WWE Front Office Is Ruining Roman Reigns’ Legacy

My common sense statement of the year, Roman Reigns is really good and WWE is just dropping the ball with him.  Yet the blame gets directed towards the WWE Universe for being “difficult”. That lack of accountability by the WWE front office is exactly why Reigns’s character has not met expectations.

It has been around four years since The Shield broke up and Roman Reigns was fast tracked to the main event.  Still Reigns is attempting to gain traction with the WWE Universe in what has been a nonstop volley between WWE management/creative and fans.

On numerous occasions you will hear a backstage member blame the WWE Universe for booing Reigns because the company is behind him.  While that statement has a sliver of truth, it is ignoring the main issue.

Reigns since the break up of The Shield has been portrayed as one thing, and that is the #1 babyface.  The Big Dog has been booked as an underdog, even with his larger stature, tattoos, and mean Samoan stare.

Everything about Reigns screams that he is one of the toughest superstars in the locker room, so you can excuse my lack of empathy for Reigns when a situation does not go his way.  Wrestling is momentum based, and WWE seems to be forgetting that.

For example, in the summer of 2011 there was one week where fans barely cared about CM Punk, and then the next week he was getting cheered.  Building interesting stories off of Punk’s pipe bomb and consistently adding new layers each week is what eventually built Punk into a main event draw.

Now that is a success story of what happens when the booking of a superstar goes well, there are times where it doesn’t.  Rocky Maivia was The Rock’s initial character that was met with boos in the WWE.

The Rock gimmick would have never been born if WWE just kept shoving Rocky Maivia down our throats and then blaming us for only hating the character because we knew he was being pushed as a future top guy.  Was Reigns being cheered at one point?  Yes, but in a protected spot with Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins, where the majority of matches were tag team matches.

As good as Reigns is now, it is insulting to say that Reigns was a better singles competitor than Dean Ambrose or Seth Rollins when the group first split up.  Reigns’ character at first was just like Maivia’s, where the superstar was not comfortable playing that role.

Despite initially being a step behind of Ambrose and Rollins not just in the ring, but on the microphone, Reigns was being booked in a main event feud with Randy Orton immediately.  Remember that momentum word that we talked about earlier?

While Ambrose and Rollins tore up the mid-card for a few months, Reigns was the one getting the main event treatment.  This is the exact time where fans started to get annoyed.

Each week on TV, Reigns continued to get booed.  The shame is that Reigns has improved to the point where he is a legitimate main eventer who has all the tools.

Unfortunately, once the booing started something had to be drastically changed to alter the narrative from Reigns being the babyface of the people.  The laziest booking decision has been to keep Reigns a babyface, pretend that the front office hates him, main event four straight WrestleManias, and kick out of everyone’s finisher at least twice.

The WWE Universe is able to connect the dots that Vince McMahon decides where matches are on the card, who wins, and has final say on how a character will be portrayed.  For that reason, Reigns vs. all makes little sense, and it is insulting to the audience.

But maybe WWE officials are right, maybe the WWE Universe just turns on superstars who have the backing from the higher ups in the company.  That is why Shinsuke Nakamura was booed after winning the Royal Rumble match, that is why AJ Styles continues to get booed as WWE Champion, and definitely why nobody cares about Seth Rollins putting on a clinic each week.

Except none of the above mentioned scenarios are true.  Almost every other top babyface in the company is actually getting their desired reaction.

If McMahon were not so stubborn, he would have realized that if he turned Reigns heel within the past three years, he could’ve already turned him back babyface and Reigns would receive the desired reaction.  Some superstars like Stone Cold, The Rock, Triple H, Kurt Angle, and Brock Lesnar had to earn their stripes as top heels before building fans’ anticipation of a babyface run.

The same must be done with Reigns or his legacy will be great matches and moments on the WWE Network that have a confusing narrative because the announce team is building Reigns as the ultimate underdog, while the WWE Universe is booing him as if he stole something from them.

The main event of WWE WrestleMania 34 fell flat, and I have even heard some of the blame directed toward the fans for not giving the match a chance.  Considering that it was Reigns fourth straight main event at the biggest show of the year, that is far from the fans’ fault.

Next: WWE SmackDown Live: What's Next For Daniel Bryan?

A fourth straight main event at WrestleMania for Reigns made it a pattern, and asking the fans to embrace the match would actually be insane.  Instead of WWE booking Reigns the same way and expecting a different result (another insanity tie in), they need to drastically change the way the Big Dog is presented or he will just be known as the guy that couldn’t get over.