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The Reigns Factor - Why can't fans connect?


Michael_3165

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I couldn't see a thread of this already as my search doesn't seem to want to play ball... 

 

Roman Reigns... WWEs new golden boy. He has consistently been rejected by a section of the WWE fanbase and I want to ask what do you think is the reason for this? 

 

He has the looks of a megastar though for me he does not connect with me because he is neither a cool babyface, a badass heel nor is he the everyman that has traditionally drawn sympathy and support. If you look at the likes of Dusty Rhodes, Steve Austin, Mick Foley and Daniel Bryan they were the every man. Austin did what every young male wanted to do in the 1990s, telling the boss to go fuck himself. Foley was the geek who made it big and got to the top through hard work and harder bumps. Bryan just clicked with the fans through great in ring ability and a genuine likability that isn't teachable.

 

Then you have the likes of Hogan, Rock, Flair & Michaels - people who were just incredibly charismatic and whether loved or hated they had a star power that drew a crowd to an arena. Reigns lacks the 'it' factor of a John Cena - something which long term paid off for Cena. Cena was versatile enough to pull of being disliked by half of the crowd, it seems that in some arenas Reigns doesn't draw hatred he draws apathy.

 

The booking of Reigns hasn't helped. From his goofy promos of 2015 to his constantly coming up short in his quest for the title, it just didn't work for me. The slow build, 'knocked back at every turn' face chase for the title works with someone like a Bryan but Roman doesn't scream underdog, he looks like a beast he shouldn't have lost over and over and lumbered with the Authority storylines. 

 

I have a hunch that even as a heel Reigns just wouldn't click because he neither comes off as a legit bastard (like HHH did in the 2000s) nor does he come off as a likeable character, I don't see his personality at all... he is vanilla and bland. His new line 'I'm not a good guy, I'm not a bad guy... I'm THE guy' sums him up perfectly. He isn't good or bad, for me he is indifferent... why should I hate or love him? I often find myself frustrated because he should be a star but nothing 'works'. 

 

Thoughts... 

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The killer for a wrestlers: audience apathy and indifference.

 

U can't teach or buy charisma. U either have it or you don't.

 

He doesn't!

 

U just need to do a quick comparison. Cm punk vs reigns

 

In every way reigns should trump him:

 

Looks

Size

Company backing

 

And yet Punk at 200lb and looking like a scrawny lad thrashes him all day long because of his charisma!!

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When you say nothing works, that's not actually true. Maybe for you individually but certianly not for the general audience. When he was the silent assassin in The Shield, that worked. When he was beating the shit out of HHH and decking Vince McMahon, that worked. When he was working with a heel fans actually hated, in Sheamus, that worked too.

 

Leaving aside the fact taht some fans just won't like him whatsoever, Reigns can't connect with all fans because they keep going back to the same faux-John Cena model they want for their new star. The good guy, bad guy, the guy line is good but it's a placeholder because they don't know what the fuck to do. It says everything you need to know about WWE writing that all they can think of is for the poor cunt to keep saying it over and over again. Can you imagine those conversations backstage. "Hey Roman, here's your script". "What am I doing?" "You're doing the THE guy line and looking mean". "Fucking hell, again?"

 

They need to commit to letting Reigns be himself or pick someone else. Because he's got to buy into it. He's a good guy and a good worker but he's not John Cena. He's not made for cutting ten minute smiley promos. He should be doing short, sharp backstage promos, kicking arse in the ring and being a babyface only in that he beats up heels. That's what he's built for and what he's good at.

 

They can't do that now, of course, they've fucked it up. So they need to turn him. And that will work because loads of people want to boo him anyway, he'll develop his promos doing the heel schtick and they have a good cast of babyface underdogs for him to murder. It's perfect right now.

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People loved badass Reigns until they started booking him like a goof. He was still salvageable up until a certain point too - when he destroyed Trips with the steel chair that time, they could've started back on the right track then. They're past the point of no return with him unless he has a year out with an injury, or they manage to work a miracle.

 

The product's pretty stale and has been for years. A lot of the boos are the fans venting their frustration at Vince through his golden boy.

 

Reigns is still pretty green. At least Cena at this stage of the game had a pool of great workers around him. Christian, Edge, a ten-year younger Hunter, Angle, Michaels etc.

 

He's been booked like Cena when he should be getting booked like Big Dave.

 

I mentioned this in another thread yesterday, that I think they should be pushing three guys like they originally did with Orton, Batista and Cena. It'd take a lot of pressure and heat off Roman.

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Everything about him seems fake & laboured, like someone pretending to be a wrestler. He has no qualities that are either likeable or believable for people to invest in and/or be engaged with.

