Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns booked for WWE Roadblock

[Big Red Machine]

Source: www.F4WOnline.com


By Dave Meltzer | @davemeltzerWON | Nov 4, 2016 9:50 am

In a surprise, given this came largely out of nowhere, it was announced today that Kevin Owens will face Roman Reigns for the Universal title as the main event of the final WWE PPV of 2016, Roadblock, which takes place on December 18th at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, PA.

The surprise is that no angle has been shot for the match, and usually PPV main events aren't announced until after the angle is already shot. Plus there are two PPVs before this show takes place. Starting with the Brock Lesnar vs. Bill Goldberg match, the company has started announcing PPV main events before the prior PPV takes place, likely because UFC has been successful announcing matches well ahead of time.

We had reported yesterday that Owens vs. Reigns was going to be the new championship direction in December, but that information related to plans for house shows, which also changes by the week.

It's also notable since coming off the Hell in a Cell PPV, and how it was worked, it would have appeared that there would be an Owens vs. Seth Rollins vs. Chris Jericho program prior to the eventual Reigns program, which was always the direction, but not expected this quickly.

[Big Red Machine]

There is just SOOOO much wrong with this. First of all, they're going to get caught up in that same cycle of perpetually deserving title shots that Cena and Rollins were in last year that WWE's only way out of was to just ignore, which is never good. Secondly, as Dave mentions, is the complete abandonment of the direction they seem to have been building to for months in Owens vs. Rollins vs. Jericho (ideally followed by Owens vs. Jericho). If they were going to do this then just give us a f*cking clean finish in Hell in a Cell with Owens going over strong to end the feud.
Then there is the whole stupidity of "well if it works for UFC it should work for us, too" because they are vastly different products. If ROH or Evolve or New Japan want to announce matches a few shows in advance it works because they have more of a "real sports feel" than WWE does. In Evolve and New Japan (and to an unfortunately lesser extent, ROH) guys get title shots 99% of the time for winning a bunch of matches. In WWE it's always about angles, so them randomly announcing Champion vs. Champion two PPVs in advance feels odd.

How do you just abandon your direction like that? I'd love to know what changed in Vince's brain at some point (in the mid 2000's?) to make him this way. Or have they always been so insanely reactive and flighty in terms of direction and in terms of "if it works for other promotion X, let's do it, too" and I haven't noticed?