Roadblock: End of the Line

[JamieStevenson]

On Sunday 18th December 2016 we'll see the 2nd event under the Roadblock banner. The first one was a WWE Network special event whereas this time around it's been brought back as a new PPV for the Raw Brand. WWE are promoting this with one big question in mind; Is Roman the "end of the line" for Owens' title reign.

Here's a little teaser featuring the top stars:

 

The main event is now official, Kevin Owens will have to defend his WWE Universal Championship against the WWE United States Champion Roman Reigns. Over the past few weeks, there has been tension between best friends Owens and Jericho, which is mainly revolved around Y2J's beloved LIST. First of all at Survivor Series, Kevin Owens used the list as a weapon trying to save his best friend, which in return got himself eliminated from the match. Y2J was in such disbelief that he just used the list and his papers were scattered everywhere, that he too was eliminated thanks to an RKO.

Following on from that we've had back-to-back Highlight Reel segments featuring the pair which have been teasing the break up, this first clip shows them breaking down the reason for the loss at Survivor Series.

 

This week's Highlight Reel saw Jeri-KO discussing what they are thankful for. When Roman Reigns came down, Jericho was trying to defend his friend and to put Reigns on the list, but KO interrupted him, shouting at him to shut up. Owens also told everyone that he doesn't need Jericho. The look on Jericho's face for the remainder of the segment was priceless. 

 

Here's the real moment the friendship ends:

 

Where does Roman Reigns come into this I hear you ask? He sensed the tension and with Seth seemingly now out of the title picture, somebody needed to step up. Reigns challenged Kevin Owens to a match on Raw and if he won he'd get a shot at the WWE Universal Championship at Roadblock. With Jericho no longer in his corner, Owens was left exposed in a 1 on 1 and Reigns won the match with a spear.

Here are the highlights:

 

 

Our next main storyline, has pretty much been linked with the main event, although this has some slightly different circumstances involved. For months Seth Rollins was feuding with Kevin Owens, receiving multiple title shots in the process. Seth Rollins had already been screwed by former Authority figure/mentor Triple H when he gifted Kevin Owens the Universal Championship. Ever since then, Chris Jericho has constantly been getting involved in his matches. He got involved in the title match at Night Of Champions. Jericho also managed to lock himself inside the Hell in a Cell to help his best friend out. Rollins was offered one last shot at Kevin Owens title recently on Raw, Jericho was banned from ringside but still managed to attack him from the crowd wearing a Sin Cara mask and costing him once again.

Kevin Owens gave Rollins a pop up powerbomb on the apron, which he believed hurt him real bad, and wasn't medically cleared to show up on Raw the following week. In the aftermath of the Jeri-KO bust up, Y2J was looking to leave when a certain foe showed up to put him in his place.

Chris Jericho is trying to quietly go about his business now, but that seems unlikely as Kevin Owens is insistent on trying to rebuild the Jeri-KO friendship. Kevin spoke to Stephanie McMahon (who was not on Raw for once) and managed to get approval for some matches for Y2J in an attempt to win him back. The first match was a WWE United States Championship match vs Roman Reigns, a match for a belt that has eluded him his whole career. The second is the match vs Seth Rollins at Roadblock, a match where Y2J can get revenge for the parking lot attack he suffered. Despite KO doing this for him, Y2J insists that things have not changed and he still wants nothing to do with him. 

Despite being clear that Kevin Owens needs to stay well away from him and not get involved in his business, he still came down to the ring and got involved in the title match, here are the match highlights:

 

 

Moving on to the women now, I had prepared paragraphs about what I thought was going to happen here but fair play to WWE they've thrown a complete spanner in the works on the recent edition of Raw. In Charlotte's home town, she had to defend in the first ever Women's Falls Count Anywhere match in the main event. It was a terrific match and a shock result to go with it. Charlotte will of course need to have her rematch and I can only presume that it will now take place at Roadblock, I've lost count of how many title matches they've had now but it's got to be a lot as Sasha is already on her 3rd reign. I've seen a lot of people losing patience with this run that they're on, I've enjoyed it, they're making history but they do need to kill it off sooner rather than later.

Here are the match highlights but I do advise to WATCH THE FULL MATCH:

Charlotte lost the belt in her hometown and of course has a rematch clause, so Sasha Banks challenged her for a match at Roadblock, a match that will be a 30-minute Iron Man match. As if this feud needed any more animosity, we now have the fact that Sasha dedicated her victory to Charlotte's father Ric Flair. In the main event segment of Raw, Charlotte came out to *apologise* to her dad for disowning 6 months ago, instead actually slapping him. This caught the attention of Sasha who then rushed down to the ring to save Ric. Charlotte completely destroyed the champion, ragdolling her and then presenting her to Ric in the ring.