 

He was protected in The Shield as all he had to do was get a hot tag & kick ass. Now he's been exposed as a charisma vacuum. That said, when they broke them up they still got two legit main eventers in Ambrose & Rollins. Normally you'd think that'd be a win & you'd run with what you got but the fact they ignored Ambrose's popularity & ploughed forward with Reigns just highlights Vince's stubbornness.

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He has charisma, but it's not the kind where he can get ropey dialogue over like The Rock. Reigns should be Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson, but instead he's a slow T4 presenter.

 

If Vince wants a Cena 2.0 as his next face of the company and, outside of an angle or two a year, refuses to adapt then Reigns isn't the man for the job. He's spent two years proving so.

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If Roman Reigns was around in the 90's he would have been over like rover but in todays wrestling world filled with Zayn, Owens, Styles, Lucha Underground and many other fresh, innovative wrestlers and promotions, Reigns just hasn't got the wrestling tools and is a throwback to how wrestling USED to be. The most entertaining segments/matches in WWE these days are NXT or matches involving the wrestlers I mentioned above. The wrestling landscape has changed and there is a obvious divide...your either Triple H, the Rock, Taker who are in the mega over, legendary status who will always be over or your the new innovative indie-guys make good and bring a new revolution to WWE. Reigns is neither and is stuck between the divide, the same could be said for many others who came in before NXT's explosion like Ryback, the Wyatts etc. WWE seem to be focusing their attention and rightly so and the new guys coming up from NXT and when needed they reach in to their nostalgia/legend box and bring out the Rock, Sting or Taker. Reigns, Wyatts, Ryback etc are being over-shadowed and out worked by the NXT guys and are having their spotlight taken away from them...it has to be very fustrating...just ask Ryback, its clear that he must be frustrated with his position on the roster.

 

In the fans eyes I assume that because Reigns is neither a legend of yester-year or an innovative indie/NXT guy he is not cutting the mustard and is stuck between a rock and a hard place. WWE has made fans turn their heads away from Reigns, Ryback, Wyatts, Uso's and others, instead having them focus on their new toys fresh out of the box who can flip around and be all innovative. Fans were crying out for this to happen in WWE, a new direction, chapter and revolution, its apparent when fans became bored with Cena due to the emergence of Daniel Bryan, CM Punk and to a lesser extent perhaps Dolph Ziggler. WWE fans were offered something different and new and it became obvious with the Punk, Bryan and they alternative that WWE were offering along with the birth, rise and now explosion of NXT that WWE have probably un-intentionally taken the focus away and in doing so showed the flaws in they abilities of Cena and now Reigns. Why should we cheer Cena or Reigns when WWE are clearly showing that their is a better, fresh, innovative, exciting revolution beginning that is currently making Roman Reigns look like Luther Reigns.

 

Look at the Divas Revolution it clearly indicates that WWE is moving in a different direction and are changing their focus. The Bella's are stepping aside and moving in to the reality TV world and allowing for the NXT Women to takeover. Eva Marie is the Roman Reigns of the Divas/Womens Revolution, they wanted her to be the face of the division in WWE just like they wanted Reigns to be the face of WWE but why should we cheer her when WWE are offering us more talented, seasoned and experienced women in Charlotte, Sasha, Becky, Bayly etc. Natalya is only because used for her connection to Bret and once Payback is over she will be back down the ladder. Its a shame though as I am a fan of Natalya, Alicia Fox, Naomi etc but a new revolution has begun.

 

The birth of the Attitude era was a much needed revolution in not just WWE but in the wrestling world as a whole and because there wasn't they amount of talented wrestlers outside WWE at that time they were forced to use the Ringmaster and Rocky Maivia with back up from Bret Hart, Undertaker, Shawn Michaels etc as they lead men in they Attitude revolution. Rollins and Ambrose luckily have the skills and abilities to fit nicely in to the new revolution and are todays Ringmaster and Rocky Maivia along with arguably the Wyatts and a couple of others and its becoming apparent to fans that Cena and Reigns sadly don't fit in todays WWE. 

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For me, certainly it's the horrendous difference between how he was in The Shield and how he is now.

 

The obvious push to try and be Cena 2.0 just doesn't work with him. He's not that guy, and it's annoying that they've tried to turn him into that in some sort of desperate attempt at having another main eventer in the Cena mould.

 

Reigns is good, perhaps great - look at some of his matches with The Shield but also post-Shield too. He often stole the show, so he's fully capable. It's just when you have him embarrass himself on the mic with cringe-worthy rubbish - something Cena can mostly get away with - it's just really frustrating.

 

I see why WWE are desperate for a new headliner and not wishing to rely on Cena forever, but it doesn't mean they need to literally try and make another one. In this case, it's ruined a good thing they already had.

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If Roman Reigns was around in the 90's he would have been over like rover but in todays wrestling world filled with Zayn, Owens, Styles, Lucha Underground and many other fresh, innovative wrestlers and promotions, Reigns just hasn't got the wrestling tools and is a throwback to how wrestling USED to be. 

