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World Wrestling Entertainment presents Roadblock-The End of the Line, its final pay per view event of 2016 this evening live from Pittsburgh with Roman Reigns challenging Kevin Owens for the Universal title and Sasha Banks defending the women’s championship against Charlotte Flair in a 30-minute Iron Woman bout as the show’s top two attractions.
The polarizing Reigns has patiently worked his way back into the championship picture with a late September United States title victory over Rusev at Clash of the Champions. He also pinned Rusev this past Wednesday night on the Tribute To The Troops special, but has been focused on Owens and the brand’s top belt during recent weeks, including going through Chris Jericho, who was used unsuccessfully as a roadblock by Owens. TTTT is one of several really special things WWE does each year and they brought back Lilian Garcia (who left to care for her elderly father as he is having serious health issues) to sing the national anthem for the show.
Jericho could well play a role in the Reigns-Owens encounter this evening, though he will have his own hands full with the talented Seth Rollins in what should be another very solid match. Y2J, one of the last of the territory guys who learned well many of the tricks of the trade traveling in cars from show to show and town to town with veteran performers in what Jim Ross aptly referred to as “rolling classrooms” that provided invaluable insights into the psychology of the wrestling business, has re-invented himself once again with an entertaining run as a kooky sidekick to fellow Canadian Owens in a storyline that sports all of the classic signs of leading to an eventual split and feud.
The long-awaited match between Braun Strowman and Sami Zayn will take place tonight at Roadblock after another impassioned promo by Zayn directed at GM Mick Foley, who threatened to trade Zayn to Smackdown for Eva Marie to make sure he had Sami properly fired up to face the ugliest member of the Wyatt clan, a line that may be politically incorrect and open for debate as there could be several legit candidates for that dubious title. Foley, by the way, is going to be one of the slimmer Santas around this year as he has reportedly dropped an impressive 100 pounds since this time last year. That DDP yoga works wonders.
Monday’s go home show for Roadblock came from the Wells Fargo Center in Philly last Monday. Much of it centered around the New Day’s quest to break the record for longest tag team title reign and they managed an early victory in a three-way before spraying celebratory champagne on Stephanie McMahon, sufficiently raising the ire of the boss to the point where she ordered them to have to wrestle again with Reigns and Rollins and Owens and Jericho in another three-way to tease that they might yet fail to set the record. However, they managed to win again. They will face Sheamus and Cesaro tonight at the ppv and a title change there wouldn’t be a huge surprise.
We also got a lengthy recap of the Banks-Flair feud to promote tonight’s historic Iron Woman match. Brian Kendrick once again defeated TJ Perkins in a cruiserweight battle and Strowman made short work of Curtis Axel. The next Raw in Philly is scheduled to be the go home show for WrestleMania on 3-27-17, but before that, Ric Flair will be appearing as a special celebrity guest at the 25th annual Wing Bowl eating contest scheduled for February 3rd.
At Smackdown, Ziggler remarkably secured a future title shot at the currently injured AJ Styles by winning a four-way over Ambrose, the Miz and Luke Harper. He just failed again to win the IC belt from the Miz, but he is now the top contender for the world title. Go figure. Not that his match with Styles won’t be good because it will probably be great, but the booking is crazy. They did a deal where they sent James Ellsworth home due to illness, so he did not get the promised title match at Smackdown even though it is actually AJ who is hurt. Styles should be back for the MSG show the day after Christmas, also the date of Cena’s scheduled to return.
Shinsuke Nakamura retained the NXT title over Samoa Joe in a steel cage rematch in Melbourne, Australia that aired in part on the WWE Network this past Wednesday. That would free Joe to head to the main roster. It would be nice to have him as a surprise Royal Rumble entrant next month or better yet, have him show up tonight to start a feud with Reigns or Zayn or anybody for that matter.
