Roman Reigns *Spoilers and all that*

[tiger_rick]

Reigns came across cool as fuck on that Uso documentary they did a few years ago. He may well be. But they've done such a terrible, terrible job of translating that to his TV character. 

The last few months have been abysmal. I know no one liked him before and picked ludicrous holes in things but he was still a big deal. Beating the Undertaker and standing in the ring taking all those boos was great. That was big time. How you get from there to having him fuck about with a midcard title, lose to everyone and get murdered by Strowman over and over in hilarious ways defies belief. 

I still can't get away from the idea that this MUST be a slow burn heel turn. Because otherwise they are as thick as fuck.

[King Pitcos]

5 hours ago, WyattSheepMask said:

I don't know if it is a confidence thing with Reings or not, but if he is to be 'the guy', then he should be able to say to someone in creative or Vince or whoever, "this doesn't work for me (brother)". He's clearly a team player and just does what he is told, but he is doing so at the expense of being made to look like a complete moron at times

He definitely speaks up if something bothers him. He got one of his feuds with Bray Wyatt changed one week in because he didn't like them using his wife and kids in the storyline.

They've really fucked him over the last few months. I think they have him lose loads thinking it'll stop Dem complaining that he never loses, but Dem never gonna notice his losses anyway because Deir hatred of him has little relation to reality. But now WWE, in trying to appease Dem, have made him look like a stupid cunt to everyone else.

At the same time though, from his performances he doesn't seem to care anyway.

[Loki]

There's no way it's not got to him as well, you can't go out in front of that much hate every week and not have it affect you.  His performances are definitely lacking in motivation recently.  I feel genuinely sorry for him, he's a company man but unlike Cena I don't think he'll win us round.

 

[simonworden]

For a long time now he has been skip over material unless he has been in a big match, I don't hate the guy and I don't love him but as a 32 year old man with limited free time he isn't in my must see and usually I wont even bother with the you tube clips. It seems like its not just me but a large portion of the audience that feels that way and thats a big problem long term for the company in my opinion.

 

I'm sure unless he is a vacuum of a man he can't be happy with the way it's going and he needs to push to be able to show some of that emotion in his performances if he ever wants to get out of this current situation.

 

To be honest the best thing for him would be to take some time off maybe a year or even more, I don't wish this on anyone unless I had a personal grudge but honestly for his career a big knee or shoulder injury might be the best thing to make him take some time off .

[sj5522]

I'm assuming there must be some number crunching reason they keep on persisting with him that we're all blind to.

I really like the guy, he has great upside and a respectable library of matches by anyone's standards but I just don't get why they won't just chill out on the guy. He doesn't have nearly as widespread appeal as Cena that makes the constant resistance a price worth paying - he can't do funny and he doesn't have Cena's fire. Find 100 kids or just non-smark fans who like Roman and I bet 99 of them like Rollins, Ambrose, Bryan and AJ too. They have more options for potential top guys than ever it's ludicrous to keep this experiment going. I actually long for the days where it looked like he COULD turn heel and come out of it better, the 10 minute 5 word promo after the Taker match was incredible, but now the crowd response is just getting more and more ambivalent and just unpleasant.

Edited May 8, 2018 by sj5522

[jazzygeofferz]

He's decent enough in the ring when he's in a match. He does good facial expressions, sells niggles well, reacts nicely but they're just booking him terribly, I think. I don't think he has any input on his promos which means his personality doesn't come across properly. They also totally missed the boat on him. Let him win the 2014 Rumble after that performance. Have Evolution screw him out of his Mania shot somehow to set up the Shield/Evolution matches more organically and it might not have gone quite as badly. I'm surprised the Rock didn't say something after they sent him out there a year later to try and give Roman the Rub after his actual Rumble win and the fans still shit on it. The problem is if they turn him heel and he starts cutting intense, vicious promos and mauling guys in matches "dem onez" would probably start popping for him. His whole "taking everything his opponents have got, hitting a single spear and winning" schtick isn't going to do him or anyone else on the roster any favours in the long run either.either. 

[sj5522]

16 minutes ago, jazzygeofferz said:

The problem is if they turn him heel and he starts cutting intense, vicious promos and mauling guys in matches "dem onez" would probably start popping for him.

Would that be such a bad thing though? Plenty of heels get the baby-face treatment these days. I would rather be a heel that gets cheers, however misguided, than a soundly rejected face. At this point, him gaining appreciation with a heel run would be a blessing, but I'm still not convinced it would actually work - the trigger should've been pulled a long time ago.

Quote

either.either. 

Edited May 8, 2018 by sj5522

[BomberPat]

I'd say at first it was bad timing - people really wanted to see Reigns succeed, but then it became clear that he was the golden boy right at the time that people wanted it to be Daniel Bryan more, and no one was going to come out of that well. So he got a ton of heat for being Not Daniel Bryan, that they could have eventually siphoned off - particularly when Bryan retired - but they never really escaped that resentment of him being a "Chosen One" at a time when Daniel Bryan and CM Punk had been telling the audience that whoever WWE chooses as the top guy is worthy of scorn, and you should be rooting for the underdog.