 

Well, this is absolute bollocks for a start. Although I do think that some of the smarkier sections of the crowd might have given him a pass if he'd cut his teeth in RoH or something beforehand, to suggest that he isn't over because he doesn't do enough flips or head-droppers is barmy. The kids in the crowd, their mothers, are they not getting behind him in full force because he didn't have 60 min classics against Chris Hero in IWS Mid South? No. Even the fans that love their NJPW, RoH and 'NXT' styles were cheering Reigns like a motherfucker when he was more green than he is now. THEY were the ones getting behind him in the first place prior to WWE going full steam with his push. See Survivor Series and the following Royal Rumble (where Batista won) as evidence for how over he was with those sections of the crowd.

 

Cesaro has his little fan section, but he doesn't have the entire Universe behind him despite being one of the 'wrestling' darlings. If he did, he'd be in Reigns' position. Daniel Bryan didn't main event WrestleMania 30 because of his technical ability (this no doubt helped his standing with the smart fans though), he was in the main event because he was over as fuck and not because he could do a back flip out of the corner, but because he was so damn likeable. He had charisma in spades. Everyone liked him.

 

Reigns isn't unpopular because he hasn't got the 'wrestling tools', whatever that means. Unless you mean he hasn't done amateur or spent 2 years working with All Star learning chain, wrestling tools are defined by the quality of matches you have as far as I'm concerned. And last year proved that Reigns can go- he had some fantastic matches in 2015. Match of the Night for at least 3 of the PPV events, and that's because I can only think of the Bryan, Brock and Big Show matches off the top of my head.

 

He is unpopular because of how he has been portrayed and booked. Although some sections of the crowd are always going to be against him regardless, they were behind him at one point too- because he was booked in a way they liked. It's insanely difficult to book somebody to appeal to the split of fans that seems to be more evident than ever (Punk was the choice for one set, Cena for another, Bryan for both) but they need to pick the right guys for the right kind of fans to get behind (if they can't get somebody to appeal to everyone), with the right character traits and material. Reigns doesn't work as a new Cena or a Bryan, he works as a strong, silent type that can drip in coolness- closer to a Batista-type.

 

Edit: He might not help his case with the delivery in some of his promos in the past, but is that not more a testament to the shit material given to him? He has proved on many occasions that if given the right material, he can deliver with absolute conviction.

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It has nothing to do with his perfectly fine booking. I hate him because he's a sexy bastard ("Stupid, Sexy Roman" I call him).

 

You can't expect us basement-dwelling, neckbeardy, overweight, balding virgin losers to get behind a sexy muscleman like Roman Reigns. We need our heroes to be like Punk (skinny-fat, bad tattoos), Bryan (short and ugly), Ambrose (skinny with thinning hair), Austin Aries (5 feet tall), Owens (a fatso), Sami Zayn (a ginge) or Neville (looks like a Warcraft character). Those are blokes we can get behind, not your muscle-bound, tanned, toned Lothario types. Who wants to cheer the smug cunt who all the ladies swoon over?

 

Knock his front two teeth out, give the bastard a bowl-cut and get him on the pies (while giving him extra training sessions on "head drops" and "flippy shit"). I might buy his T-shirt then.

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The problem I think is that the Authority is that they get the upper hand too often.   When Austin was on the losing end during his rivalry with McMahon, it was either because of an enourmous screwjob or insurmountable odds.   And Austin always got the upper hand afterwards.  

 

Reigns can't drag Steph to the ring and make her wet herself when he puts a fake gun to her head because that's not "PG".   He can't sneak into the Hospital and twot Trips around the head with a bedpan because Trips has been hit on the head with chairs, barbed wire, bats, shoved in caskets, cage doors etc etc. 

 

So, when the Authority gets the upper hand all he does is dust himself off, and wait for the inevitable win that everyone knows is coming, and no one cares when he does.  

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I just think he needs to be a no nonsense, take no shit guy. 

 

Similar in some respects to The Undertaker, come down do his thing and leave it at that, no need for backstage promos or 10 minute in-ring promos every week, maybe on the odd occasion but keep things simple. I think one of Reigns better promos (if you can call it that) was when he did the sit down interview with Brock when Raw was cancelled, he looked cool as fuck there.

 

He needs a new look, new music as well as The Shields music is bland now and doesn't feel like it belongs to reigns so to speak.

 

Just tweak his gimmick, give him a memorable entrance (even something similar to Goldbergs walking out of the locker room, into the arena concourse and down the stairs would freshen things up) with new music and just have him do his thing and keep it at that. No long matches, no long promos. Protect him and his gimmick in a similar way to how they have done with Undertaker. 

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