Smark Out Moment

Piggybacking off my previous Small Package post about Becky Lynch's plans for Raw later tonight, another thing going on is that Roman Reigns will be making an appearance to "provide an update on his battle with leukemia"—which is very vague.

Of course, it's vague for a reason, as WWE wants you to tune in to find out what he has to say. They'd be stupid to put something out there like "Roman Reigns will pop up on Raw to say he's doing better and he hopes to be back in the ring at some point that we can't quite determine yet and then end the segment with some cheers before we go to a commercial break and come back with a tag team match."

But is that all we're in store for, or is there something more to this?

Is Reigns healthy enough to announce that he's stepping back in the ring? If so, doesn't that sort of dictate that he has to have a match at WrestleMania? And if so, who is he facing? Does he team with Dean Ambrose and Braun Strowman to fight Drew McIntyre, Baron Corbin and Bobby Lashley? Is Seth Rollins too injured to compete and Reigns has to step in to fight Brock Lesnar for the third time at WrestleMania (the 9000th time or so in general)? Or, maybe, he's healthy enough to do something, but not ready for WrestleMania, so WWE tries to get nuclear heat on Lesnar by having him attack Reigns to further the feud with Rollins.

It's an interesting scenario and exactly what WWE needs to do to get people tuning in to Raw, but when expectations are all over the place, there's a risk of disappointing people. Hopefully, there's something substantial enough that it goes down in a way that people aren't upset, as if WWE's whole plan is to just do nothing and promote Reigns having an appearance strictly for the ratings bump, it's going to do more damage than good.

Regarding the idea of Reigns at WrestleMania, the six-man tag is something worth entertaining, but I also find it very bland. I don't want Strowman and Ambrose and someone else (Reigns, Kurt Angle, whoever) teaming up in a match we'd normally see as the main event of Raw. I want something more for everyone involved, even if it's to clusterfuck them all into a 10-man ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship or something. I also don't want Reigns to take the Rollins spot in the Universal Championship match, as I think that will kill the babyface reaction Reigns was just starting to get.

Instead, I'm hoping for the Lesnar beating. That makes him seem like an even more despicable person and puts Rollins even higher up when he beats him at WrestleMania (which should happen, mind you).

Our crew here at Smark Out Moment have been discussing, behind the scenes, whether or not Reigns joining the Universal Championship match dictates that being the main event of WrestleMania, rather than the Triple Threat for the Raw Women's Championship. There are differing opinions, but it seems most agree with what I'd also say, which is that you can't undo the women's match at this point and even Reigns coming back shouldn't take the top spot. Any other year, of course it would, but too much has been built up for the Triple Threat between Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey to be anything but the closer. Keep that in mind, as we'll find out more later tonight and address what happened on the next edition of the Hot Tags podcast for Smack Talk.