For the first time… (Ever? Yeah, let’s go with that) … ever, Bobby Lashley was able to speak in a way that didn’t feel a 100% pander to the audience or like he was reading directly off a script. There were some awkward bits — like him trying to shoehorn in the word “legit” every time he mentioned Brock Lesnar’s name — but it felt like he was actually saying words that were vocal manifestations of things he, or at least his character, felt. As for Roman Reigns, while I understand the reasoning behind his “worked shoot” style of promo, if the goal is to get him over as a truth telling bad-ass, the ship sailed on that the second he said sufferin’ succotash.
Poor Kurt Angle usually gets a passing mention at the beginning of each of these columns, as he is often just exists as a character to be undermined by his supervisor or disrespected by his employees. This time won’t be significantly different, of course, but as I said last night, at this point it feels like he should issue a directive that the production team in the back needs to wait until after his announcement before they turn on the entrance music for every Tom, Dick and Harry that wants to interrupt him.
As someone who liked tag team wrestling, but understands that it will almost always play second fiddle to a singles match in the WWE — only the first WrestleMania ended with a tag team match, and that shit is *barely* a WrestleMania to begin with — I am always nervous when a quality tag team like The Revival finds itself working with two top singles stars. But I’ll admit that, even after last week’s debacle, they did a very good job of explaining both why The Revival lost last week: by assuming that Lashley and Reigns wouldn’t be able to work together well enough to get over. While it’s not the best reason, it helps assuage the loss last week and why they think they can win this week’s match.
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And they do exactly that, if not cleanly then at least in a way that helps them say they beat the “best” Raw’s roster has to offer. The roll-up victory gives them the W in a way that toes the line between heel and legit, which works perfectly for a team like the Revival who are an all-time “talented enough to be faces, but born to be heels” teams.
The post match confrontation between Roman and Bobby was far too long for a hothead like Reigns to not get more in Lashley’s face, unless the plan going forward is to question whether or not The Big Dog “still has any bite left” — a direct quote, I guaran-fucking-tee, if they decide to go that direction — after being beaten down by failure so often on his quest for the Universal Championship.
