MrHashasheen
Enjoying Wrestling
Premise: Get Roman over in time for Rumble.
Warning: This gets fan-servicey.
Warning: This gets fan-servicey.
Take him off TV after Hell in a Cell.
Have Bray Wyatt beat him at Hell in a Cell, and completely smash him.
Like, get colour on him by the end of it (but not on camera), piledrive him through an announce table, beat his back with a singapore cane.
Basically the old Tommy Dreamer push.
After that, he goes away. Have him down at the Performance Center for a month working on promos, maybe two. Have him do a couple of vignettes on NXT tv trying to rehab his body, building to a match at a TakeOver to see if he can still go. Have him interact with local babyface heroes like Bayley, Sami Zayn, Hideo Itami, people who've also hit serious professional slumps before moving on. Maybe have him act as a guest enforcer in a match here and there or offer to act as a tag team partner (if turned down because of his own condition), basically building his cred for the NXT fanbase without being obnoxious.
Have Bray get wind of this (having been doing squash matches, cutting promos and building a larger cult out of lower card wrestlers), and send in a monster to finish the job. Maybe someone from the Wyatt Family, maybe someone from the Indies. Hell, rip off the old Harley Race angle and have a stream of monsters come in from the indies as Wyatt Family brothers trying to kill him. Do a vignette once a week where Roman is in a backstage fight that is creative in terms of area and sees him do a different element of street fighting.
You do all this to build to the match at Takeover, where he's going to fight an unknown opponent (every time Regal names someone, Wyatt has him fucked up). It gets to the point where Regal blatantly says on camera that he's not sure the match is going to take place at all.
We get to NXT TakeOver. Matches come and go, and people still haven't seen Roman show up. Regal says he didn't get his flight, and his family haven't seen him in days. Wonders aloud if Bray Wyatt just got him outside the ring instead of letting him come in today. Admits outright people stopped wanting to face Roman, and that if Roman does show up, it's going to be an open challenge.
The NXT Commentary Team has a field day with this, just speculating as to what is going on, if any of them knows anything.
The entire show comes and goes, and the main event of the show even passes. People are about to get up and leave, but amazingly, Roman does show up, making his way through the crowd. Cuts a one minute promo about how he didn't take his flight but drove up instead, because he had a lot on his mind. About if he was going to wrestle, what he had to prove to himself, to his family, to Bray Wyatt, etc...
And then he decided it didn't matter. That he was going to put his working boots on, get in the ring, and fight. He calls out the locker-room, calls out anyone who wants to fight him.
Cue Bray Wyatt, with every muscle and monster who's been attacking Roman. He cuts a quick promo on Roman, about how he's been trying to hurt him, trying to teach him a lesson he just doesn't want to learn. He's let lesser men try to impart the lesson, but the time for lesser men is gone. The time for men is gone. This is a time of gods, of the god that is Bray Wyatt.
He drags out William Regal, and forces him to declare the match a lumberjack match.
"Anyone But You, Roman."
Cue a repeat of their Hell in a Cell match, with spots for Roman to get thrown out and get his shit kicked in before Bray tells his army to throw him back in. Roman gets regular hope spots, slowly getting more and more heat even as Bray cuts him off by feeding him to the lumberjacks to let both men catch their breath.
Roman gets a busted lip, Roman gets a tweaked shoulder. He starts fighting slower and slower, and Bray is reveling in it, cutting brief promos on a house mic. So much so, that at last he goes for his first pin attempt (yes, conservation of pins in all this), to finish Roman for good...
Only for Roman to kick at 2 9/10ths.
Bray is furious. Bray is livid. Bray is homicidal.
The beatings continue, because Bray's morale has not improved. But even as they do, even as Roman takes more and more of a beating (again, shades of Tommy Dreamer vs. Sandman). At one point it's outright ripping off Dreamer vs. Sandman, with Bray just outright caning him in between the ropes, with the referee begging Roman to give up.
There are people crying in the stands. Kids are having their eyes covered their parents. There are some wrestlers filtering out from the back, hesitating but clearly wanting to help. Roman looks like he might just lose the match because he's unable to compete...
And then the Shield music plays, and out come Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins in their old gear and armed with kendo sticks. And suddenly, something flashes in Roman's eyes.
Bray orders his army to take out the ex-Shield members, and it's looking pretty bad for the two main eventers as they look to take on a whole army.
And then the NXT music plays, and a counter-army of NXT heroes files out. Enzo and Big Cass, Bayley, Sami Zayn, Hideo Itami, pretty much anyone who's interacted with Roman Reigns and had a good memory is out here right now.
And they're all armed to fucking teeth, with kendo sticks, pipes and bats.
There's a tense stand off for a moment, as Bray shouts something unintelligible from the ring while Roman relishes the moment to recover.
And then all hell breaks loose.
