Since Braun Stowman struck out on his own two years ago, he has been a force of nature that few people could slow down, let alone stop. The occasional loss to Brock Lesnar, Roman Reigns and, weirdly, Kalisto, aside, Strowman has been charging hard toward the top of the pecking order on Monday Night Raw, which presents some unique issues with a character who has been as dominant as he has.
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here had to be a bold move to slow Strowman's momentum without something cheap like Kevin Owens' interference costing Strowman the title shot and burning the opportunity away -- and this was as bold as it gets.
In many ways, this was the ultimate heel move. Strowman gave forewarning that he was going to cash in and did exactly what he said he was going to do. He also didn't use any weapons or blindside Reigns -- Strowman charged straight forward. By stifling that cash-in with outside help, Reigns proved he couldn't handle Strowman on his own in that environment.
Now, I could be very wrong about how this conflict will play out going forward, but it seems unlikely that Reigns, the newly conquering hero, will be presented as a bad guy. Similarly, with the overwhelming support Strowman is receiving from fans right now, he's not really the bad guy either. In reality, WWE has taken four of Raw's hottest acts, including the new Intercontinental champion and the white-hot returning star, and put them up against one another.
If Rollins and Ambrose are to merely play support in propping up Reigns and preventing a cavalcade of boos every week, it's a dangerous path to travel for very long. Both Rollins and Ambrose are in the midst of their most popular runs in recent memory, and outside of Strowman, they are receiving the purest babyface reactions of anyone on the Raw roster.
Bold moves come with risks, to be sure, and the dynamic between The Shield and Strowman should be fascinating to watch in the coming weeks. No matter the result, positive of negative, a dramatic shift in power is now in progress.
With the tremendous amount of fallout from Sunday night's WWE SummerSlam pay-per-view, the contributors of WWE on ESPN have each worked to extrapolate one key match on the WrestleMania 35 card, ranging from clearly foreseeable to intensely optimistic.
Intergender wrestling: Equality for women, or violence against them?
The optics of intergender wrestling can be shocking. But those who participate say pitting women against men in the ring is a step toward equality.
SummerSlam recaps: Roman Reigns, Ronda Rousey, Seth Rollins and Charlotte Flair win gold
Roman Reigns finally got the best of Brock Lesnar, Ronda Rousey became a WWE champion and Seth Rollins and Charlotte Flair recaptured gold in Brooklyn.
When Lesnar was holding the Universal championship, his sporadic appearances meant that Strowman holding the briefcase wasn't much of an issue. But with Reigns having won said title at SummerSlam, it's hard to explain Strowman being anything but the persistently forward-moving movie monster that won't stop until its achieved its goal -- and that's exactly what we got near the close of Monday Night Raw.
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