It's hard to track the right time when Roman Reigns became a well-respected star, but after being pushed into our throats and acting like The Rock's second coming, Hulk Hogan's second coming, John Cena's second coming, and even The Undertaker's second coming, he is finally larger-than-life in WWE.
His Summer Slam pop was not a fluke.
Yes, Roman leveled up. If this was a decade ago and he said "o-wa" more than once in a segment, the second one would have been cringy. It still is, but it helped that the fans love this.
Hell, he made the fans cheer for it thrice.
I don't like Tama Tonga getting beaten up because they need to have layers.
That said, Tonga Loa's penchant as The New Bloodline's resident punching bag did him well here. And I guess they "lucked" out as Jacob Fatu's injury (or "injury") made him a fresh opponent to Roman Reigns.
The one thing I don't like about this is that while AEW leads every promotion in championships, WWE is right up there regarding objects. I get the Uncle Howdy and the Firefly Fun House masks but I am happy they got rid of the tape. That said, there is still the distracting rocking chair, lantern, and smoke machine. If they are going to make The Wyatt Sicks "normal" despite their "peculiar" situation, then one or two of these things need to be solely for backstage vignettes.
But the biggest beef about this is that Drew McIntyre is already going to places wearing CM Punk's bracelet as his trophy. The Ula Fala is the Samoan version of the fan-made bracelet that has the names AJ and Larry. They need a new plot device to power this feud because I fear that when John Cena gets into a feud, the random opponent is just going to steal his chain gang necklace and parade it like we just don't care.
Solo Sikoa felt like the budget version of The Tribal Chief. This is why they need to give him some fluke win or at least make him powerful enough to be at par with Roman. Solo looked out of place in the main event against Cody Rhodes and it didn't help that Cody's backup, Kevin Owens and Randy Orton, are former top-tier champions.
But if there's one thing about WWE, it's that they carefully molded their Bloodline storyline to perfection. Hopefully, the Survivor Series match would be awesome.