Brock Lesnar is back in the mix, and it couldn’t have come a moment sooner. Ratings for WWE Monday Night Raw have been tanking in the tank with Seth Rollins at the top of the food chain as WWE champ, not so much an indictment of Rollins as the lack of marketable challengers.
The Rollins reign has had him feud briefly, too briefly, with Randy Orton, then forgettably with Dean Ambrose. For reasons that may become apparent later, Roman Reigns has been left out of the title picture to date.
And so we get Lesnar into the picture. It seems a little forced, to be honest. It seemed logical to assume that the Beast would make his return to WWE TV in time for SummerSlam, the second-biggest card of the WWE year.
So for Lesnar to be main-eventing Battleground maybe says something about where things are in WWE right now.
A Lesnar win puts the badass back at the top of the ladder going into SummerSlam, and sets up any of a number of big matches in the main-event slot there. Lesnar-Reigns? Lesnar-Rollins? A Lesnar-Reigns-Rollins Triple Threat?
A Rollins win, or at the least any kind of ending that results in Rollins leaving Battleground with the belt, and we have to scratch our heads. It would seem that the only way Rollins leaves with the strap is some sort of schmozz ending that has the champ winning with outside interference or via a ref bump or something of that nature that adds fuel to Lesnar’s fire for a return match at SummerSlam.
Rollins is an interstitial champ, clearly, at this point. He was given the ball and the opportunity to run with it, and while it’s not fair that his title reign has come at a time of ratings decline, with no big-name rivals to help him better define his time at the top, it is what it is, and it’s time to move on.
Whether that’s Sunday, July 19, at Battleground, or next month at SummerSlam, the clock is ticking.
Down the card
Roman Reigns-Bray Wyatt: Why has WWE buried Bray Wyatt as basically being nothing more than a sideshow jobber? Go to any house show, and you will see that Wyatt is the most over guy on the roster, but his job is to serve as a glorified enhancement talent. Roman Reigns gets the rub in this one
John Cena-Kevin Owens: Logic would dictate that Cena wins the rubber match in their best-of-three series, because Cena doesn’t lose the last match against a rival in a series like this. But logic would also dictate that Owens, who dropped his NXT title to Finn Balor at Beast of the East last week, is more suitable as a U.S. champ than Cena, who could be needed back in the main-event slot assuming Lesnar gets the WWE strap at the end of the show.
Prime Time Players vs. The New Day: Doesn’t matter who wins. This is a good series for the long-dormant tag-team division. However it ends, please, keep it going.
Ryback vs. Big Show vs. The Miz: Zzzzzzzzzzz …
– Preview by Chris Graham
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