This Week in The Universe #11

This Week in The Universe is going to be different from the norm. I've had a busy week with work so haven't had the time to watch all of Raw and any of Smackdown, 205 Live & NXT. However I have seen the John Cena/Roman Reigns promo that everyone is talking about and the first round matches from the Mae Young Classic so I'm going to discuss those things here.

First of all I would highly recommend to everyone that they watch the first round matches on the WWE Network. All the matches are decent and there are a few really good matches. Second of all I know that all the matches up to the Final have already been recorded but I haven't looked at spoilers and don't plan to so please can noone spoil it for me! I was disappointed Kay Lee Ray went out in the first round as I'm a big fan of hers from the UK independent scene. It was great to see Serena Deeb back in a WWE ring as I was a big fan of hers from the Straight Edge Society days. Shayna Bazler looks like a badass and I was really impressed with the Falcon Arrow into a rear-naked choke move that won the match. Abbey Laith and Jazzy Gabert had the first really good match of the tournament and Laith pulled off a win I didn't see coming! Gabert is definitely not done with WWE as I think she has an amazing look and is a real powerhouse. Xia Li had a really cool entrance and looked good in her very first wrestling match but wasn't enough against the badass veteran Mercedes Martinez. Rachel Evers was very impressive in her win over Marti Belle in another surprise match for me. Rhea Ripley was awesome, I absolutely loved her and she pretty much destroyed the smaller Miranda Salinas. Mia Yim and Sarah Logan had a really good match that I thoroughly enjoyed. Sold on both women and I hope to see more of them in NXT in the future. The only English representative Ayesha Ramond unfortunately went out but was defeated by the incredibly cool Toni Storm who I think will go all the way to the finals. The first Indian female performer in WWE Kavita Devil had a very powerful performance in defeat against the second coming of Bayley from New Zealand Dakota Kai. Bianca Belair and Sage Beckett had a really fun match that was really fun to watch. Piper Neven and Santana Garrett had a match that was far better than I was expecting and I was pleased to see one UK representative in the second round! Candice LeRae looked great against Rene Michelle and her finisher is really cool looking! I enjoyed the match between Taynara Conti and Lacey Evans and I really liked Conti. Nicole Savoy and Reina Gonzalez had a good match but I was disappointed not see any suplexes from the Queen of Suplexes Savoy! The final match of the first round was my absolute favourite. I'm a big fan of Tessa Blanchard and now I am a huge fan of the Pirate Princess Kari Sane! I hope we get to see Tessa in NXT more and I have hopes that Sane makes it to the final!

Now my thoughts on the much talked about promo from Raw this week featuring Roman Reigns and John Cena. If you haven't seen it check out the video above because it was definitely as good as people are saying it was. I thought this was Reigns strongest promo to date and even though he did stumble a bit he came back from it really well. Cena of course came across as confident as someone who has been doing this for years. I'm not a huge fan of either guy but I feel like I am rooting for Reigns in this. It is a role reversal from the Cena/Rock feud a few years ago and now Reigns is the full timer their every week and Cena is the part timer. Reigns is a far better performer now 5 years into his main roster career than Cena was 5 years into his. Reigns talked about how Cena likes to bury young talent and its hard to argue when Cena has done it as recently to Rusev and Baron Corbin. Cena talking about he was proud to be US Champion helping introduce young talent was a bit hypocritical. Yes he did lose to Owens in KO's first match but then he beat Owens twice. And again in 2015 he lost to Rusev once and then beat him three times after that. Cena had some amazing matches with AJ Styles the last year but Roman's feud with Styles last year was one of my favourites of 2016. People say that Styles carried Roman in those matches but I felt like Roman did an awesome job of making AJ a main eventer in WWE and I don't think the matches with Cena would have happened without those matches with Reigns first. Reigns has also again had one of the feuds of the year with Braun Strowman and to be honest I don't ever see Cena having matches anywhere near as good with Braun. The biggest problem I had with the promo on Raw though was that they ended up teaming together immediately after with Gallows & Anderson and they won the match with only a little bit of tension. If Reigns was so affected by Cena's words he should of walked out of the match and left Cena to get beaten down. Anyway I have rambled about this a bit much! I'm really excited for No Mercy and I hope they don't use a pull apart brawl in the build up because I have seen enough of those recently! What did you guys think of the promo and the first round matches of Mae Young Classic? Let me know what you guys think on twitter @chris_dons or in the comments section below. Thank you all for reading!