I am very anti Jey, mainly because I believe that his being over is almost 100% the entrance and dancing. The dude is blown up by the time the bell rings and he is easily in the bottom 25% inside the ring. His promo skills are also (IMO) in the bottom half of the main roster. People do seem to be emotionally behind him...BUT does giving him the belt make him any more over? I don't believe the world title should be treated as a thanks for putting in the time kind of thing and I don't view him as a world title/can sell tickets kind of guy. I think he would have been a great MITB winner, do the entrance get people hyped and do the babyface thing of cashing in as a plan or cashing in on an evil heel that cheats to win (Not Gunther) and give him it at one of the B grade PPVs in a foreign country that goes nuts (Not fucking Saudi).
I fully expect it to be very hard to have him be a champ that holds it for long, he doesn't have the ability to sell you on words and his whole gimmick is kind of the underdog clawing out from the bottom. It's a lesser Cody story, maybe almost the same as Cody last year, and Sami with Gunther last year, but I know those dudes can tell me a story in the ring, leading up to, and deliver. This will likely forever put the Raw title into the "lesser" belt territory since you know they can't put Jey out there the way they do Cody.
My hope is for some crazy things leading up to mania and maybe we get some surprises, cause just copying the same story from the last couple years just so I can see that overgrown idiot McAfee "Yeet" on a table for the spectacle of it isn't my cup of tea. Jey is crazy over RIGHT NOW IN the arenas, I'd ride it just like this with him trying to break through until it seems like the crowd is finally getting over it then strike. Him winning at Mania will not make him more over, and I just hate that the dude went from arguably the worst singles match in Mania history to a title win the next year.