So Braun Strowman rudely interrupted an interview with the taciturn Roman Reigns this past Monday on Raw, and boy did he ever dole out the punishment! He tossed him face-first into a wall, snatched him by the throat before throwing him headlong through a table, and as Reigns lingered forlornly in the venue’s entrance way, Braun powerslammed him onto a production trunk before crushing him with the most dastardly of rollable backstage implements.
That rolling metal toolbox sure looked heavy! But still it was not enough. Roman was already coughing up blood for God’s sake, but Braun reappeared as medics were strapping him to an ambulance gurney. And he only went and flung that gurney right off the loading dock, with Roman Reigns’ forsaken body still strapped right to it!
Will somebody stop the damn match, or ring the bell and start one if only so as to immediately re-ring it! This wasn’t hardcore – it was worse than that! Because still Braun could not be satiated. Now the medics, only going about their business, set to work loading Reigns into the ambulance. But a few stiff punches later, and with Reigns lying prone, Strowman slammed the doors of the ambulance and set about tipping it over!
With stretching sinews and bulging biceps, mustering every morsel of energy in what amounted to a humongous show of strength from the nigh-on seven-footer, Braun succeeded in laying the ambulance horizontal. Who knows how Reigns tossed and turned tied to the gurney inside? And for WWE, surely the stunt proved costly? Ambulances and gurneys after all hardly come cheap.
Eventually Reigns made it to the local hospital, and later in the broadcast, Michael Cole was at his most sombre as he read out the preliminary report: Reigns had suffered cracked ribs, internal injuries, and possibly a separated shoulder, yet thank the Lord up above that his extremities remained intact and his anus after all that more or less bloodless. Putting aside the sheer devastation which he felt over the exceedingly unfortunate turn of events, Cole perked up as he proceeded to lead us into the next ad spot.
Reigns – a thoughtful figure even at the best of times – had been busy contemplating the ramifications of his WrestleMania 33 victory over The Undertaker. Now his run of success has been brutally curtailed, the biggest dog in the whole of the yard turning and yelping at the beast another yard over. And still as Roman was utterly decimated, the crowd cheered before taunting him with cruel jeers of ‘Goodbye!’.
If Braun Strowman beats on Reigns for the rest of the year, will Roman then – and perhaps only then – finally get over? Will Braun pound on him more next week, as he remains confined to a hospital bed? ‘I’m not finished with you yet!’ could even go global, provided the WWE writers keep up the storytelling, and work extra-long shifts so as to manage the pace of the venture.
Shenanigans inside the hospital could take us through the spring, and perhaps a two-person trip to Europe to tide over the summer? Who wouldn’t enjoy seeing Reigns come out the other side of a currywurst stall somewhere in Berlin, or thrown by the seat of his pants right off the Eiffel Tower?
Eventually Reigns could become the first sports entertainer to take a stiff clothesline – or for that matter any other wrestling manoeuvre – on the springy canvas that is the surface of the moon? But WWE would still pipe in the cheers of an improbably grateful lunar audience, and Roman would no doubt be back in time to headline next year’s WrestleMania, leaving Braun Strowman glumly orbiting somewhere in space.
