It’s about time The Big Dog reclaimed his yard in WWE. Vince McMahon did not forget about Roman Reigns (his handpicked face of the company). Instead, he may have swallowed his pride and recognized that he elected to push Roman as a top babyface a little too early for the WWE universe to fully buy into. Now, after Reigns’ second successful triumph over leukemia, Vince spent 2019 building him up as a face in a believable manner.
Now that it’s 2020, Reigns is ready to face The Fiend at WrestleMania and probably defeat him. This time, The Big Dog deserves an extended run as Universal Champion, because unbelievably, he has not held a major championship for more than about two months.
The Miz’s heel turn is now in full swing, making him the fourth man The Fiend has changed as a person and the third man he has turned heel (the other three being Finn Balor, Seth Rollins, and Daniel Bryan). The reason the storyline with The Fiend/Bray Wyatt is so intriguing is that there are so many different layers to it. John Morrison is also a de facto heel by association with Miz.
It certainly looks like we are headed towards a SmackDown Women’s Championship match between Lacey Evans and Bayley, who is working surprisingly well as a heel. I think it’s safe to say that no one was quite sure how, or if, she would be taken as a threat, but she is playing the role in a surprisingly believable manner.
The writing is on the wall for WWE to book an Intercontinental Championship match at Royal Rumble between the champion Shinsuke Nakamura and Braun Strowman. Strowman is pretty much guaranteed to win the recently redesigned IC Title and secure his first singles title in WWE (which is unbelievable). Maybe this could precipitate Nakamura undergoing a change of heart and switching his character to the babyface side of the equation.
In theory, Strowman should be taken way more seriously than he is today. One would think by default that he would be perceived as a major threat to win the men’s Royal Rumble match, but in reality, that idea would seem out of context with his character. It’s incredibly hard to believe, because The Monster Among Men should be (at least one would think) booked similarly to how Charlotte Flair is in Royal Rumble matches
Otis needs to become a major champion in WWE one day because he has money written all over him. It might take seven or eight years to build him as a legit title contender – but it will happen considering that he’s only 28 years old. He will be a force to be reckoned with in WWE for many years to come, but he will likely serve as a comedy act for the next several years.
His storyline with Mandy Rose is the best story going in WWE right now. The WWE universe resonates with it because there is some sort of unspoken quality about Otis that makes him very easy to root for. And the whole gimmick with the cakes is hilarious.