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Why did fans warmly accept Batista (2005) but not Roman Reigns?

26K views 212 replies 150 participants last post by  Wynter 
#1 ·
The 2 of them both have a linear career, don't you think? Batista and Reigns were in a stable prior to their singles push with their first championships as the tag titles.

Batista isn't that good with the mic nor is he known as a good wrestler, so does Reigns. I'm guessing it's most likely really the audience. If Batista was to be bombarded by Benoit fans rioting for making him a midcarder the year after, would that have changed the WM 21 main event?
 
#7 ·
Batista came through Evolution surrounded by 2 of the greatest heels of all time and was coming off the back of a brilliant storyline which essentially had 3 years of build. Roman, and don't get me wrong, I like Roman and his time will come, is blatantly Vince's handpicked guy for the future and was blatantly being forceed down the fans throat. When you have that, when combined with a self-made fan favourite being marginalised (DB), Roman's heat becomes more understandable .
 
#8 ·
because batista was well built and the turn post rumble was brilliantly pulled off.

if after 6-8 months of him working as a single guys in early 2003 batista won the rumble and then went onto mainevent mania 19 then people would have reacted completely different and batistas run would have flopped. ironically wwe were pushing batista hard in 2003 but the fans were not accepting it and wwe eased back and waited 2 years to pull the trigger

this sound familiar?

"WWE house show report 2-7-03 Houston

mainevent
8- booker t def batista ... this may be the match that kills houston wrestling...let me explain i have been a hardcore fan since i was a lil baby..i am 28 now..i have been to lot of bad shows...and great shows but i have never left a show feeling so ripped off and so belittled..i am relatively easy to please when it comes to my wrestling...if they make an honest effort to put on a good main event even if it sucks then i can respect that...but batista..i really feel insulted that wwe has so little respect for its fans and our money...booker t is cool with me as half of a main event and though on tv he hasnt been pushed as a main eventer i feel he should be one....batista though jeeze all i have to say is W.T.F. they could have put jerico in that spot or closed the show with the dudleys tag match but they close a show with this and the fans respond by not paying attention to the match and many wound up leaving..i would estimate that once batista hit the ring 100-200 people hit the doors.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030904...ng.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=6689
 
#93 ·
because batista was well built and the turn post rumble was brilliantly pulled off.

if after 6-8 months of him working as a single guys in early 2003 batista won the rumble and then went onto mainevent mania 19 then people would have reacted completely different and batistas run would have flopped. ironically wwe were pushing batista hard in 2003 but the fans were not accepting it and wwe eased back and waited 2 years to pull the trigger

this sound familiar?



http://web.archive.org/web/20030904...ng.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=6689

I was at this show and if I remember correctly this was my first live event :banderas



What's funny is I don't remember anyone there having a problem with the main event, the crowd was cheering Booker T the home town guy and booing Batista the heel, but it wasn't the wrong kind of heat, everyone enjoyed it. But I was young then...

It's just interesting to me in general how the seriously the internet treats wrestling, even back then.
 
#30 ·
Because the whole rumble was shifted and worked to make reigns look strong, to the point they basically admitted he wasn't ready and they needed to waste a rumble to make him look sstrong.

He eliminated a record number the year before, and all those people (many jobbers) had more time and focus than Ambrose, ziggler, barret, Ryback, Daniel Bryan, Rusev... The sacrifice of many for one pissed people off.
 
#11 ·
I couldn't stand Batista either
 
#14 · (Edited)
To me, what made it worse was the fact that it was Randy Orton's spot. (According to the intital plan, before the botched face run.)

As for OP's question, simple answer. It was a very different crowd. To me, Wrestlemania 21 had in many ways, the vigor of the attitude era. (There was no over analysis of shows then.) The magic was still there. The illusionists at creative knew how to get people to believe the trick. They knew how to get them to fall for it. The crowd was at the magician's mercy and not the other way around. The product was not stale. Batista was not suffering the after-effects of Cena deadening the product. Hell, no one had ever had such a prolonged run at the time of Batista's ascent. (In the recent past.) And as much as I could not stand the guy during that stage in his career, he did manage to naturally grow into his role and become a legitimate main eventer. He got beyond the inital hiccups and became an established main event player. But with Reigns, he has not been able to be on that level, imo.
 
