Why Roman Reigns Is The Intercontinental Champion

On a recent episode of WWE RAW, Roman Reigns managed to clinch the Intercontinental Championship from The Miz and has now become a Grand Slam champion at the age of 30. Now, while many fans will take to the internet to voice their opinion and state just how terrible this is and the world is ending, I genuinely feel that putting this belt on Reigns is a good thing.

The Miz is now taking a break from WWE as he goes off to film another Marine film with Heath Slater. As a result, it makes sense for The Miz to drop the belt so he can go off and be a movie star, while the belt has a new champ who can defend it on WWE. If that isn’t what’s best for business, then I don’t know what is. The powerbomb that The Miz took on the entrance ramp also sets this up as the commentators can tell the fans at home that he is currently out injured after the assault from The Shield.

The RAW roster is currently packed with an insane amount of talent, so I can imagine it was a hard choice to really figure out whom to put the belt on as The Miz takes his leave. With the likes of Finn Balor, Samoa Joe and Braun Strowman currently putting on fantastic matches, the casual fan will find themselves scratching their head as they wonder why it was Reigns who was booked to win the title. But what it really all boils down to are two main reasons.

The first is the return of The Shield. Since the WWE have reformed The Shield, they have had a number of big wins, their most recent being at Survivor Series where they squashed The New Day. Ok, I appreciate that they may have lost the belts to Sheamus and Cesaro but right now, the WWE is slowly building them up to be the destructive force they had been a few years back. A Shield reunion had been on the cards for a while, with the WWE holding off as long as they can, and now they have been reunited, the fans seem to be as fond of them as they were before. They have a huge amount of momentum on their side and as of last week’s episode of RAW; it seems that they are now in the mix for another shot at reclaiming their tag belts.

Balor has failed to claw back any of the momentum he received as he made his way onto the main roster, and Samoa Joe is still a relatively fresh face on RAW, and many in management may believe he has not earned a right to hold onto the belt. My first pick would have been Strowman, but the man who goes around shouting and throwing ambulances over will always be over with the fans, something I find to be utterly bewildering.

Should The Shield clinch the tag belts, and then all three members of the stable will have a championship belt, it will really cement them as a force to be reckoned with, and taking it back to all those years ago where Ambrose held the US title and Reigns and Rollins held the tag belts. It makes perfect sense as they build up the roster as we head towards WrestleMania, which is where booking Reigns as Intercontinental champ really starts making sense.

Survivor Series is well and truly in the books, so the next big PPV we have to look forward to is the Royal Rumble, and then the daddy of them all, Wrestlemania. At the minute, the WWE are building up Brock Lesnar’s finisher, the F-5, as the most powerful and unstoppable move in the company, which means that nobody is going to kick out of it any time soon. We all know that this is going to change at Wrestlemania when Reigns will take on Lesnar for the Universal Championship and kick out of it (at least that’s what I believe is going to happen).

Booking Reigns as the Intercontinental champ ensures that he can put on some stellar matches and defend the belt, not only getting him over with the fans (in theory), but also building the prestige of the belt further. The Miz has done an outstanding job as the Intercontinental Champion, and I firmly believe that Reigns has possibly the best chance he has ever had of carrying himself as a true champ and taking the belt further up the food chain. The theory behind all this reinstates Reigns as a firm fan favourite, defending the belt in some outstanding matches before finally dropping the belt just before Wrestlemania and becoming the number one contender for the Universal Championship.

Putting Reigns back into the mix with The Shield has actually worked in his favour. One clear example of this is when he was tagged in during Survivor Series; he wasn’t hated on by the crowd half as much as he has done in the past. This is a good thing, as he is not a bad wrestler at all, in fact I would go as far as saying that he has had one of the best years if his career, this win proving that.

What WWE have done is possibly sown the seeds for Wrestlemania. It is a long time in the wrestling world between then and now and things can change in an instant, but giving Reigns the Intercontinental belt is both a good move for the fans and for the wrestler as it gives Reigns the chance to wrestle for something that has a substantial amount of credibility. Before now, he was just given a shot at the belt, with management forcing him down our throats. But as he defends the belt against upcoming opponents and also gets himself over as a member of The Shield, I truly believe that Reigns will eventually win himself over. He may still be Vince McMahon’s number one, but at least now he has the chance to earn the fans support.