Roman Reigns has the WWE title, The Bloodline is the leading segment on the weekly shows, and Vince McMahon’s private life is back in the news. Wait a minute — have we suddenly gone back to the summer of 2023?
You’d certainly get that impression from last week’s “Raw,” which had more Bloodline segments than actual wrestling matches. The storyline has been bleeding over into “SmackDown” too, with The Usos heading to the blue brand to confront Solo Sikoa — yet another clear sign that WWE is planning to put The Bloodline business front and center as we head into this year’s SummerSlam in August.
You can understand why WWE might be tempted to run it back. After all, this is The Bloodline we’re talking about. It’s the storyline that gave us three superb WrestleMania main events (Mania 39 and then two at Mania XL), brought The Rock back into the fold for the first time in a decade, and paved the way for that $5 billion Netflix deal. It could well be the single most successful angle of the modern era.
What’s more, with Roman Reigns committed to working a full-time schedule (at least according to the man himself) as well as holding the WWE title over on “Raw,” you have the first two elements you need to run Bloodline 3.0. In those circumstances, you can see why TKO towers might see it as a no-brainer. If they can achieve just half of what they did last time, it would be a huge improvement for today’s product.
On the other hand, it isn’t hard to see the problem here. As brilliant as The Bloodline arc was, it also already came to an end — and a pretty good one at that. We had Roman dropping not just the belt at ‘Mania XL, but also losing his empire afterward, in just the way that Cody Rhodes predicted. This then led to the Bloodline civil war, which finally allowed Roman Reigns to secure his babyface turn by overthrowing his errant cousin on last year’s Netflix debut. Redemption complete, right?
For a while, it certainly looked like WWE was happy to let sleeping dogs lie. This year’s WrestleMania saw Reigns win the world title without any interference or mention of The Bloodline. Some of us had expected The Usos to show up. Instead, we had “The Tribal Chief” putting on a 30-minute slobberknocker against CM Punk that would have made Larry Zbyszko nod with approval. Who needs the Ula Fala when you can fight like that?
In the weeks to come, though, that all changed. First, we had the backstage segments of Reigns politicking with The Usos. Then there was the whole family feud with Jacob Fatu that culminated in “The Samoan Werewolf” having to join the flock. Now we have various segments revolving around Roman Reigns’ desire to bring Solo Sikoa back into the Bloodline fold.
For my money, that has to be the weirdest part of this Bloodline redux. I mean, Solo Sikoa as the missing piece of the puzzle? Isn’t that the guy who Reigns squashed like a bug less than two years ago and who has spent most of his time since then feuding with a failed horror faction over a haunted lantern? And that’s the guy you’re desperate to recruit? Maybe CM Punk hit you harder than we thought back in Las Vegas.
Still, I digress … the bigger problem with Bloodline 3.0 isn’t Solo Sikoa. It’s how you actually find fresh ground to make this storyline feel exciting. And the danger there is that you end up realizing that most of the fertile ground has already been covered long ago.
I mean, a few weeks ago there were segments on “Raw” revolving around the supposedly big question as to whether The Usos would fall in line behind their Tribal Chief. Déjà vu, anyone? Even worse, not only have they already done that storyline to death, they’ve even done the one that comes after it — i.e. where Jey Uso discovered a backbone and went off to become a world champion in his own right. Remember that?
Likewise, you get the same repetitive feeling from the whole Jacob Fatu angle. Sure, he brings a bit of extra aura to the whole Bloodline project given his whole snarling charisma. But he’s also playing a role that feels too close to what they already did with Solo Sikoa a few years ago — i.e. the unpredictable enforcer who’s destined to go rogue. If anything, it just makes you wish they’d used Fatu for that role the first time around.
Then there’s the whole opportunity cost that comes with revisiting this Bloodline stuff over and again. After Reigns’ win at ‘Mania 42, I wrote a column about how one of the most exciting things was that we’d get to see Reigns work with new opponents who didn’t get the chance in his previous run.
At the time, I was thinking about names like Trick Williams or Gunther. Instead, we’ve had hints that we might even end up getting Roman Reigns vs. Jey Uso for a second time. Which Samoan deity have we angered to bring that around?
Still, maybe there are some grounds for optimism on the horizon. What was it Oba Femi said to Jey Uso during their staredown on this week’s “Raw” in London?
“At the end of the day, you are not the family member I am really worried about.”
It was the strongest hint we’ve had so far that Roman Reigns vs. Oba Femi might be in the cards, even if it probably won’t be happening any time soon.
Oba Femi as the solo warrior going up against The Bloodline, with the prospect of a world title change at ‘Mania 43? Now that’s the sort of thing that we can all get behind. If the route to get there involves a few more Solo Sikoa segments, I guess it’s a compromise I’m willing to make.
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