WWE: Signs That Bobby Roode Is About To Hit His Groove

WWE fans have been upset with the main roster debuts of Shinsuke Nakamura and Bobby Roode, who haven’t felt like big stars ever since being called up from NXT.

Everything about Bobby Roode screams, “Future Vince McMahon guy!” Roode is a crisp in-ring worker who uses an old-school style of storytelling, targeting limbs and focusing on matches that incorporate a “slow burn”. Roode’s matches are rarely flashy, but they are effective. His selling, character work, and experience made him a star during his brief run with the NXT Championship, as Roode established himself as a top heel.

But on the WWE main roster, Roode was immediately made a babyface, and many have speculated that it’s because of his theme song and entrance. If that is the case, then the WWE have shown a shockingly low level of foresight and faith in Roode, since they ostensibly believe that Roode can’t turn the fans against him due to something as inconsequential as a catchy theme.

In any case, Roode’s first feud on the main roster came on SmackDown Live against resident gatekeeper – and he’s easily the least foreboding gatekeeper of all-time…it would be more appropriate to refer to him as a doorstop – Dolph Ziggler.

Needless to say, Roode won the feud, defeating Ziggler in a 2-Out-Of-3-Falls match on SmackDown Live, 2-1. This came after Roode and Ziggler had split the series 1-1, as Roode won at Hell in a Cell before Ziggler avenged the loss on an episode of SmackDown. Both wins came after either competitor held the tights, which made the stipulation match all the more important.

The feud was meant as a way to familiarize main roster-exclusive fans with Roode’s wrestling prowess, as the entire feud stemmed around who was the better wrestler. Ziggler said that Roode was nothing more than a bunch of catchphrases with a cool entrance, so Roode went out and proved that he can “go” in the ring.

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Unfortunately, Roode didn’t gain any momentum from the feud. His promos were lacking, he wasn’t feeling the new babyface character, and the fans just weren’t into any of the matches.

And while the matches weren’t bad, they weren’t exactly awe-inspiring either. Ziggler and Roode pulled out a really nice blow-off match that made Roode look like a million bucks, but there was still no reason to invest in him.

This caused the WWE Universe to lament that Roode was being “ruined”, much in the same way the WWE has squandered the opportunity to make other WWE call-ups look good.

But I wouldn’t overreact. The whole point of the Ziggler feud is to get the new wrestler comfortable with the style of the main roster and to have a filler feud to help identify their new character. Yes, Roode needs to be a heel, but it isn’t like he’s a lost cause as a babyface; he just needs time to settle in to the new character (and then turn heel sooner rather than later).

Roode has already shown signs that he is hitting his stride, which is to be expected out of a performer of his caliber. After all, Roode’s credentials are well-established, seeing as how he was one of the top stars in TNA and, again, had a nice run in NXT.

During his feud with Ziggler, Roode’s chemistry with “The Show-off” significantly improved with each match. What I noticed the most was the difference in the way he sold one of Ziggler’s staple near-fall moves, the Jumping DDT. His sell in their final match on SmackDown Live was so much more impactful than the one at Hell in a Cell, and the overall quality of their wrestling matches increased linearly.

However, we all know Roode can wrestle, so this note is rather trivial. What isn’t trivial, at least in my book, is the strength of his most recent promo.

After Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn wreaked havoc on Team SmackDown at Survivor Series, they inexplicably tried to recruit Roode to their side.

Far from sympathetic to their “cause”, Roode lashed out at them and said he owed them a “receipt”.

It was a callback to his days in TNA, and it was just awesome to see him show real passion as he told the “devious duo” off.

This promo was so much better than what Roode was given during his feud with Ziggler. All the guy would do is mumble some words and say “Glorious” at the end of his promo, essentially burying himself because he would do this after Ziggler would tell Roode that he was nothing more than a catchphrase.

On that same episode of SmackDown Live, Roode got into a scuffle with Baron Corbin on the outside, and both this incident and the promo on KO/Zayn were important to me. These two events showed me that the WWE doesn’t envision Roode as the death-knell, bland babyface that we so often get. In these two moments, Roode showed an edge, and it also advanced two potential storylines for him.

What are these two storylines? Some sort of revenge on Owens and Zayn, as well as an excellent rivalry with Baron Corbin over the United States Championship, which could result in a title win for Roode. “The Glorious One” looks poised for a title victory at some point in 2018, and that should happen sooner rather than later.

For all those panicking or simply mildly concerned about Roode’s first months on the WWE main roster, I wouldn’t be too worried. He’s starting to find a comfort level with his role on the main roster, and there seems to be a direction to his character. The best thing to do is to ignore the Ziggler rivalry, or to at least think of it as a necessary stepping stone to fill time and put Roode over in the eyes of casual fans who aren’t familiar with his wrestling chops.

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Meanwhile, Roode is about to move on to bigger and better things, and it will be interesting to see how he is used on the upcoming episode of SmackDown Live.

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