wrestling / Columns

WWE Keeps Failing With Roman Reigns

August 23, 2016 | Posted by Jeremy Lambert
Roman Reigns Image Credit: WWE

Like it or not, Roman Reigns is still THE Guy in WWE.

Plenty of people hoped and believed that wouldn’t be the case following his 30-day wellness suspension, his failure to regain the WWE Title in the Shield Triple Threat, and his one-on-one loss to the not-quite-yet Demon King, Finn Balor.

The Rusev feud looked like a good idea on paper. It got Reigns out of the Universal Title picture for the time being and made the U.S. Title and Rusev seem important after ice cold feuds with Titus O’Neill and Zack Ryder. Even the matches were promising as Rusev is an underrated wrestler who doesn’t get to show off his skill set nearly enough and Reigns, despite what “smart” fans may chant, is a perfectly fine and capable professional wrestler.

A good idea on paper has quickly become crumbled up garbage.

Reigns, the supposed babyface, has become the most deplorable human being in wrestling. He showed up uninvited to the wedding between Rusev and Lana, ruining it by claiming to be the best man even though I highly doubt he threw Rusev a bachelor party. He insulted Lana with unfunny jokes and questioned their love by claiming that Lana was nothing more than a mail-order bride. Finally, he indirectly shoved the bride into the wedding cake and laughed at her as she screamed that he had ruined her big day.

Imagine this. Someone you’ve never actively interacted with shows up to your wedding and does exactly what Roman Reigns did. Wouldn’t you think that guy was a prick? And don’t even tell me Rusev deserved this because he flaunted his wedding to everyone and has opinions that you don’t agree with. If I disagree with someone often on Twitter, and they keep bringing up their wedding in completely unrelated tweets, I’m not going to just show up to their wedding, give a speech, and shove the bride into the cake. Not even Garth Brooks took it that far in Friends in Low Places.

Oh, it gets worse.

After doing all of this and still being presented as the good guy, Reigns beats the hell of Rusev at SummerSlam. Now, you might be saying, “Rusev started it by jumping him before the bell.” That’s a fair point, but I’ll a sneak attack is forgivable given what Reigns put Rusev and his bride through. Also, jumping a man before the bell doesn’t excuse Reigns from taking it a step too far. After he had already laid out Rusev with multiple chair shots and left the ringside area, Reigns returned to spear Rusev, who was just trying to make it to the back to receive medical attention.

That’s THE Guy we’re supposed to cheer for.

Lesnar is an out of control human with no redeeming qualities when he continues to beat on a broken and bloodied Randy Orton, but Reigns is a conquering babyface for doing the same thing against Rusev. I’m all for making Reigns a bad ass babyface who doesn’t take any shit. That’s not who Roman Reigns currently is, though. Reigns is a wedding crashing Russell Crowe obsessed with hair gel.

Vince McMahon’s obsession with Reigns and his desire to turn Roman into his figurehead and leader of the company is a bit troubling.

They’ve done just about everything they can do with Roman to make him the top babyface. He’s feuded with and gotten the better of the evil Authority. He got to lay out Vince and deliver the comeuppance to Stephanie. He’s defied the odds even though the odds never seemed all that insurmountable. He’s shown some vulnerability and human emotion when things don’t go his way. They’ve tried to take from every top star in the history of wrestling and piece it all together to create a megastar sports entertainer. And it’s all failed.

The easy solution would be to turn him heel. It’s what fans have hoped and clamored for, for well over a year. Most singles stars need an early run as a heel in order to find themselves as a face. The Rock, Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, John Cena, The Undertaker, Randy Savage, and just about every major singles star outside of Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, Goldberg, and Sting, used a successful heel run to propel into untouchable babyface status.

Roman never got that singles heel run. He was a babyface following the implosion of The Shield, failed at winning the title, had a feud with Randy Orton, and was then injured during a feud with Seth Rollins. Once he returned, he was dwarfed by the popularity of Daniel Bryan and his return, and never recovered. He could’ve benefitted by returning as a heel on his march to the Wrestlemania main event, but what’s done is done and hindsight is 20/20.

The problem with the “turn him heel” solution today is that it would need Vince and company to admit that they failed, something they’re not too keen on doing. They would rather go down with the empire rather than acknowledge that the empire was poorly built.

Instead of taking advantage of Reigns’ cocky, dickhead attitude, we’re going to keep getting a thinly layered babyface who is only a babyface because he doesn’t like guys who have been pre-positioned as heels. No amount of booing or chanting is going to change that. A feud with Rusev over the U.S. Title was supposed to push him down the card, but he was still in the main event segment nearly every week. Now, with the Universal Title vacated, Reigns finds himself right back in the title picture, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone if he becomes the longest reigning Universal Champion starting next week.

 photo ROMAN WINK_zpsb1d0tujx.gif

And it shouldn’t surprise the WWE when the fans don’t accept it.

Follow me on twitter @jeremylambert88 where I predict the future.

article topics :

Roman Reigns, WWE, Jeremy Lambert