least one of many titles whereas he was scorching just a few months in the past, however WWE handed on the prospect.
Brock Lesnar vs Roman Reigns has been accomplished to dying, and no one desires to see it once more. Bobby Lashley is older than Roman is. Drew McIntyre has already been fed to Roman a number of occasions.
Wanting hot-shotting somebody from NXT – not that we are able to consider a viable candidate in developmental in the meanwhile – this unending reign may go on perpetually.
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