CM’s Quick WWE Hits: Roman Reigns’ Return, The McMahon Family Drama and The New Day

This is the return of another column I did briefly last year here on TJR, this is CM’s Quick Hits. Basically I pick a couple of topics I have opinions on and then I discuss them. Simple enough, right? All the talking points come from last night’s episode of RAW, so let’s jump right into it.

The New Day retains the Tag Team Championship.

In a span of three days, The New Day beat two different combinations of the League of Nations in Tag Team Championship matches. Last night, The New Day switched things up and had Xavier Woods and Big E defend the titles instead of the normal pairing of Big E and Kofi Kingston. Kofi had his shoulder bandaged so there may be an injury WWE is trying to protect but it sure didn’t seem that he was protecting much during the fracas near the end of the match. To me there was something missing from last night’s match. I don’t want anyone to take this as a knock on Xavier’s in-ring abilities because I think he’s is more than capable in the ring. I just think The New Day’s matches flow better when it’s Kofi teaming with Big E and they’re much more entertaining when Woods is on the outside with his trusty trombone. I missed not hearing it when E whips the other guy in for the corner dropkick. It’s become such a staple and entertaining part of their matches.

It looks like The New Day and LON are headed for some sort of Six-Man Tag Match for the Tag Team Titles at WrestleMania. It should be interesting since we’ve (to my knowledge) never seen the titles defended like that before. While the match is going on, Wade Barrett will do his best not to look bored on the outside of the ring.

Roman Reigns returns to RAW.

After Triple H defeated Dolph Ziggler in a great match (call it ***3/4) Reigns made his way out to the arena to exact revenge on Triple H for destroying his face. Before I get into that, is it too much to ask WWE to advertise that Triple H would be wrestling on RAW? I know it was set up in a spur of the moment situation but they could’ve done something on the app earlier in the day to set it up. When one of your legends and current World Champion wrestles 2-3 times of year and he’s doing a match on RAW in the first time in God knows how long, you might want to advertise that. That might be something people would be interested in seeing. Shoot the angle on the app, send out an email blast and a BREAKING NEWS commercial on the Network to get the news out. It might not be a big deal to some but to me it is. Let’s get back to the matter at hand.

The reaction Reigns got last night had to make Vince McMahon sick to his stomach. When your top babyface returns after a couple weeks off to exact revenge on their rival you are expecting a reaction better than what happened last night. The Pittsburgh crowd booed at first and then couldn’t be bothered to do anything after that. If Reigns was over to the level WWE wanted him to be then we are talking about one of the best segments in WWE in the last few years. That beating Triple H got was vicious and exactly what the story needed. Reigns looked like the savage ass kicker he should be and destroyed the guy that had made his life a living hell since November. With a hot crowd that segment is gold. Instead all we are talking about is how no one cares about Reigns. It’s sad really. WWE needs to fix this problem. Reigns has to go heel at least through the summer to see if the fans will care when he turns back. The Rock went heel and it made his career. Reigns might need that. Reigns doesn’t even seem to be getting the kids and women that John Cena lived off of. If Reigns vs. Triple H goes last at WrestleMania the night is going to end with a major thud if they don’t have any Seth Rollins like surprises planned. His big coronation doesn’t mean anything because he’s already won the title twice. I know the same can be said about Daniel Bryan and his win at WrestleMania XXX but the big difference is that the fans LOVED Daniel Bryan. After last night, it seems as if they don’t even care about Reigns enough to boo him. That can’t be the reaction for the babyface in the Main Event of WrestleMania.

Vince, Shane and The Undertaker come to blows.

To close out RAW last night Vince McMahon, Shane McMahon and The Undertaker were all in the ring together for the first time since the Hell in a Cell Match was announced. The segment went about ten minutes and the three traded barbs until Shane called Undertaker “Vince’s bitch” and then the fight ensued. Taker and Shane threw some punches and then Vince shoved Shane into a Chokeslam from Taker and that was pretty much the end of the show.

Aside from the initial excitement of Shane coming back, what does this feud have exactly? We’ve seen Vince and Shane at each other’s throats since WrestleMania 2000. What’s up with the lock box of family secrets? Or are we supposed to forget about that? That seems like a pretty big thing to me. These secrets are supposedly the reason Vince and Shane are battling again and they’re seemingly forgotten about.

How about how Stephanie McMahon and Triple H feel about the whole thing? I know HHH is defending the WWE Championship at WrestleMania but shouldn’t they be more involved in the whole thing considering they’ll lose control of the company they’ve been running if Shane wins at WrestleMania.

The biggest unanswered question to me is what The Undertaker’s motivation is in all of this. He’s been on RAW twice since the match was announced and we’ve yet to hear why he is just going along with Vince’s plan. Does he feel loyalty to Vince after working for him for the last 25 years? Did Shane do something to piss him off in the Corporate Ministry days? This just isn’t personal for The Undertaker right now and it’s one of the biggest reasons this feud is really flat to me.

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That’s it from me. Be sure to let me know what your thoughts are on these topics. I’ve got a couple of WrestleMania themed columns planned in the next few weeks so be on the lookout for those.

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**All photos courtesy of WWE.com**