The unsettling thing is wondering how long he was working through abdominal pain since this was his big break and you must show no weakness.
On a selfish level (sorry bro), this is exciting for the short-term since the fall will now have to be propped up by Dean Ambrose taking over as the default #2 babyface out of triage, kind of like when Daniel Bryan suddenly became the emergency #1 babyface last fall.
Long-term it just makes Reigns' Rumble win feel even more inevitable, since being back to do the Rumble regardless of health is kind of an unspoken requirement for top guys.
See? Opportunities have ALREADY been created out of this situation!
Keeping in my mind my loathing of fantasy booking, I'll just leave this thought here: tomorrow, Seth Rollins should be squashed... in thirty seconds... by... Sting.
Wow, it sure is a good thing that they decided to sink Cesaro's face push and focus entirely on Roman Reigns, huh? Putting all their eggs in one basket was so convenient, and now that basket is completely safe and nothing can ever go wrong! Seriously, the only top face on the show is now John Cena, a guy that they already know half (or more) of their audience hates. There's no one to cheer for the next six weeks. No one. I'd be great if Ambrose was done with the movie and they brought him back, or if they decided to push somebody else, but right now? Nothing.
The Attitude Era had so many names that could take the main event spot in place of Austin and Rock. Jericho, Undertaker, HHH, Foley, HBK, Kane (occasionally), Big Show (even less so), THE MAN WHO CANNOT BE NAMED, Angle could all take the spot so that people wouldn't get burned out on Rock and Austin. If anything went down physically with their biggest money draws they could easily switch from several guys who the crowd was red hot for and had consistency in their pushes.
Now we are stuck with hack screenplay writers who can't focus on more than two major storylines and seem to plan the majority of other angles as perfunctory. Leaving the guys who could all be sharing the top spot when the biggest money draws are down looking like chumps to the fans when an emergency comes up.
I know wrestlers get put in the dog house for not getting over fast enough or upsetting the wrong person backstage, but shouldn't their be a sizeable doghouse for Creative when they can't produce quality stories? Or better yet, new writers come along all the time. I'm just saying a fire needs to be lit up under their ass.
I mean one of the main reasons the Attitude era stuff worked was because the writing had more investment by the wrestling talent and the weekly fear that the doors might close tomorrow for good. The company may not feel that but I think Creative needs to.
/rant
Reigns is down, I hope he gets better. Cesaro and Ziggler come on up! Ambrose come back soon.
Cole: "Yeah, thanks to Kane. You should buy Kane a Rolex watch for what he did for you."
Rollins: "Oh don't be silly, Kane doesn't wear watches."
HBK was not part of Attitude Era when Austin and Rock were big, minus that you are right. I don't blame the screenwriters as much as I blame the man in charge. It has been ten years since Cena began his run from US Champ to WWE Champ. In that time, they lost a ton of full time guys and did not move anyone up. Their crutch on part time guys has lead to this problem. They could have made Ziggler, Cesaro and others up the roster, but instead went with HHH, Batista, Rock and their current world champ. I hope they take this chance to do something about it.
At the beginning of 2000 their core main eventers were down to Triple H, The Rock, and Foley.
Foley had planned to retire months prior, but his ego (quite understandably) wouldn't let him disappear the same month that Austin did. Austin and Taker were injured, Big Show's title reign tanked, He Who Cannot Be Named was in WCW, Jericho was a midcarder feuding with Chyna, Angle was an untested newbie, and Kane was either injured or in a comfortable niche in the midcard.
Chris Kreski made it work. He turned the last months of Foley's career into a dramatic last stand of a warrior. He identified talent and slowly set up Angle and Jericho to be perfect foils for HHH, while giving the Rock some needed allies in Too Cool. Pretty much every PPV had a massive multi-team tag match so all of the low-carders seemed relevant.
Even if they hadn't had the unexpected Radicalz influx they would have had a fine midcard with the ECW/DX talent they underutilized that year. As it turned out, the Radicalz plus Jericho were sufficient to keep the IC title meaningful all year, and the rest of the midcard was kept healthy via rotating the Euro title among guys a bit lower on the totem pole.
They could do much of this today. Authority v. Cena v. Lesnar sounds like it could be epic if Vince/the Writers allowed. Put the lower card all in stable tag teams. Figure out if the IC or US title is going to be the #2 belt and send the upper midcard after one, with the lower midcard after the other. The fans will get the message of who to take seriously when they see a wrestler transition from fighting for the #3 belt to aiming for the #2 belt.
The unsettling thing is wondering how long he was working through abdominal pain since this was his big break and you must show no weakness.
... and whose idea that would have been. Did WWE know Reigns had been working through worsening pain for a while? Did he keep it to himself? Or is it that this kind of incarcerated hernia condition "becomes acutely painful" immediately and out of nowhere, and before Friday Roman felt fine? The WWE story is pretty unclear about who knew what when.
Assuming he makes a full recovery, this is a (painful, miserable) blessing in disguise. Here's hoping.
EDIT x2: Reigns tells you what happened. "I was laying in bed. All of a sudden I felt a really sharp pain right below my belly button in my bladder region. Tried to gut it out, but it just kept getting worse, so I ended up calling 911. They sent an ambulance. Once I got to the hospital, the doctor said I had a hernia and I needed to go into emergency surgery..."
Besides the continuing urn obsession, I thought Trish being inducted by Stephanie McMahon instead of Lita and the fact that it's bumping MICK FOLEY from the TV broadcast was the most annoying thing on the show.