 

 

Another big talking point right now is if The New Day will actually break Demolition's record of 478 days as tag team champions. By my calculations I believe the 479th day, the record breaking day is 14th of December so all they have to do is hold on to the belts for another 2 Raw shows. Assuming they get past that, they'll need challengers for Roadblock. The New Day have been up to their old tricks again and winning matches via heel shenanigans. The team with the greatest claim for the title shot has to be Sheamus and Cesaro. They were the sole survivors in the elimination tag team match, and as of this week's Raw, for the first time they appear to be together on the same page as they engage in a good old fashioned bar brawl.

It remains to be seen whether or not The New Day will actually defend their titles at Roadblock after they broke the record for longest reign. On Raw they  successfully defended in two separate triple threat matches.  

Match vs Cesaro and Sheamus announced on 14/12 as expected. Cesaro and Sheamus became #1 contenders after winning a match at Tribute to the Troops.

 

 

One fascinating match up that is bound to happen is Sami Zayn vs Braun Strowman. This all begun when Strowman was destroying jobbers on a weekly basis, he repeatedly asked for tougher competition and when Foley sent out Sami Zayn to face him originally, Strowman completely dismissed him as a worthy competitor.

 

This feud really picked up again as a result of Sami Zayn failing to capture the Intercontinental Championship at Survivor Series. As punishment, Mick Foley set him up for another match with Braun Strowman. After a massacring, Mick Foley came out and decided that Sami could no longer defend himself and stopped the match. Sami the following week exchanged words with Mick Foley, Mick stated "you will never win". Will we see the underdog from the underground get his chance against the monster that is Strowman?

Sami Zayn has been begging for another shot at Braun Strowman and Mick Foley has been declining over and over again, they even teased the possibility of a trade to SmackDown. This week Sami took all of his rage out on Foley and in doing so was then finally granted his match against Strowman, in what appeared to be some sort of test from old Mick to see if he had what it takes to go at it with the monster. Braun Strowman said Sami wouldn't last 2 minutes inside the ring with him, so Mick Foley has put a 10 minute time limit on this match to see if Sami can survive.

 

 

The WWE Cruiserweight Championship remains on the Raw brand and they need to build some new stars and integrate some storyline as they've not really bothered so far. We don't know an awful lot about the people in the division but I'm sure they'll get to that with 205 Live. Recently there was a #1 contenders match to determine who would face Brian Kendrick for the title on the first episode of 205 Live. Rich Swann, who's been on a roll as of late was victorious in that match. He then went on to defeat Brian Kendrick on 205 Live and therefore became the new WWE Cruiserweight Champion.

On the second episode of 205 Live, Brian Kendrick got his rematch against Rich Swann. TJ Perkins was on commentary for this one and Kendrick was distracted by him which led to Swann retaining. Kendrick then proceeded to attack Perkins post-match whilst Swann was heading back up the ramp. Swann rushed back to try and save him, Kendrick outsmarted them both which lead to him standing tall at the end of the episode after Perkins accidentally super kicked the champion. TJ Perkins is still due a rematch after losing the title previously, potential triple threat match on the horizon. 

Match was made official before the go home episode of Raw.

 

 

Now we move on to a little something that's been brewing in the background of all the major storylines. "Rusev is the only man that can have me". This all started when Enzo Amore was seen naked in front of Lana, which Rusev of course didn't take too kindly to as he felt his wife was being embarrassed. Rusev then crushed Enzo later that night in the ring too.

The following week on Raw, Enzo & Cass cut a Thanksgiving promo on Rusev before facing him once again. Enzo proclaims that during Thanksgiving, Lana was sitting there the whole time thinking about Enzo stuffing her turkey . Rusev lost the match by DQ for a swift kick to the balls for once again disrespecting his wife..

This week on Raw, Rusev and Lana appeared to be arguing backstage, Big Cass told Enzo not to get involved but did so anyway. Lana took off her ring and Enzo consoled her, she then invited him up to her hotel room for what he believed to be some fun with her. Rusev set up a match with Big Cass, Cass was waiting in the ring for Rusev to show and once he realised he wasn't showing up.... He went to get a phone and try to contact Enzo to warn him about Rusev. Enzo didn't answer as it came up as an unknown number and was then lured into the room by Lana. Enzo tried to leave several times but Lana's sexual appeal and charm was keeping him there until it was too late and seen it was a trap when Rusev came out and savagely attacked Enzo whilst he was in his undies .

I think this is heading towards Rusev vs Big Cass as Enzo is clearly not able to deal with the Bulgarian brute and has taken far too many beatings already. If you cast your mind back to the qualifier matches for a spot in the WWE Universal Championship fatal-4-way match, Big Cass qualified as Rusev wanted absolutely nothing to do with him and got himself counted out.

