Roman Reigns

[FMKK]

Amazing performance from Reigns last night and I was going to bump this thread to discuss it. Nice to see it already getting recognition. Not only was he excellent at selling the pain he was in when Strowman was in offence, but the subtleties of lessening the impact of his own moves and, as has been pointed out, kicking out of the powerslam so weakly were incredible.

 

I'm not sure if there's anyone else on the WWE roster who could pull off a performance from underneath as good as that, let alone even being interested in doing so ahead of just going move for move. AJ Styles for sure but that's probably it. I loved the desperation and hatred that shone through when he was thumping Strowman with the ambulance door at the end too.

 

It's hard to conclude that the guy is anything other than one of the top workers in the world right now and I really hate that he still gets no respect from a large portion of the audience - the demographic that purports to care about people being good workers as well. Surely these people are just deluding themselves at this point. Performative smarkdom is the worst.

[SmartMark15]

Reigns has proved month after month, big match after big match, that he definitely deserves the kind of push that he's getting. And now, these arguments that "there's someone better" just don't hold anymore. I might have believed you in a time when Daniel Bryan was still on the roster, but now? Even with the boos, and heck maybe even because of the boos, Reigns fits into almost any role that a top WWE guy would need to fill.

 

He's an insurmountable threat to be conquered (vs. AJ Styles), a believably vulnerable underdog (vs. Brock and Braun), a cocky ace ready to defend his spot (vs. Bryan). What is it these people aren't seeing? Ridiculous.

[FMKK]

Reigns has proved month after month, big match after big match, that he definitely deserves the kind of push that he's getting. And now, these arguments that "there's someone better" just don't hold anymore. I might have believed you in a time when Daniel Bryan was still on the roster, but now? Even with the boos, and heck maybe even because of the boos, Reigns fits into almost any role that a top WWE guy would need to fill.

 

He's an insurmountable threat to be conquered (vs. AJ Styles), a believably vulnerable underdog (vs. Brock and Braun), a cocky ace ready to defend his spot (vs. Bryan). What is it these people aren't seeing? Ridiculous.

The initials ROH or NJPW on his Wikipedia page.

[KawadaSmile]

Hard to say there's anyone right now that paid as much attention to selling as Roman did yesterday. From the moment he came down to the ring barely moving his bad arm, I knew he was going to provide some great, great stuff.

[Jmare007]

 

Even kicking out of Strowman's finisher came off well, as his kick out had no force behind it, instead he barely lifted a shoulder in a way that said "he's still in it, but he's basically done" and then took the clean loss.

 

Saw that moment in the match and just started clapping. The guy just gets pro wrestling and I legitimately feel bad for him considering all this hate he gets. Someone of this talent deserves far more respect than he gets. Truly one of the best in-ring storytellers of our time and he has years to only get better.

 

 

What did it for me was him not being able to scream "UAH!". He did the pose, a portion of the crowd screamed, and he sounded like his throat and lungs were fucking destroyed. It was brilliant.

[stro]

I had a hot take and said I think Roman is the best main event face WWE has had since Bret Hart. Not in terms of character or promos, but in terms of consistently high quality matches with vastly different opponents where he adapts a different role depending on who he is facing, excellent selling, and generally making his opponents look great regardless if he wins or loses. The only guy I'd put above him at all in WWE right now is AJ, and AJ is going to be a midcard faceish champ, not main event face. Nakamura certainly COULD be better, but he hasn't been in his WWE run.

 

It's certainly no coincidence that everyone's best (WWE) match for the past 2 years has been with Roman. From AJ to Braun to arguably Big Show before these Braun matches to Brock to Bray to Rusev to Balor to Sheamus to Cesaro and so on. Dude is a better workrate king than all of the indie dudes on the roster besides AJ.

[Matt D]

I get where you're coming from, but maybe you should Get the F Out and go with Ace instead of Face? I think a prerequisite of being a good in-ring face is to get the crowd behind you and while he did it against Brock and Sheamus...