If he'd beaten Lesnar first time around, I think that would have undone a lot of the damage - hanging with Brock still felt like a legitimate rub, and beating him was a big deal, because Lesnar still felt "real", and hadn't gone full-on into All Suplexes, All The Time mode. But they sacrificed that for the Seth Rollins cash-in, and I don't think they ever really recovered Reigns' heat from that.

Since then, maybe some of it is Reigns' fault, but the vast majority of the blame lies with the booking. They try and have their cake and eat it too with him, one month you'll have someone calling him out for being a hand-picked main eventer (as in many of Cena's "shoot" promos against him), and then one month you'll have him as anti-Authority babyface, or calling out Lesnar for getting preferential treatment, presumably trying to get the Punk/Bryan crowd on board by presenting him as a shoot promo-ing underdog, without realising that you can't just tell people that someone is being held down when all the evidence is to the contrary, people need to believe it.

Worse than that, though, is that for a top guy he loses all the time. Whether it's a symbolic loss like getting systematically murdered by Brock Lesnar in every single altercation in the run-up to Wrestlemania, or the number of actual losses he was taking all last year - to Strowman, Lesnar, Joe, The Miz, he seemed to lose more often than he won. It seemed a conscious effort to make the crowd that resent him for being booked too strongly change their mind, but all it did was make him look less special and less deserving of a main event spot, and create more resentment when you see a guy consistently losing yet still getting all the big matches, and then complaining about it. Whoever booked him to moan about being given another title shot against Lesnar should be out on their arse.

[Fatty Facesitter]

They've got Strowman and Rollins waiting in the wings to take over the mantle as the top babyface on Raw - time for a slow-burn turn with Reigns between now and Summerslam to end the madness. Backlash really should be the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of his current role.

[air_raid]

8 hours ago, BomberPat said:

If he'd beaten Lesnar first time around, I think that would have undone a lot of the damage - hanging with Brock still felt like a legitimate rub, and beating him was a big deal, because Lesnar still felt "real", and hadn't gone full-on into All Suplexes, All The Time mode. But they sacrificed that for the Seth Rollins cash-in, and I don't think they ever really recovered Reigns' heat from that.

QFT. That match was excellent and mere moments before Seth came out to ruin it, not only had Reigns made a believer out of me, but I was convinced they'd made believers out of the live crowd too. But they Lugered him. Short of what he's done at Mania every year, he's been just another guy ever since.

[DavidB6937]

He's really really whiny at the moment. Well, "pissed off" as he said but it comes across as entitled and moany which isn't going to get him over with any of the crowd.

I've always been a fan of his in-ring work and I'd much rather he was a silent type but obviously that time has gone, but his character development is absolutely awful and there's nothing to get behind.

[Louch]

Can’t remember if it was on here I said if before, but Reigns has suffered for Cena being the main star above him. johns approach to do everything and anything, and not refuse the proper shit scenarios that Austin, hogan etc would have set the example then on that you do as your told. Reigns could and should have refused a lot of losses and bad angles and has been tarnished as a result. 

[jazzygeofferz]

11 hours ago, sj5522 said:

Would that be such a bad thing though? Plenty of heels get the baby-face treatment these days. I would rather be a heel that gets cheers, however misguided, than a soundly rejected face. At this point, him gaining appreciation with a heel run would be a blessing, but I'm still not convinced it would actually work - the trigger should've been pulled a long time ago.

It wouldn't be a bad thing if they let him keep being the heel persona, but had him dismantling heels instead of faces. Unfortunately a lot of the time the  attitude in the office seems to be that a babyface should pander to the crowd and be all smiley etc. When Cena turned face he cut that promo about how hot Steph was, but it was so hokey and uncharacteristic that the fans that'd been cheering him turned on him. Even more when he started getting the big push and became "Super Cena". I'm guessing the office may just think that booing Roman is the thing the fans do for Roman like they way they sing "John Cena sucks" even though they tend to love him now, myself included, and the "You suck" thing for Angle?

[Supremo]

The last straw for me was that, “Vince didn’t smarten me up,” line after his loss to Brock at Wrestlemania. What a load of shit. You’ve fucked him up so much, and you’ve become so desperate, that you aren’t even writing stuff that makes sense within kayfabe anymore. You’re weirdly alluding to the idea that the Mania main event was a shoot~! and that Brock went into business for himself. Fuck off with that Russo shit.

Edited May 8, 2018 by Supremo

[JNLister]

1 hour ago, Supremo said:

The last straw for me was that, “Vince didn’t smarten me up,” line after his loss to Brock at Wrestlemania. What a load of shit. You’ve fucked him up so much, and you’ve become so desperate, that you aren’t even writing stuff that makes sense within kayfabe anymore. You’re weirdly alluding to the idea that the Mania main event was a shoot~! and that Brock went into business for himself. Fuck off with that Russo shit.

You'll be pleased to know that line inspired a piece in the next issue of FSM, with similar conclusions to your post.