Following the injury of his Viking Raiders tag team partner Erik, WWE made a creative decision to push Ivar as a singles star. Fightful Select made the following observation about Ivar’s first RAW singles match against Kofi Kingston, which was changed from a tag team match:
“The match got praise heaped on it. One producer noted that Ivar hadn’t had a singles match on WWE TV in nearly five years that went over ten minutes, and said that not only did he not miss a beat, he impressed many backstage.”
The subsequent “Vikings Rules” match was also lauded, which “caused WWE to remain open-minded on using Ivar in a singles capacity.”
