The ending of this week's episode of Monday Night Raw had a lot of significance in terms of the expected outcome of the upcoming Clash OF Champions PPV and the way WWE programming could turn out to be after the show.
However, while the main event of the company's flagship show raised the stakes for their first Brand Exclusive PPV, it also led to many complaints that the WWE gave away a PPV worthy match in Roman Reigns vs Kevin Owners for free for the second week in a row.
It looks like WWE officials had strong reasons to set up such a high caliber main event on Raw just 6 nights away from the upcoming PPV.
According to the reports from Cagesideseats.com, WWE gave away such a PPV worthy match on RAW because of the competition they are facing in terms of TV ratings from the ongoing National Football League better known as NFL.
It's well documented that the third hour of Raw has been consistently clocking in poor ratings compared to the first and second hour of the show since the start of the major football league. So announcing a steel cage main event in the first hour of the show was a strategic decision by WWE to build the excitement towards the final hour of the Red-branded show and to prevent fans from changing the channel after the kickoff.
As seen on Raw this week, the show started off with an angry Roman Reigns expressing his displeasure regarding the events of the past 2 weeks. He was interrupted by Commissioner Stephnie McMahon and the General Manager Mick Foley.
After the verbal back and forth, Foley announced that Roman Reigns will face Rusev for the US Title at COC and will also get his hands on WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens in a steel cage match in the main event.
Later on in the show, the main event saw Roman Reigns beating Kevin Owens by escaping the cage. While Roman got the clean victory, WWE saved Owens by avoiding the pinfall 6 nights before his first title defense. It shows that WWE still has faith in Ownes and the talks of him losing his title this Sunday are mere rumors.
After the match, Roman Reigns was attacked by his SummerSlam opponent Rusev and both Kevin Owens and Rusev went on to assault the former Shield Member inside the steel cage. The beatdown didn't last long as the former WWE World Heavyweight Champion was helped by Seth Rollins, who jumped on Ownes and Rusev from the top of the massive steel structure to end the show wth all four men lying in the ring.
The final act by Rollins not only put a stamp on his face turn but also gave us an idea of a possible Shield reunion in the future.
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