Roman Reigns defeats Jinder Mahal in the Battle of Who Could Care Less
The Hope: As I wrote in Monday’s Raw Regurgitated:
Like a homeless man’s Kevin Owens, Jinder‘s entire raison d’etre is to reveal how much of a babyface someone is.
And as someone who really enjoys the work of both men, I hope that whatever the match result, both performers are given the opportunity to showcase what’s developed into a pretty decent physical chemistry — don’t you dare fucking @ me — over the past month or so.
The Reality: A surprisingly watchable match, with just the right amount of tomfoolery that allows you to think that Jinder may be able to get a comically cheap victory over Roman, only to have Reigns start stringing together Superman punches until Sunil Singh steps in front of a spear intended for Jinder and is hit so hard it leaves Mahal himself down for the three.
The crowd hated this match a level that did not seem proportionate to what was going on in the ring, but outside of some really top-notch heeling by Sunil Singh this was as paint-by-the-numbers a Roman Reigns match as we’ve seen in at least a month. As someone who sincerely loves Roman Reigns as a performer and genuinely enjoys Jinder’s work, this match felt like it was working at 75% capacity of what it could have.
There were moments that really worked, but because it never felt like Roman was in peril — the ability to put babyfaces in chicanery-based peril is, quite frankly, Jinder’s entire charm — it never felt like it made it out of first gear. While I’m certainly not of the mind that Roman needs a massive overhaul of his character, something needs to be done about the inevitability of him defeating everyone who isn’t a gorilla monster sent from the planet Doom Brock Lesnar or Braun Strowman.
For now, we’ll just have to survive on Sunil Singh eating spears like the champion of heart that he truly is.
Match +.4 | PPV +1.7
