"He had a different wall to bounce off" — wrestling veteran comments on Roman Reigns' SmackDown segment (Exclusive)

Wrestling veteran Dutch Mantell was impressed by the opening segment of SmackDown involving Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins this week.

WWE SmackDown kicked off with The Usos celebrating the 508-day and counting reign of The Tribal Chief. Roman made his way to the ring to join the celebration. However, Seth Rollins decided to intervene and claimed that The Usos were responsible for Roman's historic title reign. This led to the main event match being set up for the evening where The Usos went up against Rollins and Kevin Owens.

Dutch Mantell was on Smack Talk this week with Sid Pullar III and wrestling journalist Bill Apter. Mantel said the opening segment of the show was refreshing because WWE finally moved away from the Brock-Roman story for a while:

"It was different. You still had Roman out there but now he had a different wall to bounce off of. That's what I like because now they're starting a new story and they have everywhere to go with it. Before it was just the same old, same old with Brock and finally they wrapped that up."

You can watch the full video here:

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Roman Reigns interfered in the main event of SmackDown this week

Tonight's main event had a stipulation that if Rollins & Owens defeated The Usos, then the SmackDown Tag Team Champions would be barred from ringside at the Rumble. Reigns added his own caveat that if Rollins and his partner Owens lost the match, The Visionary would forfeit his Universal title Match.

During the main event, as Rollins executed the Stomp, Roman Reigns emerged out of nowhere and struck him down with a Superman Punch, causing a disqualification. Rollins and Owens won the match and The Usos will not be at ringside during the Universal Championship match at the premium live event on January 29 in St. Louis, MI.

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