Surprisingly, Bayley is the first to charge, rushing past the ex-Shield duo in a somewhat funny moment to knee one of Bray's female cultists in the face (I'm thinking Blue Pants). Dean and Seth share a look as she does so, before shrugging and following suit to attack Braun Strowman and Luke Harper. Three seconds later, there's a war happening across the entire ringside and aisle area, with the cameras struggling to catch it all. (In a moment of pre-planning, certain spots in this massive brawl will be timed so that they can be caught on camera during the live feed as appropriate).
The brawl is expansive and insane, with shots of certain wrestlers going mental (Big Cass launching Enzo at Marcus Louis, Bayley Hug-Plexing a female cultist into another female cultist, Sami Zayn and Hideo Itami sending Erick Rowan to the other with chops, etc...) to describe it appropriately. Dean and Seth fight their way to the ring, where Roman Reigns has escaped his entrapment in the ring ropes to crawl to a corner while Bray has been knocking down scrubs nearing the the ring (and getting in the first ref bum of the night).
Entering the ring, Dean goes for Roman while Seth stands between them and Bray. He looks at his ex-Shield brethren and then looks to Bray, looking nothing so much like a frenzied psychopath. Seth hesitantly teases leaving Dean and Roman to Bray's clutches or attacking them with him... only to try and superkick Bray in his typical devious way.
Bray clotheslines for his impudence, and looks to curbstomp him ironically for his action... only for Dean to come flying in to save Seth. Bray meets him as an equal however, even overpowering him to the point it seems Dean's about to get fucked-
Only to spot Roman standing up once more. Smiling, Bray throws first Dean then Seth out of the ring onto the brawling wrestlers, before turning to Roman as the ref manages to get to his feet.
The two lock eyes, and then Bray falls upon Roman with a vengeance. Only this time, he's not having as much effect. Or rather he is, but Roman's too far gone to notice any of it, physically and mentally fucked as he is.
The two trade punches, strangle each other and commit all manner of dirty fighting as they go from corner to corner. The ref's got one eye on the brawl outside (where other refs and backstage are trying to pull people apart) and another on the duo actually wrestling. Roman is slowly gaining more momentum as he goes along, his completely wrecked state means he gives no shits and is shrugging of Bray's attacks through sheer willpower while meeting him punch for punch.
Bray's confidence slips and slips, and even as they fight he begins shouting in all manner of tongues and fell speech, cursing Roman, his followers, the referee, Bayley, anyone he can think of as Roman Just. Keeps. Coming.
Eventually, the end is academic, predictable, and perhaps even an eye-roller. But it is what happens, what is always meant to happen. Romans fights his way to the finish, and hits all his moves. All his finishers, all his gimmicks. But Bray is the more rested man, and he recovers quick enough that Roman doesn't even have time to go for the pin.
So Roman goes outside his playbook. Pulls out something the fans have never seen him do before. A move that will become his defining "they're dead" match-ender for years to come.
He hits a Steiner Screwdriver.
And the place fucking goes ballistic. People are marking out, chanting Holy shit, it's all just erupting. By now most of the ringside has been cleared for wrestlers, and except for Dean and Seth there's nothing to draw attention from the ring.
Nothing to draw attention, as Roman finally goes for his first pin of the match.
1... 2... 3.
And just like that, it's over. Done. Dusted. Roman Reigns has finally conquered Bray Wyatt. And so it fades to black, with the fans chanting and Dean and Seth checking on an utterly exhausted Roman Reigns.
Cut to Royal Rumble.
Roman Reigns has not appeared on an episode of WWE television since then, reportedly recovering at home. Fake leaks have circulated that both he and Bray Wyatt have been given time off until after the Rumble, upon which time they're due to repeat their performance at Wrestlemania to really steal the show. And seemingly this is true, as neither man shows up on television, the Wyatt Family is barely mentioned, and not even Dean or Seth acknowledge it.
Until the Royal Rumble comes, at least.
Matches come and go for the entirety of the show, until it's time for the main event. People are nervous and anticipatory, some expecting Roman or Bray to make an appearance in this match. Some are already booing the idea that Roman will make his triumphant return here to go to Wrestlemania, and others are hoping it will be Dean or Seth's year.
Suddenly, a hype video plays on the titan tron, one which plays through the PPV feed to every person watching.
Well, I say hype video.
It's really a summing up of everything that happened over the last few months on NXT television. From Roman's arrival to his final match, it's a stirring five minute program hitting all the high spots.
And then it ends. And as it ends, an unfamiliar theme song begins to play. Take your pick, my creativity's begun to tap out. As it plays, Roman Reigns makes his return to WWE PPV, dressed in new attire and sporting a short haircut. He walks down to the ring, a small smile on his face as he acknowledges those fans cheering or booing. He walks into the ring, and awaits the second participant into the Royal Rumble.
Music hits, and this time it's very familiar music, as Bray Wyatt walks out. He smiles at Roman and Roman smiles at him, even as the commentary team goes stir-crazy over the two already going face-to-face.
And so begins the Royal Rumble. Which Roman wins of course, but I might come back here and book that as well. And then after that the Road to Wrestlemania.
