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What's the story?
There has been a lot of speculation surrounding Roman Reigns' return and a tonne of speculation surrounding when Monday Night RAW will retaliate after SmackDown LIVE's siege of the flagship show. Now, new reports from Cageside Seats suggest the two are linked.
In case you didn't know...
The latest reports on Roman Reigns' return suggested that he would miss the European tour but would be back just in time for Survivor Series — speculation from several sources has him being added to the Monday Night RAW Survivor Series team.
As for when Monday Night Raw will invade SmackDown LIVE in retaliation for the events that took place after TLC 2017, the latest we had on that was it was unlikely to be soon with the tour dates keeping each brand too far apart.
The heart of the matter
Now, it seems that the WWE is waiting for Roman Reigns to return before having Monday Night RAW pay a visit to SmackDown LIVE. Cageside Seats reports that the plans seem to be for Roman Reigns to lead the charge against the blue brand on his return.
Another reason WWE is holding off on Raw retaliating against SmackDown is because they’re hoping Roman Reigns will be healthy enough to lead the charge on the PPV go home.
What's next?
This report seems to correlate with when we can expect Roman Reigns to return, with a RAW invasion of SmackDown lined up for the 13th November. This would make sense storyline-wise as well, with RAW going into Survivor Series with the last minute momentum
Author's take
Whilst I understand that Roman Reigns is a big draw for the company, and sort-of the face of Monday Night RAW, would it have hurt the WWE to keep him off of television until after Survivor Series? Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins have looked incredible without him, and Survivor Series should be about Kurt Angle trying to keep his job, not Reigns leading the RAW team to victory.
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