WWE hit us with a rare midday (in the States) Premium Live Event from Turin, Italy today. Check out Claire’s live blog for a blow by blow account if you missed it. The show is available for replay with an ESPN subscription here in the U.S., or a Netflix one most other places around the world.
Old Habits
To the surprise of probably no one, Roman Reigns was victorious in Tribal Combat and is still your Tribal Chief.
The most fascinating part of the early stages of this latest Reigns title run, at least to me, is the fact
he immediately fell back into his old ways. He immediately recruited the Usos to be by his side and has used them in 3-on-1s against Fatu. He needed an exposed turnbuckle to save his hide from a on-and-done title run at Backlash. And tonight, he brought back the kick out low blow that was a staple of the early matches during his long heel run.
Now this was Tribal Combat and nothing is illegal, which is noteworthy. And Roman really won the match when he smashed Fatu’s hand with a toolbox, taking the Tongan Grip out of the equation. But going to the low blow during the kick out is a specific call back to the dirty tactics he used in the past and that’s not unintentional. And of course, for those who aren’t as into the subtlety, LA Knight is pretty much spelling it out for us on Monday Night Raw.
This tells us a couple things about the character and what makes it so fascinating moving forward:
1) To a good degree, since 2021, Roman Reigns has never been a babyface. Even when he reunited with the Usos and Sami Zayn after his title loss, he never apologized for all his misdeeds. He’s always been clear that it’s “Do whatever I must to support the family.” It was just that he ended up going against folks we didn’t like as we learned to like him. But did he really change from his most dastardly days? Not really.
2) Cody Rhodes was the one who said he was addicted to the title on Friday’s SmackDown, but it’s Roman Reigns who seems to be falling into old habits the moment he won the gold from CM Punk in Las Vegas. He seemed OK to go it alone when he wasn’t champion but the moment he wins it, he has to get his Bloodline back? Immediately going to old tricks he needed in the past? Roman likes to seem like he’s in control, but maybe that title controls him.
All this is why Roman is a great champion. Unlike Cody Rhodes (who I actually quite like as a champion) who is a white meat babyface, Roman has more layers they’re willing to explore. And I think we’re exploring one now in regards to who he is willing to be to be not just the champion, but Tribal Chief.
And what about Jacob Fatu?
Well, you can’t look much better in a loss than he did. He stood toe-to-toe with the champion and gave him hell. (He also looked like he wasn’t limited by any injury.) Deep into the match, not only did he no sell two Superman Punches, but he did his little shimmy after — something I found quite hilarious. And like at Backlash, Roman needed the exposed turnbuckle to put Fatu to bed. Not just one time, but a series of them followed by a spear through a table and another spear. Yeah, Jacob is a tough mother…
It was a fun brawl and a show worthy closer.
It also leaves a great hook for tomorrow’s Raw where now not only must Jacob acknowledge Roman, but he needs to work for him too. I still don’t see the Werewolf, neutered or not to borrow a choice phrase from Michael Cole, doing that.
But it’s going to be something I’m excited to tune in for, almost as excited to watch how this latest title reign corrupts our Tribal Chief.
(I’m not going to really get in at Solo & his MFTs staring down Roman from the crowd post match, other than to say Reigns should not be wasting time with a guy who is booked more like a comedy loser than someone who should share the ring again with the Tribal Chief.)
Flat Finish
We opened up the night with the WWE title match. As Edge (sorry Cope) once said on his podcast — if you’re not on last, you want to be on first. You get that hot crowd who are just ready to make some noise.
That’s what we got here. The crowd was super hot for this match, as they were for most of the show.
And for the most part, the match lived up to its end of the bargain. It was well paced from the jump with little time to breathe. No prolonged rest holds. (I don’t consider the sleeper a rest hold since it’s Gunther’s finish.) It was a strong opening match.
Until the finish.
Cody earned the 1-2-3 on a Crossroads. But drama! Gunther had his foot under the rope and the referee didn’t see it. This is clearly meant to prolong the feud, which in itself makes sense given it was too soon to crown Gunther here but you can’t just beat him after he retired John Cena & AJ Styles. But they could have done it at a point in the match where it still felt rewarding.
But this bout hadn’t hit that crescendo where you’d expect a finish. It felt we were maybe in the 6th or 7th inning, to use one of the champ’s preferred analogies. That 1-2-3 let the air out of the balloon right fast.
It was still an enjoyable match and that’s an angle you can get away with in the beginning of the show compared to the end. However it was a missed opportunity to start this show off with a bang — not even with a title change or even a different finish, but a finish that didn’t seem to be rushed.
“1 + 1 = You’re Done B*tch”
Folks, it looks like we have a trilogy on our hands.
Brock Lesnar defeated Oba Femi to knot the series at 1 to 1 and we’re likely to bring this home at SummerSlam in Minnesota.
