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Roman Reigns’ Moral WWE Booking in AJ Styles Feud is Illogical

By Rob Wolkenbrod

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Roman Reigns may be performing good deeds, but it’s not appearing as WWE intends.

To close WWE Raw on May 2, Roman Reigns’ family vs. AJ Styles’ ‘club’ went to battle. This resulted in the Phenomenal One getting the win for his side.

After the match, things broke down. Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows started beating down Reigns and wanted Styles to hit with him a chair. They placed the weapon in his hands and waited for him to perform the deed. Following consideration, Styles chose the moral action of refusing and threw the chair down.

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The turning point of this segment would come when The Usos ran up behind Styles and bashed him with a chair. This broke things down even further as Anderson, Gallows, Jimmy and Jey fought.

We got to a point where Reigns got to his feet and stared down Styles. He saw the 38-year-old attack his cousins with a chair, so the beat down was on. Reigns kicked the hell out of him and closed Raw by powerbombing Styles through the announce table.

Bleacher Report’s James Moffat made a great point in a post about the Reigns vs. Styles feud. All of this may have come off like a hinted heel turn, but it would be foolish to think this.

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So just what was WWE trying to accomplish with this segment?

Roman Reigns has become a more aggressive version of John Cena within the past two years. He’s an ultra good guy but has an edge that Mr. HLR never was booked to have. The other common trait is they’re both their characters are designed to have morals. Despite showing different sides of their personas, when in doubt, these guys do the right thing. They support their family, partners, allies or whoever and will do anything possible.

Cena walked alone for years but whenever teamed with someone, a la the Survivor Series 2014 feud. He did the right thing by saving Edge as he was about to be taken out by Seth Rollins. The Architect said he would only stop from breaking the Rated R Superstar’s neck if Cena reinstated The Authority.

Reigns’ situation is similar. He does what’s right to help his cousins Jimmy and Jey out, which was the case on Monday. This just didn’t work, though.

Let’s get back to the attack. The Usos did the seemingly ‘moral’ thing by attacking Styles. This would make sense if he had hit Reigns, right? So what’s trying to be accomplished here?

The fans watching at home know that Styles only attacked The Usos because they hit first. Reigns’ face was even in clear view of the chair shots.

So Reigns does what he seems to be the right thing in beating the hell out of Styles. To the fans at home watching this, it would seem to indicate a heel turn. This aggressiveness shown by anybody else on the active roster would fit the logic of a good guy going bad—anyone but Roman.

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Roman Reigns is not turning heel anytime soon. It would be silly to expect this to happen because if WWE is turning him into what John Cena has been, then the status quo is assumed. That would mean there’s a ‘logical’ or ‘moral’ reason behind everything he’s doing. In this case, it’s getting revenge for the attack of his cousins.

There’s another big issue with this—if Reigns was actually beloved by the fans and was the de facto babyface in this feud, there wouldn’t be a problem. He’s going up against Styles, who fans love and is making moral decisions. How many times has it been that the former IWGP Heavyweight Champion has disagreed with Anderson and Gallows going after Reigns? How many times has he made the right decision? Shouldn’t this be every reason to root for Styles?

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In WWE’s eyes, what happened should make us want to root for Reigns. It’s broken logic that just doesn’t work—and that goes for any era.

So what’s the moral of the story? AJ Styles is making the right decisions but isn’t being treated like he did, turning him into the ‘heel’ of the babyface vs. babyface storyline. Roman Reigns is making the wrong decisions but isn’t being treated like he did, making him the ‘babyface’ of the program. Does any of this make sense? It doesn’t. But in WWE’s odd booking logic—it does.

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