What’s up with the hate for Roman reigns? It seems like he is suppose to be a good guy
I wanted to come back to this.
Lol sigh, where to begin..........(yes this is TL;DR material)
- Let's preface this by saying that the majority of the hate is towards the booking and portrayal of Roman Reigns, and not so much the wrestler, though he is not blameless.
Roman Reigns was the handpicked guy to replace John Cena once it became apparent that Daniel Bryan's concussions were a major issue, ultimately forcing him to retire (at least for 3 years).
Fans did not take kindly to the instant push that Reigns got once the Shield (Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns) broke up.
It didn't help that Reigns could not cut a decent face promo to save his life.....and really hasn't gotten a whole lot better, though there is some progress.
Reigns has been gifted multiple championship opportunities, usually against the fans' wishes of seeing other wrestlers pushed instead.
And this would be all fine and dandy, except.......Reigns is being portrayed as a face (good guy).
The WWE wants him portrayed as this lone wolf underdog superhero tough guy who makes miraculous comebacks using the leaping punch move made famous by Brad Pitt in the movie Troy, and the spear, which was popularized by WCW's Goldberg and pawned off by several other wrestlers over the years while rarely ever matching the same intensity Goldberg put into his spears (hell Edge practically cost himself his career doing the move).
But the funny thing about Reigns is.......he debuted as a heel in NXT. He wrestled an aggressive style similar to what you see other Samoan wrestlers portray particularly as heels, and he had a very condescending manner about him.
Once he got to the main roster though, they toned down his move set, relegated him to being the muscle in the Shield, and turned him face. And Vince McMahon is apparently adamant about keeping Reigns as a face despite several things he's done over the last few years that aren't very face-like (but we're still suppose to cheer him, like when Stone Cold would mouth off and flip the middle finger or stun someone just because they offended him).
And the issue with the title matches isn't just that he's undeserving, but that it's also very predictable given that the fans know that Vince is pushing him.
Everyone knew a year in advance that Reigns would main event a 4th WrestleMania in a row (yes 4 in a row, with every match getting progressively worse), and that he would face Brock Lesnar for the Universal title. Most assumed that would be his coronation, but because the WWE wants Lesnar for the name draw and they didn't know what to do with his contract, they got cold feet and kept the title on Lesnar. So fans were frustrated, but thought they would have him win at the Greatest Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia.
But they went with a f*** finish and Lesnar kept the belt again, and has not defended it since April, while rarely appearing on television to build up this idea that Brock Lesnar is a bad champion, which again, goes back to poor booking......
And instead of giving the next title opportunity to someone new or someone the fans want to see (Braun Strowman or Rollins), they are giving us Reigns-Lesnar again, and now there's no scenario involving those two that will give the fans a satisfying outcome. The only way fans will embrace the match is if either Strowman or Kevin Owen's cashes in their Money In The Bank contract and steals the title. Otherwise, it will be nothing but boos like the last two matches.
Lastly, Reigns has also been a part of a few other controversial booking decisions that pissed a lot of fans off.
2015 he won the Royal Rumble in Philadelphia when the fans wanted Daniel Bryan, and WWE even sent the Rock out to try and get him over with the fans, and he was met with nothing but boos.
2016 they booked the entire Royal Rumble around Reigns defending his WWE title, ultimately losing the title to and being eliminated by Triple H........only to get it right back from him at WrestleMania 32, which saw the WWE heavily edit the crowd noise due to the booing......
And in 2017 instead of a returning Finn Balor or a debuting Samoa Joe, they have Roman enter at #30 in the Royal Rumble to another chorus of boos and giving us a pretty hilarious reaction video in the process.
And to top it off, they pissed everyone off when they had him beat the Undertaker in a god awful match at WrestleMania....which also gave us another amazing segment on the Raw after Mania the next night.
So that's a recap in a nutshell. As for my take on Reigns, when I got back into wrestling in 2016, I didn't have an opinion one way or another on Reigns, other than my initial impression without hearing him and just seeing him wrestle, was that he was a heel....only to find out he was in fact suppose to be the top face of the company.....
I honestly felt kinda bad about his heat at first, until I watched his match with Kevin Owen's at that 2017 Royal Rumble where he took chair shots, went through a table, AND worst of all took brass knuckles to the face and kicked out of a cover each time. That was when it became apparent to me how ridiculous and exaggerated his push really was.
Did that answer your question?.......