Even in a loss, they still did enough to make Oba Femi look like a boss.
The match started with what could only be considered a rookie mistake. Femi took his eyes off Lesnar for a second when he took off his beaded necklace. The Beast bum rushed him and delivered four F5s. And I’ll tell you, I was worried they were going to just end it there.
But Femi kicked out.
Then Paul Heyman called for the Kimura Lock and Brock had that locked on for awhile. But in impressive fashion, Oba stood up when the submission still locked in.
There was an F5 through the table that could have put the Ruler away but Femi popped up to beat the count. He went on a mini tear in the ring but Lesnar was able to jump out of the Fall From Grace, partially due to Oba’s arm still feeling the Kimura, and hit a final F5 for the win.
This was a fun hoss fight and Brock still put over Oba with some of his shocked facial expressions when he couldn’t put his foe away – something the Beast is very good at. However, I have never been a fan of Brock’s F5 spam matches that’s what we got here. It would be effective if he rarely had these type of matches to demonstrate just how tough the Ruler is. But he’s had them enough that it felt lazy.
It didn’t detract from the match too much for me as it was still quite the spectacle. But I hope round three avoids that trope.
Jade’s Best Showing
When I watch a Jade Cargill match, I’m often playing close attention to how she looks in the ring. Especially in a match like today where I don’t think she has a chance to actually win. I think her title match in Turin was probably the best match she’s had in WWE.
Part of that is that Rhea’s a great match-up for her. They’re both powerhouses so the pace can be reasonably slower. But in this match, you didn’t catch her thinking about the next move. It flowed well. It’s a situation where this feud was able to elevate her despite losing the title during the program.
Before getting into the finish, I want to point out two things I appreciated about this match. One was Ripley rolling through a Jaded and going into a stomp, a movie her friend Iyo Sky performs frequently. The other was when they went through the same sequence that they ended the match at WrestleMania — Jaded into a Riptide. But this time, Jade reversed the Riptide into a big DDT. Those type of call backs I appreciate as it tells the story of a competitor learning from their prior mistakes.
The finishes included the biggest botch of the match. Rhea hit Riptide but B-Fab (who had come down to the ring with Michin just prior) put Jade’s foot on the rope. Or at least she tried. She just couldn’t reach it and in the end, Jade just put it up herself.
(You can argue that they shouldn’t have run the foot on/under the ropes angle matches back to back, but they already promised both matches to ESPN.)
This brought out Charlotte, still looking for revenge for what Jade did to Alexa Bliss on SmackDown. She landed a crossbody from the barricade onto both of the challenger’s henchwomen. However, that distraction led to Rhea taking a Jaded. This time Charlotte returned the favor and placed the champions foot on the rope (without any issue). Rhea soon hit a Riptide for a win.
I’ll be interested to see what they do with Jade going forward. But it’s clear that her feud with Rhea Ripley did what was intended: It elevated her.
Referee Shenanigans
Can we talk about how ridiculous it is that Jessika Carr’s the referee for every single Becky Lynch match?
That has to be intentional at this point. And I’m talking about within the storyline because of course it’s an intentional creative move. Adam Pierce has to be screwing with Lynch because no one has the same referee for every match even when there aren’t issues. But they certainly wouldn’t continue to assign the same referee when there’s obvious animosity that affects matches. Bill Vinovich hasn’t refereed a regular season New Orleans Saints game since 2019 for a reason. That’s not to say they’ve booked Carr to poorly officiate Lynch’s matches, but Lynch has messed with Carr enough that you can imagine why she could be biased at this point.
There’s a degree of this that’s just silly wrestling. But they’ve been doing this so often that it needs to be leading somewhere. Carr is a wrestler so at this point, we should just book Lynch vs. Carr. Otherwise we’re starting distract from the matches.
And that’s the main takeaway. Because Sol Ruca won the match! She hit a good looking Sol Snatcher on Lynch to win the Intercontinental title! (This is the third time Becky Lynch has lost that title.) And some of this is surely me allowing myself to get distracted with the Carr/Lynch stuff, but it’s surely a focus of a lot of Lynch’s matches. There were two spots that involved Carr. One when she rolled out of the ring to avoid getting in the way but then was late to count three on a Lynch roll up. And another when Lynch tossed Carr in the ropes when Sol was on the top turnbuckle, causing Ruca to slip.
It’s hard to say Ruca “needed the win” given she just got called up. But they made a big deal about her 0-2 start so they kind of had to do the change here. Let’s see if her reign ends differently than losing it back to Lynch, but Lynch should be more focused on her upcoming SummerSlam match against Jessika Carr.
This was an over strong showing for their first ever Italy PLE. The real blemish was the weird finish for the first match, and I don’t love the F5 spamming, but everything else was strong.
Grade: B+
Sound off in the comments below.