#16 ·
Anybody who thinks Botchista is more talented than Roman Reigns doesn't know what talent is.
more talented is neither here not there. batista especially in early 2005 was a million times better booked.

lets not forget when shield broke up reigns completely ignored the fact that rollins turned on him and went off and started doing his own thing.
 
#19 · (Edited)
Batista’s push was coming off of HHH’s Reign of Terror in 2003 & 2004 and to see HHH dethroned and losing the belt, after numerous attempts by other superstars getting pushed (Benoit, Orton) at the time, made people happy. The fact that Batista turned on HHH made it sweeter.

Reigns’ push on the other hand felt forced, and the dislike towards that was because there were many other preferable fan favourites (Bryan, Ambrose, Ziggler) that weren’t pushed and getting a shot at the champion (Lesnar) who was pretty popular with fans himself even though he was a heel, and fans weren’t as keen on seeing him lose the title so soon, especially since Lesnar was finally being booked properly.

Plus the wrestling culture is more smarky than before. In 2005, even though the fans had their darlings, the dislike was mainly targeted towards HHH. If they didn’t like something, they were more likely to chant boring instead of hijacking the show. Now, smarky fans tend to just support their favourites, who are seen has being very talented, underrated and overlooked, and are actually willing to hijack shows if they don’t get what they want. The fact that Reigns had not proven himself in certain areas to the fans (singles run & promos) and the booking did not necessarily help him, contributed to the backlash.

However, when you are reluctant to make new stars for so long, and you finally realize that you have no reliable stars for the future, and your response is to basically give someone not proven a shove (cause that’s basically what it was, despite how Reigns was pushed from 2012-early 2014), a backlash like Reigns received can only be expected.
 
#20 · (Edited)
1. Batista is more charismatic than Reigns.

2. Even back then, he was better on the mic and in the ring.

3. The WWE did not try and bury every over wrestler in the company with the worst-booked Royal Rumble of all time in their effort to push Batista; only one guy really got screwed up by Batista's push (Orton, because Triple H buried him several months beforehand to keep the way clear for Batista, his guy.) Meanwhile, with Reigns, they brought back Bryan and tried to bury him (again); even before that, they buried Cesaro back in April 2014 when it looked like he would get over enough to interfere with their plans to make Reigns the next top face, and then buried Ambrose when he got hot, followed by exiling Orton off TV when he caught fire, and then basically killed Dolph's momentum after Survivor Series. Note all 4 of these guys were substantially more over than Reigns was last year.

4. Not only is Lesnar not really a true heel, he's far too charismatic, far too good in the ring, and even entertaining enough on the mic for fans to not want to see the title taken off him. WWE tried their best to get Roman cheered by keeping Lesnar off TV purposefully (even though Lesnar was willing to work more dates for the fee specified in his contract), booking his title reign horribly (Cena three times in a row), and then when their efforts to get heat on Lesnar completely failed, they just kept him away from Roman during the buildup because they knew Lesnar would get cheered.

5. Let's just say 2005 Triple H is inferior to Lesnar, given he's a politically manufactured/company-made main eventer who doesn't have the same level of talent (in-ring or on the mic) many guys who haven't been booked as strongly have. He mostly had "please retire" heat in 2005, and that worked in Batista's favor. His title reign was unfathomably boring; people wanted it to end. People didn't want the belt taken off of Lesnar if it was going to Reigns.

6. Because Batista got over organically with the slow-burn face turn (and because he was more charismatic to start with, Triple H was getting more heat than Lesnar), the WWE did not have to have the likes of Heyman, Bryan, and Rollins (or the 2005 equivalents) cut promos trying to verbally blow Batista in a transparent effort to get him over like they had to do with Reigns.

7. Batista was not giving out of character interviews where he talked down on his stablemates that carried him over the previous few years, like Reigns did when he called Ambrose and Rollins "journeymen." You also didn't see Batista saying the fans "hated their lives" for not cheering him, nor did he ever say anything like "I'm just a guy getting rich." In other words, Batista has been a heel character; Roman appears to have heel qualities as an actual person, a little like CM Punk (who I liked as a pro wrestler but admit he was/is a dick), only he doesn't have enough talent/skill (in-ring or out) for people to overlook that and give him a pass the way other popular actresses/singers get if they're good enough at what they do.

