What’s the story?
It seems that Braun Strowman’s devastating assault on Roman Reigns on the April 10th episode of RAW didn’t sit well with some fans. In fact, one fan took it upon herself to create a petition demanding that the WWE fire Strowman for assaulting the Big Dog.
In case you didn’t know....
Change.org is a popular petition website, where people can create a legitimate petition to, as the name implies, create meaningful change. However, sometimes this gets abused, and people sometimes tend to create absurd and unrealistic petitions just for the sake of eliciting a reaction from readers.
This petition is stemming from the Braun Strowman’s brutal assault on Roman Reigns on the most recent episode of Monday Night RAW, the edited version of which can be seen below:
Over the course of several minutes, Strowman threw Reigns around like a rag doll, slammed him into metal equipment, and threw him off a ledge while he was strapped to a stretcher. Then, after seeming to have finished, he appeared to have flipped the ambulance Reigns was in onto its side in a moment of incredible strength.
Afterwards, the commentators announced that Reigns was at a local hospital, suffering from, among other things, internal injuries and possibly a separated shoulder. He’s expected to be out of action for some time, though no one knows how long.
The heart of the matter
This wasn’t something we made up; the actual petition can be viewed here.
The author of this petition claims that Strowman ‘crossed a line’ with his actions on Monday Night. This person goes on to say that WWE has ‘failed’ if they considered this beat down to be entertainment and that what she witnessed on RAW was, ‘the absolute worst’.
What’s next?
This attack had two main goals: to further establish Strowman as an unrelenting monster without a conscience and to possibly gain some sympathy for Reigns. Unfortunately for WWE, only the former goal was achieved.
The audience cheered Strowman loudly throughout the segment, seemingly apathetic to the damage Reigns was enduring. The fans also chanted such things as ‘thank you, Strowman’ and ‘you deserve it’ regarding Reigns’ punishment at the hands of the Monster among men.
However, with this segment, both guys are likely to remain fixtures of WWE programming. Strowman has become something of a cult babyface due to his improvement over the past months, while Reigns is…still Reigns.
It’s also possible that WWE used this segment to keep Reigns away from the TV audience so that the heat on him dies down a bit. It’s possible that some in the WWE are worried that Reigns defeating the Undertaker at WrestleMania 33 led to more backlash than previously anticipated, and now they’re trying to placate those angry fans by showing Reigns being destroyed.
Author’s take
This is a perfect example of Poe’s Law in effect. For those who don’t know what Poe’s Law is, it means that, without a clear expression of the author’s intent, one cannot create a parody of something extreme that’s such an obvious exaggeration without some people interpreting that parody as the real thing.
In other words, unless the author explicitly says so, it is impossible to tell whether something like this is a legitimate expression of anger towards WWE or just a parody of members of the IWC that tend to criticise everything and demand constant changes be made.
Obviously, no one should be taking something like this seriously. The few people that signed the petition have done so by arguing that Strowman’s dangerous and genuinely tried to kill Roman in this assault (ironically, none of them appear to have noticed Nia Jax’s mistakes could’ve injured Charlotte very badly).
In the end, however, this is the internet age, and some people might simply want to draw attention to themselves by pretending to be angry at something they know (or at least, should know) is scripted.
Send us news tips at [email protected]
Do you love to play crosswords, Wordle or other exciting games? We'd like to connect with you. Fill the form here!