[stro]

I don't think it is at this point in WWE. AJ Styles has been a heel for about a year now and gets 90% cheers despite not doing anything to garner face cheers beyond being a good wrestler. He's been a good heel, too. He just happens to get cheered. Roman is a good face, putting on great face performances whether the crowd treats it as such or not. Unless you'd also argue that John Cena hasn't actually been a face for the past 12 years as well, which seems a bit absurd.

 

Roman's role has been more flexible at times in comparison to Cena, though.

[Microstatistics]

I put Roman over Styles for the sole reason that Roman does not have anything as shitty as the Cena trilogy on his resume. I think the best in the world hype from some is a little much but he is the best male worker in the company at this point.

 

With each performance, it's becoming harder and harder to deny the fact that the dude is obviously a very good pro wrestler. But people are so blinded by their hatred of how he has been booked and presented that, outside of this circle, he is just never going to get the praise for his work that he deserves.

[Matt D]

It's also the individual attributes that people value. Offense or bumping over selling. Workrate and cardio over character. Etc.

[stro]

I put Roman over Styles for the sole reason that Roman does not have anything as shitty as the Cena trilogy on his resume. I think the best in the world hype from some is a little much but he is the best male worker in the company at this point.

 

With each performance, it's becoming harder and harder to deny the fact that the dude is obviously a very good pro wrestler. But people are so blinded by their hatred of how he has been booked and presented that, outside of this circle, he is just never going to get the praise for his work that he deserves.

That's another thing I don't get. Roman has been booked and presented to be FAR more vulnerable and giving than any of the other top faces. Unlike 10 years of Cena cutting joke promos that tell the audience how much his opponent sucks and kills their gimmick before smashing them 3 months straight usually ending in beating them at their own signature match, Roman puts over his opponents during promos even if they're jokey, and he usually puts them over again the Raw after a PPV saying how tough it was. And he actually eats clean falls.

 

Roman spent the past 3 months getting demolished by Braun every week and just lost clean to a fucking powerslam in 2017.

[FMKK]

What would turn the smarks around on him outside of releasing him to compete in the G1? And even then I feel like a large proportion of those fans don't actually watch much New Japan etc.

[Microstatistics]

 

I put Roman over Styles for the sole reason that Roman does not have anything as shitty as the Cena trilogy on his resume. I think the best in the world hype from some is a little much but he is the best male worker in the company at this point.

 

With each performance, it's becoming harder and harder to deny the fact that the dude is obviously a very good pro wrestler. But people are so blinded by their hatred of how he has been booked and presented that, outside of this circle, he is just never going to get the praise for his work that he deserves.

That's another thing I don't get. Roman has been booked and presented to be FAR more vulnerable and giving than any of the other top faces. Unlike 10 years of Cena cutting joke promos that tell the audience how much his opponent sucks and kills their gimmick before smashing them 3 months straight usually ending in beating them at their own signature match, Roman puts over his opponents during promos even if they're jokey, and he usually puts them over again the Raw after a PPV saying how tough it was. And he actually eats clean falls.

 

Roman spent the past 3 months getting demolished by Braun every week and just lost clean to a fucking powerslam in 2017.

 

 

That's a good point, the constant complaints about how Wrestler X and Wrestler Y are being sacrificed to make Roman look strong don't really hold up considering those wrestlers actually end up looking better than they did before they feuded with him.

 

People just can't get over the fact that his initial 2014/15 push was a bit too rapid for their taste and at the "expense" of Daniel Bryan and that mindset of "Undeserving Roman is being pushed to the top at all costs" has just stuck and nothing that has happened or he has done since can apparently change that.

[SmartMark15]

I can't help but find it ironic that the one thing that will redeem Roman in the eyes of most fans is a heel turn. It plays into this whole new level of meta-booking that the WWE has been experimenting (intentionally or otherwise) with for about a whole decade now.