8. Commentators never tried to shill Batista as blatantly as they shill Reigns on commentary now, nor did they ever try and do something like those "injury update" segments Reigns got for several weeks.

9. Even while getting pushed as a single's wrestler, Batista was not booked anywhere near as strongly as Reigns is now. He lost multiple times, to Orton and others, never set elimination records like Reigns did, and the like.

10. Batista was characterized as a powerhouse and actually had the requisite moveset associated with that billing. Reigns is billed as a powerhouse but doesn't wrestle as one at all. Harper, Ryback, Rusev, even Swagger all have more of a "powerhouse" moveset than Reigns does. Late 2010-2011 Orton even wrestled more of a powerhouse style (multiple suplex variations, Angle Slam, Powerbomb, was using the Gutwrench Neckbreaker regularly again, etc.)

Basically, it's a cocktail of the Reigns push directly screwing over people the fans like better than him (which wasn't happening during Batista's push), Batista having more talent, Reigns sucking at PR (if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt), a visible disconnect between reality and how he's presented/booked, superman booking, a lack of talent/skill/entertainment value, a champion much more likable and popular than he is, and Cena-like shilling on commentary/by other wrestlers/the script of the actual shows.
 
#46 ·
1. Batista is more charismatic than Reigns.

2. Even back then, he was better on the mic and in the ring.

3. The WWE did not try and bury every over wrestler in the company with the worst-booked Royal Rumble of all time in their effort to push Batista; only one guy really got screwed up by Batista's push (Orton, because Triple H buried him several months beforehand to keep the way clear for Batista, his guy.) Meanwhile, with Reigns, they brought back Bryan and tried to bury him (again); even before that, they buried Cesaro back in April 2014 when it looked like he would get over enough to interfere with their plans to make Reigns the next top face, and then buried Ambrose when he got hot, followed by exiling Orton off TV when he caught fire, and then basically killed Dolph's momentum after Survivor Series. Note all 4 of these guys were substantially more over than Reigns was last year.

4. Not only is Lesnar not really a true heel, he's far too charismatic, far too good in the ring, and even entertaining enough on the ring for fans to not want to see the title taken off him. WWE tried their best to get Roman cheered by keeping Lesnar off TV purposefully (even though Lesnar was willing to work more dates for the fee specified in his contract), booking his title reign horribly (Cena three times in a row), and then when their efforts to get heat on Lesnar completely failed, they just kept him away from Roman during the buildup because they knew Lesnar would get cheered.

5. Let's just say 2005 Triple H is inferior to Lesnar, given he's a politically manufactured/company-made main eventer who doesn't have the same level of talent (in-ring or on the mic) many guys who haven't been booked as strongly have. He mostly had "please retire" heat in 2005, and that worked in Batista's favor. His title reign was unfathomably boring; people wanted it to end. People didn't want the belt taken off of Lesnar if it was going to Reigns.

6. Because Batista got over organically with the slow-burn face turn (and because he was more charismatic to start with, Triple H was getting more heat than Lesnar), the WWE did not have to have the likes of Heyman, Bryan, and Rollins (or the 2005 equivalents) cut promos trying to verbally blow Batista in a transparent effort to get him over like they had to do with Reigns.

7. Batista was not giving out of character interviews where he talked down on his stablemates that carried him over the previous few years, like Reigns did when he called Ambrose and Rollins "journeymen." You also didn't see Batista saying the fans "hated their lives" for not cheering him, nor did he ever say anything like "I'm just a guy getting rich." In other words, Batista has been a heel character; Roman appears to have heel qualities as an actual person, a little like CM Punk (who I liked as a pro wrestler but admit he was/is a dick), only he doesn't have enough talent/skill (in-ring or out) for people to overlook that and give him a pass the way other popular actresses/singers get if they're good enough at what they do.

8. Commentators never tried to shill Batista as blatantly as they shill Reigns on commentary now, nor did they ever try and do something like those "injury update" segments Reigns got for several weeks.

