WWE star Roman Reigns IS good in the ring, isn’t being over-pushed and is improving on the mic… so lay off him
Big Dog is still being booed by the WWE universe but fans will realise sooner or later that he is as good as Vince McMahon thinks
WRESTLEMANIA is well and truly over – the dust settled, smoke cleared, and rabid fan excitement put back in the drawer for another year.
Overall, it was a rousing (or should that be “Rousey”?) success.
A thrilling TakeOver, one of the least tedious Hall of Fame ceremonies, and – for the most part – an excellent Mania card.
Shame then, that it will be forever marred by its disastrous main event.
Playing out in front of bored, tired fans, Brock Lesnar’s near one-sided destruction of Roman Reigns was met with chants of “CM Punk” and “This is awful”.
There are several reasons the main event tanked so dramatically.
Firstly, at seven hours, including kickoff show matches, WrestleMania was too long.
By the time of the main event, fans were fatigued beyond the point of caring.
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Secondly, fans were convinced Lesnar was leaving WWE and was therefore guaranteed to drop the Universal title to Reigns. In their minds, it was a foregone conclusion.
(A similar thing happened when Brock faced Goldberg at Mania 20 – knowing both men were set to leave, fans turned on the match and savaged Lesnar.)
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And lastly, of course, there’s Roman Reigns himself. This was his fourth Mania main event in a row, but fans are still booing him.
But why? What’s the real problem with Roman Reigns? Why won’t fans accept him as WWE’s top babyface?
The obvious comparison is John Cena, who was routinely booed for 10 years after first winning the WWE title.
(Fans still boo Cena, of course, though mostly for fun – now they respect everything he’s done for the business.)
And you don’t have to look far online to find the Roman haters, all spouting the same complaints that were thrown at Cena for a decade.
WWE is forcing Reigns down fans’ throats. He’s not good enough in the ring. He’s pushed to look invincible at the expense of other talents. His character’s poor and he can’t talk.
All of that, however, is completely untrue.
WWE hasn’t forced Reigns down fans’ throats at all. Between WrestleManias 33 and 34, he only main evented four PPVs – and contended for the title only once.
Three of those matches were multi-man matches – only one of which he won – and he lost the other singles match, against Braun Strowman at Payback.
In that time, he’s also taken televised losses to Samoa Joe, Seth Rollins and The Miz.
(You could argue that headlining four Manias in a row constitutes as forcing him down fans’ throats, but when he gets the loudest reaction on any given show – good or bad – headlining Mania is inevitable.)
Reigns’ matches – particularly his big matches, such as those against Strowman and his battle with John Cena at No Mercy – are also solid.
He’s easily as good in the ring as Cena, Batista, or even – dare I say it – The Undertaker were at the same stage in their careers.
And despite what some fans say, his microphone work is just as good.
Look at his “worked shoot” promos on both Cena and Lesnar. Not every scripted word hit the mark, but his delivery was intense and struck a chord with fans.
In fact, Roman’s recent promos on Brock – calling “The Beast” out as lazy and entitled – very nearly got Reigns over as a babyface.
He doesn’t even need to be talking. His 14-minute silence at last year’s Raw after Mania (where he beat Undertaker) – followed by the fan-riling punchline: “This is my yard now” – was masterful.
Last week’s verbal clash with Joe was another belter. As Joe hit Reigns with some hard home truths about not being able to beat Lesnar, he peeled away the layers of Roman’s character.
And though Roman was booed heavily across both last and this year’s WrestleMania weekends, that’s to be expected – the Mania crowd is among the most vocal, smarkiest crowd all year.
While attending Raw 25 back in January, I got to walk around the New York Stock Exchange with Roman Reigns for an hour or so. Up close he’s imposing but friendly – an absolute pro.
He couldn’t walk ten yards without being stopped for a picture and autograph.
In the real world, away from those fans who tweet about how Vince McMahon is personally destroying their love of wrestling by pushing Roman to the moon, “The Big Dog” is a true superstar.
So if he’s doing everything right and has all the necessary skills, why are fans still unwilling to accept him?
Part of the problem is John Cena – or what Cena’s legacy means to the business, at least.
After 10 years of enduring Cena so relentlessly at the top of the card, fans resented having another champ handpicked by the corporate machine – especially so soon after Daniel Bryan (the antithesis to the corporate-approved champ) had risen to be their chosen hero.
Fans knew Reigns was the “heir apparent” to WWE before The Shield had even broken up. The backlash kicked in the minute his singles run began.
And that’s the real problem for Roman Reigns – the fans themselves.
Resentment has been whipped up by those who live in a kayfabe world of their own imagining, where Vince is out to bury everyone, Triple H and Stephanie really are evil, everything WWE does is a calculated attack on the fans, and the word “wrestling” has been outlawed (all of which are also untrue).
By now the Roman hatred is way out of proportion. He’s far better than those fans will give him credit for.
WWE does have itself to blame with its booking of Roman early in his singles run – especially the woeful Vince-scripted promos and dreadful Reigns v The Authority storyline of early 2016.
The counter-productive booking was out in full force again in the WrestleMania 34 main event, when Roman kicked out of multiple F-5s.
With fans convinced Reigns would win, it looked like overkill – Reigns would kick out of F-5 after F-5 and still make a Herculean comeback. Except, that isn’t what happened.
Vince had something far more interesting planned – Roman gushed blood after Lesnar bust him open hardway in the final seconds, and eventually pinned Reigns with an F-5 to retain the title.
It was proof that WWE still has the guts to do something edgy and unexpected – but the fans had decided they hated it before it got started.
I’m convinced that history would have been kind to that match – in hindsight it would have much better than it seemed at the time – if it didn’t have fans chanting “This is awful” all over it.
Now Reigns will face Brock Lesnar for the title again – this time in a steel cage match at the Greatest Royal Rumble event in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi fans will be kinder to Reigns, but it’s probably too late for Reigns to ever get over as the company’s top babyface in the US.
If Vince had turned him heel when the fans demanded it back in 2015-2016, Reigns could have organically become a babyface mega-star like The Rock and Steve Austin did.
But even if Vince turns him now (which he won’t) the fan resentment by this point runs too deep – whatever the reason.
Besides, with Daniel Bryan back in the action, there’s only one man the WWE faithful want at the top of the card.
Maybe Roman Reigns have to wait 10 years. The fans will still be booing him, but just for fun – because surely by then they’ll respect everything he does for the business.