 

The same logic goes for Cena back when the hatred for him was a palpable thing instead of just a part of his act (which is starting to become the case for Roman).

 

If you have a top ace who is over with a significant section of the crowd as a face as well as drawing huge boo reactions, why would you turn that person heel if they're already receiving heel receptions. The change might only serve to change the reaction he receives.

 

It was one of the great things about Cena that he could put in these fantastic babyface performances then turn right around and play the best heel for the indy darlings (Punk, Bryan, Styles) coming up without ever changing his character but still getting the reaction necessary to put his opponent over.

 

Same goes for Roman except his opponents don't just go over with the crowd in builds but also in the ring as Roman bumps and sells his ass off for pretty much all his opponents.

[Matt D]

I don't get why they don't just turn Reigns for 9 months or whatever. He'd be bigger afterwards.

[WingedEagle]

I don't get why they don't just turn Reigns for 9 months or whatever. He'd be bigger afterwards.

 

It does seem simple. But Vince does seem that stubborn in recent years.

[stro]

I don't get why they don't just turn Reigns for 9 months or whatever. He'd be bigger afterwards.

Because at this point, it's both caving to a smaller part of the audience that infected the rest of the audience, plus pointless since he's already getting booed more than he would be as a heel. He's currently the top merch mover of full timers (Cena is still #1 overall), and since most of his stuff is being sold to kids, there's always a serious risk of damaging that revenue stream with a turn.

 

Imagine if Roman got turned and Braun spent the last few months stuck with Seth Rollins instead.

[Matt D]

The idea is to get him cheered later. Recapture the "Coolness," so that when he turns face again he's doing double the merch numbers.

[Jimmy Redman]

Roman is never going to "convince" the people who are booing him to change their minds with more great matches. Just like Cena never did.

 

It's not about workrate, never has been. The people who boo him vociferously decided long ago that they hate the guy for whatever reason (his push, Bryan, etc.), and the people who boo him for fun because everyone else is are just doing it because that's what you do at a WWE show now. Great matches aren't going to change either of those things.

[goc]

I don't get why they don't just turn Reigns for 9 months or whatever. He'd be bigger afterwards.

Because that's what wreddit and wrestlingforum say Vince should do and he should fucking burn Titan Towers to the ground before he takes suggestions from those cesspools.

[Matt D]

He should do whatever makes him money in the long term no matter where the idea comes from. Also, the idea is simple logic and following the formula he used with Rocky in 98 anyway.

 

You deal too much with these people, I think.

[goc]

Your WWE related posts are too much like them, I think.

[Boss Rock]

If Austin, one of the best minds in wrestling, is calling for a heel turn I think it's worth doing.

[goc]

Having thought about this for a bit today, the idea that turning Roman heel is some panacea that will inevitably end in him being a wildly cheered babyface is stupid. John Cena's rise to the top started with him as a heel and yet once he turned babyface and became The Guy in the company people turned on him. Yet the vocal detractors didn't stop him from turning into the undisputed top star in wrestling for pretty much the past decade. Would turning Cena heel in 2006 or 2007 really have made him a bigger star or helped him sell more brightly colored merchandise to angry smarks once he turned face again?

 

"But it worked for The Rock!" ignores that The Rock was a complete and total breakaway from Rocky Maivia and also that The Rock is a special kind of talent that I'm not sure wrestling had ever seen before and we certainly haven't seen since. There also really isn't a direct comparison because people rejected Rocky Maivia from the start unlike Roman who was well liked during The Shield and even during the start of his singles run and the smarkity smarks didn't really start turning on him on until they started to think he was "stealing" Bryan's spot.

[Strummer]

I don't think it's hyperbole to say that WWE putting Bryan in the 2015 Rumble might be the biggest booking decision blunder in company history. Was there ever a reason given why they did that? If you believe in the political hit theory that is probably the highest card you hold