Paid Members air_raid Posted December 12, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted December 12, 2015 (edited) Is Reigns experiencing the 'Diesel' effect? Â Diesel got over for being a cool as fuck, bad-ass, ass-kicking machine and then he won the WWF title and Vince turned him into the smiling, baby-kissing, Santa-hat wearing 'nice guy corporate champion'. Not saying Reigns is, or ever will be, as cool as Nash BUT he got over organically in much the same way Nash did and was cheered for it but has been turned into the smiling, playing with his daughter dullard that he is today. Â Not to disagree with the main point about the dilution of Reigns' character, which I feel has been discussed at length whether it's contacts, childish insults for the heels or Christmas jumper, but I'm not sure how "organic" you'd want to call it. For me, everything up until the Shield split was engineered completely to get him over strongly. From the very beginning he was often the guy to hit the killing blow in their highest profile six man tags, and while Ambrose branched out into a singles run as U.S. champ, Roman was afforded more time tagging with Seth to hide his weaknesses, develop what he was doing, and do hardly any jobs.By the time of Survivors 2013, the way that match was booked positively screamed "they'll be going with Reigns in the near future" which was underlined by his strong Rumble performance. There's no denying it was successful to a point and he was over like Rover, but I'd argue that he was every bit as engineered to become a main event star as anyone they've designated that spot to from the off in the last 15 years or so. Â To be honest, while the handling of Roman as a singles star has been bungled from the very start (and I blame that Orton match more than anything else), with each passing week I'm believing more and more that his not being accepted as the top babyface star by the crowds at the TV tapings it not so much the "Diesel effect" as simply the "not being Daniel Bryan effect." Long after Bryan is finished (which personally I think is now, actually) they'll still reject Roman for * once * being pushed instead of their anointed one, regardless of what they might actually think of Reigns in the present. Edited December 12, 2015 by air_raid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callum1993 Posted December 12, 2015 Share Posted December 12, 2015 What was wrong with the Orton match? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted December 12, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted December 12, 2015 It was dull, it was plodding, it was much longer than it should have been. Reigns had to sell a lot and spend far too much time sitting in Orton's chinlock, and when Reigns had his comeback and they had the optimum point to go home, they threw out a few too many shifts back of momentum and cut him off too many times, smacking of that "manufactured epic" type of match layout that Butch complains about. It was basically Orton's match rather than Reigns' match, and Orton wrestled it exactly the same as he would were he wrestling Ziggler or Kofi or practically anyone, with the sole difference being in the end, Reigns was permitted to beat him. They lost the live crowd in the middle because they had to watch Randy's dull 13-14 heel character having the same boring match, and while Reigns beating him should have been a big deal, it didn't do anything for him because he didn't really look like the star they wanted him to look in doing so. It's a hard balancing act, I acknowledge, to have your rising star go over an established main eventer convincingly without burying the latter, but there, they failed. Roman was slowed down too much for too long and wound up being made to look nothing special, in my eyes. I'm not expecting him to be Goldberg, but he was made to give Orton FAR too much in that match. In my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gadge Posted December 12, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted December 12, 2015 Raid,that's the Summerslam match between Orton & Reigns, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted December 12, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted December 12, 2015 Certainment, mon generale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gadge Posted December 13, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted December 13, 2015 Orton vs Sheamus on the Raw prior to it is a belter. Orton is almost showing off, knowing that he's losing on the PPV and also knowing that it isn't going to make a blind bit of difference to him. The crowd are eating out of his hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ars Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 Thats how you do Raw! Very enjoyable show, Wrestlemania season can begin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members WWFChilli Posted December 15, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted December 15, 2015 That's more fucking like it lads. Besides that wank of an opening segment, a really good show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted December 15, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted December 15, 2015 Finally! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brock Goldberg Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 Another fantastic ending. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slapnut Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 Ending sounds good, but how was the opening segment with Stephanie slapping Roman? Â Was it as dreadful and "WWE" as it sounds? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members WWFChilli Posted December 15, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted December 15, 2015 Atrocious, I'm amazed Steph didn't hit a pedigree. Poor writers logic too with Steph about to fire him before he came out, then after the promo saying Trips told her not to fire him and that Vince would. Massive recovery after that mess. Roman was over though, good man. Shut and twat people. That's Roman Reigns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Linus Posted December 15, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted December 15, 2015 As much as I still don't buy Reigns as a top guy, at least they've finally got a clear direction. Except there's absolutely no challengers because they've fed them all to Roman to get him to this point. This is where not having Kevin Owens lose might have been useful, or an undefeated Del Rio. Â The rest of the show was okay, although the wrestling was clearly secondary to story tonight rather than the reason for that story. Oh, and the Usos & Lucha Dragons are DICKS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
METAL ON METAL Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 Full on punched the air when that three count went down, about fucking time! I just pray they realise this type of constant badass stuff is what gets him over with the crowd, jokey style promos are for Cena not him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted December 15, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted December 15, 2015 Ending sounds good, but how was the opening segment with Stephanie slapping Roman? Â Was it as dreadful and "WWE" as it sounds? It was pretty bad. Steph cutting a sympathetic promo was shit. Fortunately the crowd didn't give a shit about her kids. Roman was great and then they booked him to have to take the slaps. He should have caught her arm after taking a couple and had that lead to Steph promising to get Vince on to him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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