Raw on Netflix may have shifted the WrestleMania landscape for the second consecutive time. Last week’s Raw featured Iyo Sky shocking the wrestling world by ending Rhea Ripley’s WWE Women’s Championship reign at two months and booking her ticket to WrestleMania against Elimination Chamber winner Bianca Belair. But last night’s Raw may have topped it, setting the stage for a triple threat match years in the making.
While CM Punk and Seth Rollins pummeled each other inside of a steel cage match that saw Rollins hitting Punk with his own Go To Sleep finisher into Rollins’s Curb Stomp, the Madison Square Garden crowd, which Kotaku was a part of, was audibly torn. In a rare showing of equal support, the ravenous crowd cheered for both combatants, with half of the crowd yelling Punk’s name and another section yelling Rollins’ in bloodthirsty harmony. At one point, a child drenched in tears and likely hopped up on concession stand caffeine looked like he was having a sensory overload, basking in the experience of watching both of his favorites do battle. As is typically the case with any Rollins/Punk match, it was awesome.
Then, it became prophetic.
From out of the crowd that held stars like Macaulay Culkin, Fabolous, and William Jackson Harper, the Original Tribal Chief returned to the WWE after a two-month hiatus to wreak havoc. In an ingenious storytelling maneuver, Reigns cost Punk the match by dragging Rollins out of the cage to victory, likely enraged Rollins by beating him senseless and nearly doing a Curb Stomp on him while his head rested on steel steps, and solidified his beef with both men by inexplicably spearing Punk after he was consoled by Paul Heyman. Within a handful of minutes, the WWE set the stage for a triple threat match we’ve been waiting on for far longer than the two months since Rollins Curb Stomped Reigns on steel steps outside of the ring after they were both eliminated from the Royal Rumble by Punk.
These three have been tethered together for years. Remember, Reigns and Punk teamed up to lead OG Bloodline to victory over The Bloodline at Survivor Series: WarGames last November, even though it never felt like anything more than two rivals with a common enemy. When Rollins and Reigns were part of The Shield over a decade ago, their feud with Punk led to a brutal 3-on-1 handicap match that Punk narrowly escaped with a victory. Six months later, Rollins betrayed Reigns by viciously attacking him and leaving The Shield.
The three have etched their respective places in WWE history over the last 13 years, but they have never squared off at the same time in a triple-threat match. As the MSG crowd filed out of the building and the Netflix VIPs rummaged through the company’s makeshift bodega located in the arena’s Delta 360 Sky Club, one prevailing thought kept being uttered on everyone’s lips: We want these three men at WrestleMania. And this week’s Raw may have just booked all three of their tickets.
.