Rusev has put Enzo on the shelf for a bit, so his partner Big Cass will step up to the Bulgarian brute this Sunday and get revenge on behalf on Enzo Amore

 

 

Here is the official theme for the PPV: 

 

Confirmed Matches:

Big Cass.vs Rusev (Kickoff Match).

Rich Swann (C) vs TJ Perkins vs Brian Kendrick for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship.

Sami Zayn vs Braun Strowman. (10 minute time limit)

The New Day (C) vs Cesaro and Sheamus for the WWE Raw Tag Team Championships.

Sasha Banks (C) vs Charlotte in a 30-Minute Iron Man match for the WWE Raw Women's Championship.

Seth Rollins vs Chris Jericho.

Kevin Owens (C) vs Roman Reigns for the WWE Universal Championship.

 

Possible Matches:

Jack Gallacher vs Ariya Daivari.

 

 

 

Official poster for the event:

[Ira Gaines]

I can see Kevin Owens coming through that match. Just seems to be all building to that title change so obviously, so I can see a curveball getting thrown.

[JamieStevenson]

Do people even read this? Have I got too many videos in and it's making it difficult to scroll through? I can put them all in spoilers if it's easier.

I can see KO winning. His run is very much like Rollins', he could do with a clean win in the run up to the big PPV's. I couldn't think of anything worse than having Reigns with two belts, and they've only recently done that with Rollins too anyway.

[Ira Gaines]

There's no way he wins clean if he wins. As much as Owens could do with that, they WILL still look to protect Reigns somewhat with the booking if they have Owens win.

And the only problem with the videos is a slightly longer loading time for me. Other than that, no bother.

[JamieStevenson]

7 minutes ago, Randy Giles said:

There's no way he wins clean if he wins. As much as Owens could do with that, they WILL still look to protect Reigns somewhat with the booking if they have Owens win.

Jeri-KO to spend a few weeks not talking, walking out on each other in tag matches etc. Only for Jericho to help out KO in the main event and embrace him at the end 

[SilverWolfe]

Do people even read this? Have I got too many videos in and it's making it difficult to scroll through? I can put them all in spoilers if it's easier.

I can see KO winning. His run is very much like Rollins', he could do with a clean win in the run up to the big PPV's. I couldn't think of anything worse than having Reigns with two belts, and they've only recently done that with Rollins too anyway.

I read them Jamie, keep it up. I skip by the cruiserweight stuff, just can't get into it and don't watch the videos as have already watched the shows.

Anyone understand why Reigns still has the US belt? Absolutely pointless him having it if he's going to be back in the main title scene again. Unless they have something planned to unite the belts I don't see how they get round this. You can't have your number one contender for the main title lose a mid card title at the same time and expect him to look strong

[JamieStevenson]

Seth Rollins vs Chris Jericho announced. We also have Sasha Banks vs Charlotte in a 30 min iron man match. This is going to be fantastic.

[forameus]

Can't really get myself up for this one so far.  At least with TLC you had the gimmicks to fall back on, but neither Reigns vs Owens or Rollins vs Jericho really excites.  They'll be good solid matches, but looks like HHH is a lock to get involved in the latter, and I'd be amazed if Owens didn't win the former.

The Iron Man/Woman match though...now that is something.  Especially if they have it main event.  

[JamieStevenson]

The Reigns/Owens/Rollins/Jericho stuff is a bit annoying to write about as they all seem to be feuding with each other.

[JamieStevenson]

Cruiserweight title match has been added.

[JamieStevenson]

We also have Big Cass vs Rusev on the Kickoff Show & Sami Zayn vs Braun Strowman which I believe has a 10 minute time limit.

[JamieStevenson]

Tag title match official

[forameus]

So New Day to lose the titles now they have no reason to retain?  Or are they going to go forward with a heel turn for them and have someone knock them off at either the Rumble or WM?

[NathanQP]

Would rather see The Club go nuts now but it ain't going happen

[Francesc Fabregas]

Fair play to you, "JamieStevenson" - my interest in wrestling is pretty low at the moment and I haven't watched Raw for a number of weeks, so your write-ups and recaps going into these PPVs are hugely appreciated.

Don't ever think your effort goes to waste.

[Poet of the Macabre]

Will be able to watch this but unsure if I'll bother staying up. Could be a few good matches tbf.

[Ira Gaines]

Looks a very solid PPV.

[Dave1875]

How much money does that Bayern Munich guy have? He's been at nearly every PPV and it's rare to not see him on either a Raw or SD one week, in the front row each and every time as well

[JamieStevenson]

When it went to OT you just knew Charlotte was taking her belt back. Truly the greatest woman of all time. Sasha with blood everywhere making it so much sweeter.

[JamieStevenson]

There's the best friends back together. Typical