When the Roman Reigns suspension hit the wires this time last week, questions came up as to how WWE would handle this on air. In the six days before we got a new Raw, I’m sure the rest of the WWE Universe was just like me trying to come up with how the suspension would be explained.
I can say with almost complete certainty that the straight forward approach that we got last night was not one of the possible scenarios thought about.
There wasn’t even any hesitation with it! The show start, Seth Rollins comes down and says he wants to talk about Roman Reigns. It definitely surprised everyone watching in my house as I’m sure it did to most anyone else who was watching.
Most times when a superstar is unable to appear on camera for a period of time for whatever reason, they are written off with some sort of a strange injury angle or something along those lines. With how public WWE has been with the suspension, you just couldn’t go in the standard direction this time.
WWE writers and decision makers have had taken their share of criticism over the recent years, and deservingly so for the most part. But I give them credit for this one. Hit it head on – don’t run from it. WWE took the direct approach by suspending one of their biggest stars and announcing it to the world so why stop?
We did see something that I would definitely have changed. Rollins made it a point to say that he was “not supposed” to talk about it, but he would anyway. Seconds later, the production truck threw up the Reigns Facebook/Twitter graphic that they already had ready to go. If WWE didn’t want Rollins to talk about it, then why would a graphic be ready to go? Nitpicking at its best, I know, but it took away from what could have been looked at as a 100% real segment.
Hopefully this is just another sign of the “New Era.” Back in 1997 when WWE was moving towards the Attitude Era and the infamous TV-14 rating, Vince McMahon made the comment that we, the audience are “quite frankly tired of having (our) intelligence insulted.” Saying that Reigns is injured when the world knew about the suspension would have been a slap to our face.
Well done WWE, and thank you for knowing that I’m not an idiot.