In any case, that is the name of the new Raw title. Seth Rollins and Finn Balor will be facing each other at Summerslam to crown the first ever Universal Champion. That name just sounds like something a minor-league promotion would come up with to make its title seem more important. Back to the point, Balor defeated Roman Reigns in the main event of Raw to get the shot at Summerslam.
Seth Rollins was handed the spot in the match. Okay, I can live with that. He is a heel and affiliated with Stephanie McMahon. I almost expected the WWE to put Seth Rollins in one of the fatal fourways, Roman Reigns in the other, and have the main event of Raw last night be for the new title between those two. They chose to hold it off for Summerslam. That's fine.
How about Roman Reigns getting a depush? I think it is for the best. The guy is not a great centerpiece and fans just seemed to ease off him a little last year when he took a break from the title scene to feud with Bray Wyatt. I just hope this isn't Vince McMahon being bitter about the drug suspension. It is just a dumb reason, especially since Brock Lesnar got even more media attention for his recent drug issues and the WWE hasn't shown any signs of punishing him. Some people want to say he shouldn't be punished because he didn't fail a WWE drug test? Well, Hulk Hogan didn't exactly make those racist comments at any WWE event or while even employed by the WWE during his run last year. They still fired him. They have not yet brought him back. If Brock Lesnar broke a rule while employed by the WWE that got Roman Reigns in trouble, why shouldn't he get in trouble? But back to Reigns, I would have made the same decision to depush, but more because he isn't working out than being bitter about the failed drug test.
And then there is Finn Balor. I saw some fans talking about the main event. Some fans just didn't want Roman Reigns to win. A few said Finn was being pushed too fast. Fans responded, "Relax! He won't win!" And he won.
They are pushing him too fast. He hasn't done anything to deserve the push. I am not saying he is untalented or anything like that. I am saying he hasn't done anything since coming to the main roster to deserve this push. How could he? He was drafted to Raw last week on Smackdown. Less than a week later, he's on Raw and wins two big matches in one night to headline Summerslam to possibly become a new World Champion.
I said the same kind of thing for AJ Styles earlier this year. The guy debuts and they are already hyping him up way too much and putting over how popular he is. Let the guy's wrestling ability speak for itself. It does. Work on building his character and using him in interesting storylines. That will get him over with the wider audience. If I felt they were not pushing AJ Styles right earlier this year, I definitely have to say the same thing for Finn Balor now. AJ Styles at least worked for a number of years in the WWE's closest competition, TNA. Finn has less of an argument for being well-known beyond wrestling fans than that. If being in TNA isn't enough to become an A-tier star (in terms of popularity), Finn has no argument why he should be pushed this hard. You can argue this is a harder push than even AJ Styles got this year. AJ at least worked with Jericho for a few months before moving on to a title feud.
I think how the WWE had the commentators hype this guy was terrible. Don't tell me his life story. I don't want to hear it. Yeah, he wrestled all over the world and won all these titles. He scrubbed toilets. Save it for his DVD or some WWE Network special on him. Who are they talking to with this? Wrestling fans know who this guy is. The WWE is just preaching to the choir. The wider audience is not going to care as much. You have to put creative work into him. Kayfabe is dead for certain wrestlers. They have no character. They are simply what they are as a performer. They are simply however many titles they won, what countries they wrestled in, whom they feuded against, and whatever else you can read off their Wikipedia page. Does the WWE even have any writers employed anymore?
Raw last night was just a dream for smarks. I will get to Sasha Banks tomorrow. But the WWE is further looking like they have lost it. NXT and social media are turning them stupid. For years, this was a company that insulted wrestling. You can't say they are still doing that. But what they are doing can either be seen as pure pandering or ignorantly believing that giving wrestling fans what they want will draw for them. These are the fans you have to win over to make the WWE Network successful. If you want to win over the wider audience to get your ratings back up, you can't just work to please wrestling fans.
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