The Mafia-style storyline Roman Reigns mentioned a few weeks ago in which The Tribal Chief portrays a mob boss character and is the leader of a Samoan faction (with The Usos and maybe even a few other members) is beginning to take shape. The Tribal Chief is set to take on Jey Uso inside Hell in a Cell in what will apparently be “the highest stakes match in WWE history” (whatever that means). This will be the second match in the feud between the two cousins, who are also members of the Anoa’i family – right now Jey is buying time for his twin brother Jimmy to heal from an ACL tear he suffered at WrestleMania 36. I would guess that Jimmy might be able to return to WWE in December/January (because ACL’s typically take about 8 to 9 months to heal given the medical technology right now).
By the time Jimmy does ultimately come back, both Usos could be the first members of the stable led by Roman Reigns – being the head of the table and all! A couple of other members may or may not be added a couple of months later. WWE is placing a heavy amount of focus on The Big Dog’s rich Samoan heritage, so it would stand to reason that a potential blockbuster WrestleMania 37 main event lined up by Roman Reigns and The Rock – given the Rock’s deep connection with the Anoa’i family dating back to his grandfather Peter Maivia. If WWE is ever going to do this, now would be the time as The Great One is quickly approaching 50 years old (although with that man’s physique and training habits he might be okay to do the match even at 55).
Where does all this leave The Fiend – because originally, he was the big payoff match for The Tribal Chief’s Universal Title reign. Well first of all if The Rock is ever available to do anything with WWE, Mr. McMahon has essentially no choice other than to make it happen because it is money guaranteed. Secondly, right now The Fiend appears to be beginning a story with Kevin Owens and that will keep him occupied throughout the fall (Alexa Bliss will absolutely be heavily embroiled in that story – becoming a minion of The Fiend). Perhaps both Alexa and Bray Wyatt/The Fiend could be drafted over to Monday Night Raw so they can continue to use all their feud with KO. The rivalry between Reigns and The Fiend will likely manifest at some point (and it is still a possibility that it will happen sooner rather than later – maybe, maybe not). WWE still has quite a bit of time to make this happen considering they are 35 and 33 years old respectively.
The Tribal Chief became aware of the idea to introduce this new incarnation to the WWE universe after watching the movie Gangs of New York and being inspired by the Daniel Day Lewis’ character and how he felt justified to behave the way he did. The alliance with Paul Heyman and the idea of making Roman into the special attraction caps is It off beautifully – The Big Dog is now treated like the box office draw he is, similar to Brock Lesnar (Heyman clearly had a big role in the decision on how to present Roman given that the former executive director of Monday Night Raw has so much input on this storyline).
Reigns talks significantly more than Lesnar, as he should to develop comfortability as a heel and face of the company and Paul is taking a much more subservient role in this chapter of his career. With that said, Reigns is booked almost exactly like Brock. WWE just needs to be somewhat careful to not overexpose Reigns but rather keep doing exactly what they’re doing – because Roman has experienced overexposure several times before and that significantly hurt his development (Charlotte Flair experienced some of this a few months ago and is currently off TV).