Credit: WWE.com
Leading up to Super Showdown, I hoped that Goldberg would take the belt from The Fiend for one reason and one reason only: as a Roman Reigns fan I knew it would not end well for him if he was the one to do it. Goldberg vs Roman Reigns will be billed as a dream match but it is only that if 2000 Goldberg was coming through that proverbial door. 2020 Goldberg is a dream match killer. All we can do is hope he doesn't concuss himself headbutting things before the match or get hurt during it so it'll be 5 to 10 minutes of power moves and finishers. Much is being said about how bad it is that stars from this era are still being fed to stars from 20 years ago. I say: imagine if Roman Reigns and Bray Wyatt could either do the Fusion Dance or put on Potara Earrings. If they could combine, wrestling would have another boom period.
Let me start this paragraph with heat. There is no such thing as a good Bray Wyatt match. You can only reply to that by telling me about the rare time he might have had a meh to aight match. While The Fiend is a fresh coat of pearlescent metallic chameleon candy paint character wise, actual Fiend matches are terrible. It reminds me of Undertaker matches early in his run when all he did was move real slow and no sell. Which means there is potential for the character to evolve into having some of the greatest matches ever as Undertaker did for about 5 years around the time of Mania 23 through 27. None of us in our right minds like Bray Wyatt because of his wrestling. We like the ability to talk extemperaneously as Bray Wyatt the character would. We like the creativity and imagination to create all the puppet characters in the Firefly Funhouse. We like the theme song. We like the presentation. Bray Wyatt is the sizzle.
Yeah. Roman Reigns is the meat without any of the sizzle. I'll admit he is not seasoned very well. No honey or teriyaki sauce. He does not come with the loaded baked potato with sour cream, chives, bacon and cheddar cheese. No Caesar's salad or blue cheese or any of that. If you are not a hater, you can admit the man is a good worker. The matches are aight at worst and occasionally great depending on the opponent. Where I know in my SOUL Bray Wyatt IS the person I see on my TV, I can't tell you who or what Roman Reigns is or what he's about, really. When I hear Roman speak, I get the general impression he doesn't know either. The only real reason I support the campaign to force him as The Guy is because the company can't count on Brock and Goldberg forever and the potential is there. It's weird, actually. On one hand I'd say that the character work is more important than workrate... On the other hand I'd rather have someone that can work at a main event level than talk at one. But. Imagine having both at the same time.
Roman and Bray could either define each others careers like Stone Cold and The Rock or Cena and Orton... Or they could ensure each other's mutual destruction. In a best case scenario, Bray could awaken a compelling character and promo in Roman as Roman brings Bray to having good matches with some actual psychology and logic. Or you could have Roman cutting his usual listless promos as Bray talks circles around him and then Bray no sells like 20 Superman punches as people chant for everything but the wrestlers in the ring before getting bored and hitting the parking lot.
WWE badly needs both Roman and Bray to step up and take things from each other to make things more interesting and drive interest in the product. More real talk: wrestling, as an industry is dying. For all the talk and hype about how great AEW is, and how much better NXT is than WWE? 2 million people do not watch those shows. And it will not be long before WWE hemorrhages more viewers to where Raw and SmackDown can't draw 2 million viewers the way things are going.