Roman Reigns issued a challenge to his crew and Jacob Fatu stepped the F up.
Roman entered Iowa triumphantly. Keeping in line with SummerSlam, this sounded like a new Roman. He was humble to a degree, gave props to Seth Rollins to a degree, and let the Iowans in attendance sing Seth’s song. He puffed out his chest over the fact he defeated Seth by himself. This was a celebration for the Tribal Chief. But every party needs a pooper.
That certainly stunk for Roman. LA has a point. Despite Roman’s apparent new leaf, he never defeated LA fair or square. While not as big a thorn in his side as Seth, LA has the ability to annoy and get under Roman’s skin simply because he exists. Now, Roman of course dismissed LA. How dare LA call him a fraud when Mr. Knight calls himself a megastar while rocking a Walmart watch. Ouch. As someone in the market for a very expensive watch, and who can’t pronounce the watch Roman is wearing, I understand LA’s struggle. But, again, that talk only goes so far with LA. He won’t let a few verbal jabs stop him from going full force. Which flowed perfectly into what happened next with The Bloodline and the point of this section.
Roman chastised his boys for not handling LA. I like seeing Roman vacillate between going back to the old him and walking this new path. He’s clearly torn but told them not to touch LA. Instead, he pointed some frustration in Jacob’s direction for thinking anyone outside of his blood family is family. Royce Keys isn’t his brother, nor should be act like it. The message was clear: take Royce out. One can look at this in a couple ways: Either Roman wanted to test Jacob to see how far his loyalty goes, or he wanted Jacob to eliminate a tie to his past that might threaten his present and future with The Bloodline. Either way, it made for great theater as Jacob challenged Royce to a street fight.
And then, well, they street fought.
This was brutal chaos. It was the perfect match for two guys who look like these two but also have the backstory. It made for a more emotional watch as two guys who love each other did everything possible to stop the other from walking. Jacob, of course, got the win and then went the extra mile.
As per usual, he’s always the one who steps up when Roman needs someone to show they can. I hope this puts Royce in a great position when he comes back from whatever injury this is and for however long one sits on the shelf after coughing up blood.
Dark ending for Raw as the Tribal Chief saluted his cousin for stomping out someone he saw as family.
An entertaining post-SummerSlam episode of Raw that checked a lot of boxes for me. I liked the bookend with Roman, the Oba and Paul bits, and the intrigue in the Women’s division.
What say you, Cagesiders?
