Braun Strowman passed WWE’s ultimate test, and Brock Lesnar awaits

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Logically, Braun Strowman was always going to beat Roman Reigns at Payback. He’s 6-foot-7 and 385 pounds of impossibly gifted athlete, and he absolutely mauled Reigns in one of the greatest RAW segments of all time that included throwing Reigns into a table full of food, tossing his stretcher off of a loading dock, and flipping over the ambulance trying to take Reigns to the hospital... with his bare hands.

Reigns didn’t show up on television for the next three weeks, and when he arrived at Payback, was still moving slow while his body was taped to all hell. Reigns battled as only he knows how, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Strowman, whose plan of keeping Reigns from fighting at 100 percent worked to perfection.

Logic doesn’t always dictate how we expect things to play out, though. Braun was the aggressor here, and in the wrong for attacking Roman backstage while literally doing his best to kill him. If Roman showed back up and, despite his injuries, powered back for a victory that was right and true, no one would have been truly surprised.

That wasn’t the right call, though: Strowman is the first wrestler to make Reigns look totally mortal — even Brock Lesnar looked like he was going to lose to Reigns at WrestleMania 31 before Seth Rollins and the Money in the Bank briefcase stepped in. Braun as Reigns’ kryptonite, if you’ll excuse the tired but fitting analogy, only works if Reigns actually struggles and actually loses because of him.

Now, Braun can go back to Brock Lesnar, who Strowman already warned was going to be in his sights once he had taken care of Roman Reigns. With Reigns bloody and broken, he’s not going to be in any kind of position to get between Strowman and Lesnar — Reigns needs to recuperate while the superhosses sort things out between themselves.

It feels like SummerSlam is the place for that, with Strowman maybe even winning the Universal Championship. Hey, Lesnar doesn’t need it, and Brock continues to exist as this ever-looming final boss in part because WWE hasn’t had anyone else to fill that void for years. The era of Braun Strowman is here, though, and now, everything has changed.

• Payback was real, real good. Even the House of Horrors match, as dumb as it managed to be sometimes, was a lot of fun for what it was.
• You will be shocked, but in Monday’s rumors, there is word that Alberto El Patron canceled an appearance and that the reason is frowned upon.
• Chris Jericho won the United States Championship off of Kevin Owens despite a poke to the eyes, and now he’s moving to SmackDown. You can watch him say goodbye to RAW here.
• Austin Aries defeated Neville via disqualification, but that’s just what Neville wanted to happen. The only real winner here is us, as we get to see these two fight again in the future.
• The Hardy Menz are still your RAW Tag Team Champions, but they’re a little more broken after Sheamus and Cesaro went heel with a post-match beatdown. Well, post-celebration beatdown, really, just to make it sting that much more.
• Sheamus was threatening the Hardys over Twitter, resulting in Matt threatening to eat him. Jeff might have a hard time joining in such a feast, given he had a tooth knocked out during the match.
• Alexa Bliss is the first-ever wrestler to have held both the RAW and SmackDown Women’s Championships after defeating Bayley in front of her hometown of San Jose. The lesson, of course, is to never have a hometown.
• Seth Rollins defeated Samoa Joe, spoiling Joe’s first major WWE match. Given there was a reversal into a pin and not a finisher used, you can bet Seth is going to pay for this one in the future.
• Randy Orton lost the House of Horrors match to Bray Wyatt thanks to Jinder Mahal, aka the guy he’s feuding with on SmackDown Live, the guy that Randy straight-up ignored for two weeks even when they were in the ring together in order to respond to Bray’s cryptic video promos. Jinder saying “PAY ATTENTION TO ME” by slamming Orton in the head with the WWE World Championship he stole from him is the logical payoff.
• Danielle Matheson has a breakdown of the most unbelievable moments from the House of Horrors match. Randy Orton wearing pants remains my most shocking horror.
• In the retro Best and Worst of WCW Nitro, Ric Flair and Roddy Pipper finally came to blows.
• Nixon Newell wrestled her last indie match before reporting to NXT and the Performance Center.