I don't want this to just turn into a Roman Reigns bashing thread, so I'm almost hesitant to ask the question, but in your opinion, where do you think the WWE went wrong with Roman Reigns and what can they do to repair the damage?
On paper, his rise to the top looks like it should have worked: you'd think that almost winning the Royal Rumble in 2014 (and losing out to a very unpopular superstar, breaking a Royal Rumble elimination record) and coming back the following year to win the 2015 Royal Rumble would've helped to get him over. People usually love that try-and-try-again shit. I guess at the time the fans were just more interested in Daniel Bryan. Even the endorsement of The Rock at the end of the Royal Rumble didn't help Roman. If anything, it just made The Rock slightly less popular.
The booking of Roman's road to winning the championship aside, his big Wrestlemania 31 match against Brock Lesnar should have made him somewhat more popular, on paper at least. In one corner you've got supposedly the biggest heel in the company, who everybody should dislike: a part-time performer who (in some people's opinions) undeservedly ended the Undertaker's prestigious streak and went on to decimate the WWE Champion, John Cena, in the most one sided championship match I can recall. The trouble here, though, is that people weren't really that pissed off about the streak ending; after the initial shock, people just moved on. All the people I know who swore they'd stop watching WWE when the streak ended are still watching now. Plus, the WWE overestimated (or totally misjudged) how the crowds would react to Lesnar demolishing Cena at Summerslam. It turned him into their most popular performer. We'd been wanting to see Cena get owned like that for years. So, if the WWE were trying to set up Lesnar up as the ultimate heel for Reigns to defeat, they screwed up big time.
The result of that first Wrestlemania match should, too, have made Reigns more popular. He'd survived a lengthy beatdown from Lesnar, only to have his championship moment stolen from him by a representative of the Authority (and former stablemate) Seth Rollins. Just like in Daniel Bryan's title chase in 2013, Roman had been screwed out of his big moment. We should have been rooting for Roman; the guy who'd slogged his guts out for the title shot only to have it slip through his fingers on the grandest stage of them all. Instead people went the other way and were pleased that he didn't win the championship. Suplex City, Bitch!
Since then, they've done plenty to endear us to Roman Reigns: like Daniel Bryan, he's been repeatedly cheated out of his championship reigns (first by a Sheamus MITB cash-in, then by having to defend it in a Royal Rumble) yet nobody is really siding with him. Even when he defeated Triple H, the company's biggest heel, he didn't get a great reaction. On paper, we should be rooting for Reigns to finally have the title run he's worked so hard for, but it hasn't panned out that way. So, what can the WWE do to turn Reigns into a champion that people want to see?
On paper, his rise to the top looks like it should have worked: you'd think that almost winning the Royal Rumble in 2014 (and losing out to a very unpopular superstar, breaking a Royal Rumble elimination record) and coming back the following year to win the 2015 Royal Rumble would've helped to get him over. People usually love that try-and-try-again shit. I guess at the time the fans were just more interested in Daniel Bryan. Even the endorsement of The Rock at the end of the Royal Rumble didn't help Roman. If anything, it just made The Rock slightly less popular.
The booking of Roman's road to winning the championship aside, his big Wrestlemania 31 match against Brock Lesnar should have made him somewhat more popular, on paper at least. In one corner you've got supposedly the biggest heel in the company, who everybody should dislike: a part-time performer who (in some people's opinions) undeservedly ended the Undertaker's prestigious streak and went on to decimate the WWE Champion, John Cena, in the most one sided championship match I can recall. The trouble here, though, is that people weren't really that pissed off about the streak ending; after the initial shock, people just moved on. All the people I know who swore they'd stop watching WWE when the streak ended are still watching now. Plus, the WWE overestimated (or totally misjudged) how the crowds would react to Lesnar demolishing Cena at Summerslam. It turned him into their most popular performer. We'd been wanting to see Cena get owned like that for years. So, if the WWE were trying to set up Lesnar up as the ultimate heel for Reigns to defeat, they screwed up big time.
The result of that first Wrestlemania match should, too, have made Reigns more popular. He'd survived a lengthy beatdown from Lesnar, only to have his championship moment stolen from him by a representative of the Authority (and former stablemate) Seth Rollins. Just like in Daniel Bryan's title chase in 2013, Roman had been screwed out of his big moment. We should have been rooting for Roman; the guy who'd slogged his guts out for the title shot only to have it slip through his fingers on the grandest stage of them all. Instead people went the other way and were pleased that he didn't win the championship. Suplex City, Bitch!
Since then, they've done plenty to endear us to Roman Reigns: like Daniel Bryan, he's been repeatedly cheated out of his championship reigns (first by a Sheamus MITB cash-in, then by having to defend it in a Royal Rumble) yet nobody is really siding with him. Even when he defeated Triple H, the company's biggest heel, he didn't get a great reaction. On paper, we should be rooting for Reigns to finally have the title run he's worked so hard for, but it hasn't panned out that way. So, what can the WWE do to turn Reigns into a champion that people want to see?