Ride or Die
I’m in a Jay-Z mood as of late. The reasons why are obvious if you’re a hip hop fan or just pay attention to pop culture. Maybe that’s why I heard his voice in my head when Roman Reigns spoke real greasy to Seth Rollins during their contract signing. There’s a line in “Ride or Die” where Jay tells Mase to check his own videos, he’ll “always be number two.” That was lethal considering
it was true. Mase often sat shotgun while his former boss who shall not be named sat firmly in the driver’s seat. And in at least one music video, boss man rocked a number one on the back of his jersey while Mase sported a number two.
This was Roman’s version of that. And like Jay’s shot at Mase, it’s 1000 percent true.
It wasn’t what Roman said that made the segment for me, but rather Seth’s reaction. Seth was actually on his way to the locker room before Roman took out the verbal knife and started stabbing. But the minute Roman opened his mouth to knock Seth’s injury history, that’s when the insecurity came out. Both these cats make each other feel less than in any given moment, but there’s something unique about how Roman get’s under Seth’s skin. Mostly because Seth tells himself the same things.
He knows Roman draws more than him. He knows Roman makes more money than him. He knows he’ll never catch Roman when it comes to WrestleMania main events. And all of that eats at him because, like he said last week, he has to believe his way of doing things can be just as successful as Roman’s.
That said, Roman’s words speaks to a larger point: Whether he’s champion or not, Roman will always be WWE’s main guy. Whatever championship he holds instantly becomes the championship, and whatever he’s doing is the story. Even with Seth’s “work daddy” running the show, Roman is still the main act. It eats up Seth inside that Roman picks and chooses when he shows up to work, yet still reaps all those benefits.
Man, that has to suck.
It added more juice to their August matchup, as did the contractually mandated contract signing brawl. I hope there’s another gear though. Roman is showing up at Madison Square Garden for Saturday Night’s Main Event. I need Seth there and I need him to up the ante.
B-Sides
- I might go a little long on The Vision, Maxxine (The Vision Queen), and Alpha Academy. So bear with me. Bottomline: The segment got Maxxine over as a heel and the crowd hated her guts. That was the intent and it’s a home run in that regard. Any time an arena full of people chant “whoop that trick” as encouragement for a man to put his hands on a woman, she’s clearly despised. As for the particulars in how we got there? That’s where I take a bit of umbrage. I liked the emotion Otis & Tozawa showed. There’s a lot of depth there because the territory took ample time telling their story. It also helps that they’re right about Austin Theory being a piece of human excrement. No amount of pleading from Maxxine changed that. But about that pleading, which is where my umbrage comes into play.
- It looked like Otis was ready to profess his feelings for Maxxine, which prompted a typical jerk response from “The Pressure.” And that’s when Maxxine turned on the waterworks. That’s when she looked emotionally compromised. And she did that for an entire segment where Otis ran roughshod over the entire Vision. One man manhandled the tag champs. the tide only turned when Maxxine calmed down the beast, and went in for a kiss, which was just a prelude to Austin going low on the big man. The segment’s length, combined with Maxxine’s protesting, implied the whole thing was a hustle because none of her tears stopped Otis’ rampage to that point. Not even Bruce Wayne plans that well to know Otis would corner Austin after throwing Bron Breakker out of the ring like trash, which would set him up for a low blow after Maxxine’s intervention. Other than that? Cool segment. Like I said, only a bit of umbrage. Wish it was a tad shorter to make all of that feel more logical.
- Speaking of The Vision, it seems like Paul E. Heyman is officially done with the crew. He gave them all props for how they handled Alpha Academy, singled out Maxxine’s performance again, and noted with her doing what she did, they don’t need him. He walked out of the frame and that was that. Quite an inauspicious way to see yet another creator of this crew wave bye bye. Does this mean he’s done with Bron as well? It’s crazy how Bron went from the next next big thing to where he is now. He went from taking Seth’s place as leader to World Heavyweight Championship matches, to seemingly getting discarded in a backstage segment shorter than this paragraph.
- I dig Lyra Valkyria’s new look but I want them to do more with it than her spitting the same things people always spit at Bayley. Bayley’s the worst horsewoman. She holds people back. She’s an underachiever. Blah blah blah. These aren’t just things usually thrown Bayley’s way, but they’re also things Bayley says about herself when she’s at her lowest. That doesn’t mean her heel turn is off to a bad start, just means someone beefing with Bayley needs new ammo. This was a perfect time to give at least a hint of something fresh. Either way, these two duke it out at Saturday Night’s Main Event. I’d love more time and more build to truly dig into the emotion and their entire history, but broadcast contracts care not for storytelling.
- Roxanne Perez vs. IYO SKY set off the show. It was a fine match with the usual interferences from Judgment Day. But once again, IYO seems immune to all that because she got the win. But Judgment Day won the war as the post match beatdown occurred. Even with Sol Ruca’s help, IYO still went down as Liv Morgan looked like a dominant heel champ with plenty of muscle backing her up. As I said before, IYO’s not just fighting the champ; she’s taking on an entire crew. Sol proved she can help a bit but it’s still two on three. I’m not the best at match but even I know those odds aren’t great.
- The weirdest thing about Raw on Netflix is all the things I miss as someone watching it in America. There are ads even on Netflix’s ad-free tier, because, surprisingly to no one except Netflix, live television is a different beast than streaming Stranger Things. Those ad interruptions always come at the wrong time, like this week when the American broadcast missed the start of an impromptu match between Royce Keys and Jimmy Uso. It’s never fun interrupting a match to explain why a match happened. That’s not WWE’s fault though. It’s just an inconvenient fact about the world in which we live. The match ended in chaos as Jacob Fatu attacked a man he once called his brother. The ensuing ruckus (which was brought!) involved Solo Sikoa and LA Knight. LA made me cackle when he called Jey Uso “the unfortunate event.” Seriously, the man is on a tear right now on the mic. All of this Bloodline stuff clearly sets a spark off in him. But his words created a six-man match at SummerSlam: Royce, LA, & Solo vs. Jimmy, Jey, & Jacob.
- I didn’t love Brock Lesnar coming out with cops and filing a restraining order on Oba Femi. It makes him look weak and very non-beastly. Of course the keystone cops were just fodder for Oba to run through, and talk more trash to Brock. Meh.
- Hell of a gauntlet match. Recapping the whole thing would take up way too much space. Just know everyone came across looking good, especially Chad Gable, who eventually won. Chad vs. Rusev in the end felt like the right move with their history and with the way Rusev disrespects anyone smaller than him. We got a face-off with Penta and Chad, which puts Chad right back where this whole thing started. Penta defeating him sent him on a yearlong spiral. If he can defeat Penta in his hometown, that’s destiny fulfilled.
This show picked up steam towards the end. The gauntlet match was superb while Roman & Seth finally got a sense of urgency.
What say you, Cagesiders? Does Seth have any shot at defeating Roman?
