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Roman Reigns Picks CM Punk As WrestleMania 42 Opponent On WWE Raw, Says He 'Hates' Punk
Image Credit: WWE
The Road to WrestleMania is underway, and we already know what the main event of Night Two is going to be. After winning the Royal Rumble on Saturday, Roman Reigns showed up in Philadelphia for Raw and officially chose CM Punk as his opponent and the World Heavyweight Championship as his target. Reigns & Punk then sounded off on each other as would be expected, doing their best to get folks interested and making things personal heading towards WrestleMania. There’s more than enough star power & history between Punk & Reigns to make their issue interesting, regardless of how many dates the Tribal Chief appears between now & April 18-19.
Of course, making WrestleMania guesses at this point in the game often invites ridicule later, but I think this pretty well sets up Cody Rhodes winning Elimination Chamber and challenging Drew McIntyre. As much as some people complained about Roman winning, Cody winning the Rumble a third time would have invited even more “We Want Vince” chants in Saudi Arabia. (They want weird stuff over there.) Paul Heyman’s connection with Roman & Punk probably leads to plenty of Vision involvement in the story. One also has to wonder about the guy that beat both Punk & Reigns at last year’s WrestleMania…I can’t see this feud ending without Seth Rollins getting involved. Or maybe that’s exactly how it ends.
WRESTLING HEADLINES 👊🏽
•Oba Femi Destroys War Raiders In WWE Raw Debut
Image Credit: WWE
Oba was the first entrant in the Royal Rumble and immediately made an impact by eliminating five people and lasting 39:04 in the match. Brock Lesnar got lucky that Oba had already been working that long and was able to eliminate him. Then Oba showed up on Raw and made Erik & Ivar look like cannon fodder. Pretty safe to say that this guy’s in store for huge things. If you don’t watch NXT and aren’t familiar with Oba Femi, you’ll be familiar real soon. I just kinda felt bad for Erik & Ivar and can imagine Larry Csonka writing about the destruction of tag team wrestling for the 4,834th time.
Image Credit: Pro Wrestling NOAH
It’s awesome to see the Malenko wrestling lineage continue. Dean & Joe followed in the footsteps of their father Boris, who trained countless wrestlers down in Florida. Marie’s emergence also makes one think of Debbie Malenko, who wasn’t related but trained under Boris and was allowed to use the name. I still consider Dean one of the best technical wrestlers I’ve ever seen, so maybe some of that skill made it to the next generation. Being Dean’s daughter will open some doors for Marie, and her cosmetically pleasing appearance won’t hurt. If she’s got a little bit of personality, the sky’s the limit.
MORE MUST-READ LINKS FROM 411MANIA
→ A Look Back at the Phenomenal Career of AJ Styles Part 1: Get Ready to Fly
→ Pantoja’s Top 100 Matches Of 2025 (#40-31)
→ Hall's WWE Raw Review 2.2.26
Thanks for reading,
Steve Cook