9. Even while getting pushed as a single's wrestler, Batista was not booked anywhere near as strongly as Reigns is now. He lost multiple times, to Orton and others, never set elimination records like Reigns did, and the like.

10. Batista was characterized as a powerhouse and actually had the requisite moveset associated with that billing. Reigns is billed as a powerhouse but doesn't wrestle as one at all. Harper, Ryback, Rusev, even Swagger all have more of a "powerhouse" moveset than Reigns does. Late 2010-2011 Orton even wrestled more of a powerhouse style (multiple suplex variations, Angle Slam, Powerbomb, was using the Gutwrench Neckbreaker regularly again, etc.)

Basically, it's a cocktail of the Reigns push directly screwing over people the fans like better than him (which wasn't happening during Batista's push), Batista having more talent, Reigns sucking at PR (if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt), a visible disconnect between reality and how he's presented/booked, superman booking, a lack of talent/skill/entertainment value, a champion much more likable and popular than he is, and Cena-like shilling on commentary/by other wrestlers/the script of the actual shows.
I was going to write a long lengthy post about this, but the above post basically described my own thoughts on the matter exactly; so I will just quote it.
 
#21 ·
Batista was everything Vince wishes Roman Reigns was, cool and badass. He wasn't great in the ring but he at least had a certain amount of charism, plus the whole booking of his push was much better than the forced down throat push of Roman Reigns.
 
#22 ·
plus the whole booking of his push was much better than the forced down throat push of Roman Reigns.

This is complete bullshit. Batista spent a year burying the entire roster with Evolution. No one on RAW mattered except them. Roman spent 6 months in the mid card and then magically won the Rumble. The only reason it was obvious he was winning is because he was the only one with strong booking, not because he was forced down everyone's throats with his 5 minute segments in comparison to Seth's 40.
 
#59 ·
Do you honestly believe people are booing Reigns because he's good looking? Fans aren't jealous of his looks, that is a very childish way of thinking, when there are plenty of other attractive performers who aren't being booed. And every wrestler in the WWE is successful, they work for the biggest wrestling company in the entire world, you don't hear the whole roster being booed for having success.
 
#34 · (Edited)
Why do people usually like the first movie and then hate its sequel? How many times can you repeat the exact same booking with the same kind of individuals with the same kind of characters, appeal, ability before people get sick and tired of it and want a change?

WWE has been repeating the exact same things over and over and over again for the past 15 years and the shit has just gotten tiring for a lot of fans that want change

Plus ... as much as I hate to say this, Batista had a better look than Reigns. He had more charisma and was a lot better on the mic in 2005 than Reigns was in 2014. It's not like the fans didn't even give Reigns a chance. They did. Reigns just did not show anything till his match against Lesnar at all in terms of his own ability to garner support.

Batista on the other hand was marginally better than Reigns .. and since you're already drawing the comparison, it's safe to assume that Reigns is a bad sequel to Cena and Batista and that's all the reason there really is.

Think of them in terms of Star Wars Prequels in reverse order with Reigns = Episode I, Batista = Episode II and Cena = Episode III. They all mostly suck, but I was worse than II which was worse than III.
 
#42 ·
Batista was a background character in Evolution. He got to be quiet and cool for their whole run while all of the focus was put on HHH/Randy, so he kind of got over by default. And...look at his booking. He was starting to get face pops and shit, and what happened? HE turned on HHH and beat the shit out of him. Which was a cool move. Batista was a badass.

I know people like to compare them, but I don't see many parallels. Roman was clearly the guy they wanted to get over most from the Shield. From the moment they split, he was immediately pushed and it didn't have dick to do with fan reaction. And he never had the cool badass character down that Batista did.

And frankly, Batista was a better worker than Reigns. People badmouth him like he sucked, but he didn't. He learned quickly how to work a mic and a crowd. And people would always predict his bigger matches to suck ahead of time, yet he'd deliver and his matches would be much better than people ever gave him credit for. Dave Batista was a good main eventer for them. Roman can't work a mic or crowd. And WWE does him no favors by saddling him with the Big Show for most of his main event career.
 
#43 ·
The main reason is because Batista was only the main guy on one show. There was someone else over on Smackdown to get a push and tons of exposure.

These days, WWE only tends to push one guy at a time.
 
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