Cena/Reigns promo was FIRE

God, that promo was so good. And then you remember that:

1) They decided the best way to follow it would be to have them team up against The ****ing Club so they could each hit their finisher simultaneously.
2) This is classic WWE short-sightedness, blowing their wad way too early. No matter what happens these two can't just keep battling at PPV's without a title involved. They really should think back to some of the epic builds they've had (specifically Michael/Taker WM sequel) and mimic that. Not continue to bludgeon us over the head with stuff whenever it shows a hint of promise.
3) They'll never turn Roman. This is, once again, a great spot for it. Cena can continue to run promos like he did tonight until Roman finally snaps. Roman can be the super strong evil dude who was pushed to this point by fans who never liked him or wanted him to succeed. And Cena would also be helped because the fans would start to pop for him like they haven't in a long time.

So ya, this was a great segment, but we know where this is headed. Someone will win and then a month from now it'll be exactly the same as it was a month ago.

From the sounds of it, they just kind of turned Cena vs Roman into your run of the mill match between two top guys. They have a couple run-ins, they have a conversation or two, and then they team up to build tension.

Prior to knowing that there was a contract signing, I thought they'd weasel out of this match somehow. However, this is the same company that blew their wad at Survivor Series 2011 w/The Rock in a nothing tag match. Ironically, teaming with Cena.

What this feels like is they think Cena's splitting soon but don't want to relent on their plan of having Roman main event and finally have his crowning achievement.

Sasha lost the title already?

When your career takes a dive and you're on 205

That's Amore.

That's a lot harder to do if the loss happens at WrestleMania.

Joe is injured. Out for 4 weeks.

So they make heel Bliss mock face Sasha, saying Sasha can never defend her title.

Then Bliss wins cleanly? That makes no sense. If they were keeping the story, Bliss should have cheated to win.

Then to top it off, Nia Jax attacks Bliss after the bell? Doesn't that turn Bliss babyface?

I sort of felt this way too.

That said, I still enjoyed the segment quite a bit.

I'm getting through it now and just watched the Brock segment. Paul Heyman has ruined almost all of Brock's feuds since his return. 02/03 Brock was very good on the mic and a great character, even the comedy stuff he did with Angle and Eddie was awesome and showed he had range. I'd say he was better on the mic than most on the roster today. UFC Brock promos were awesome too, he drinks Coors Light because Bud don't pay him nothing etc.

Heyman's presence has completely killed that. I know Lesnar's gimmick is that he's an emotionless beast and I obviously know Heyman is elite on the mic but I also think his promos have become to samey and have generally dipped in quality in the past year so every feud just kind feels boring until Brock actually confronts someone. Every feud since the return has been rinse and repeat and Brock has been completely uninteresting as a character.

Cena/Reigns was very interesting. Assuming the long term goal is to get Reigns over as the baby face superstar I have no idea how they could've thought putting him out there with Cena would get them closer to that goal.

The tag match afterwards was just so dumb. Maybe it's OK if you have one of them turn on the other or walk out but doing what they did makes zero sense. Meltzer trashed it too.

Leave it to the WWE to find a way to wait til he's one foot out the door to finally come up with a way to get the entire crowd behind cena

I'm of the opinion that most of that is because Brock bought a large roll of forever stamps about two years ago so he could just mail in all his appearances, and they're trying valiantly to use Heyman to cover for that.

That's probably the correct answer. It's still a shame we haven't seen anything memorable on the mic from Brock in the entire time he's been back.

I watched the Cena/Reigns promo and enjoyed it a lot. Agree the insider talk in promos isn't my thing but it definitely made me pop a little in this case. I would never like to see it become a norm though.

They're starting to pull out the Cena burial card a bit too often now though. Last three big feuds, Reigns, Miz, Styles all used it and then Cena accuses each of them of being a complainer like every one else. His "they (the audience) decide" line was a little groan worthy too.

I've only seen a few gifs of the interview but jfc, Roman looked like he was about to cry. You could tell he was extremely shook because for what looked like the last 20 seconds (long gif!) of the promo, he kept his eyes down and didn't make eye contact with Cena. Poor guy. Now put someone else in his spot or make a few guys a bit stronger. Maybe then, I'd watch.

I thought that "goodbye fourth wall" by Cena was a low point. If you're doing to do insider talk, okay, but don't add a line to explicitly say "HEY GUISE WE'RE USING SMARK TERMS."

Again though, I feel I'm being more critical than my actual reaction to the segment, which was to really enjoy it.

Wasn't this a shoutout/direct quote from the C.M Punk pipebomb? So couldn't it be perceived as a Cena nod to him?

Seems to broad of a term for it to be seen as a reference to Punk's promo. At least imo.

I think this is my answer too, though admittedly I'd forgotten all about the fact that Punk used the term in that promo as well.

Imagine Vince's reaction if Cena turns to hard camera and says "Hey CM Punk! How ya doin'?". That'd be truly Cena giving no ****s.

During the Styles feud, Cena said "oh that's right, it's my fault because I buried you." Afterward, WWE actually censored that line out before releasing it on the WWE YouTube channel. Given that it obviously displeased somebody, it's surprising that he's still using it to the point of arguably overusing it now.

Maybe Mr. Kannelis should have gone to NXT.

No posts? Sad.

Strange ending, mostly bc idk what they were trying to accomplish.

Smackdown running with this Lana/Tamina story that nobody wants to see while not utilizing Becky or Charlotte is absolutely insane to me.

Shelton looks great and I have pretty high hopes for that tag team.