Roman Reigns Doesn’t Need Paul Heyman, But Bobby Lashley Might

On the most recent episode of WWE Raw, Brock Lesnar turned on Paul Heyman, severing the only link between him and the WWE Universe. Fans are now wondering if Heyman will advocate for a new superstar, with many fantasy booking a partnership between the former SmackDown GM and “The Big Dog” Roman Reigns. But of the men in Raw’s main event, Bobby Lashley looks like a better fit for Heyman than Reigns.

I don’t blame sections of the WWE Universe for wanting to see Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman paired up, because it would be exciting. Reigns has become wrestling’s most polarizing character, drawing reactions that many superstars in WWE could only dream about. The term “polarizing” is one that Heyman welcomes, as he’s become famous for his antics throughout his career.

Pairing the two together could lead to some of the most memorable moments in wrestling of this era. But the thing is, Reigns is already capable of giving us those moments on his own. His promo after defeating the Undertaker at WrestleMania 33, his verbal battles with John Cena, his rivalry with Braun Strowman, and his current feud with Brock Lesnar are just four examples of Reigns making headlines in the past couple of years.

There’s this idea that Heyman is used to elevate stars who aren’t good on the mic, but this is a myth. What Heyman does is make someone with talent an even bigger attraction by selling them to the audience. The audience needs to already have a reason to be interested in this wrestler.

Reigns might fit the bill, because CM Punk and Lesnar were also incredible talents whom Heyman simply helped to bigger stardom. The problem is that it just doesn’t fit Reigns’s character, because he doesn’t need someone to sell him and doesn’t need someone to help him to victory.

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Reigns has improved on the mic to the point where he definitely sells himself, and I can’t imagine Heyman getting him bigger reactions than the reactions he’s getting right now. There’s simply no way for Reigns to progress even more than he already has.

So while pairing Heyman with Reigns would be enticing to some, it wouldn’t be as beneficial as pairing Heyman up with someone who has talent but needs to give the audience a reason to invest in them.

Enter Bobby Lashley.

Since returning to WWE on the episode of Raw after WrestleMania, Lashley hasn’t really done much. He was part of an embarrassing an offensive segment, completed a random obstacle course, squashed Sami Zayn at Money in the Bank, beat Roman Reigns at Extreme Rules, and then lost to Reigns two weeks later.

That last loss sticks out, because it prevented Lashley from getting an opportunity at Brock Lesnar’s Universal Championship. Lashley made it clear that his goal was to beat Lesnar and prove that he has the legit tools to get the job done.

When Lashley defeated Reigns at Extreme Rules in an exciting match that was one of WWE’s better PPV matches this year, the audience started to finally get behind him. Fans who were unfamiliar with Lashley’s highly successful run with TNA/Impact got to witness the hard-hitting athleticism that helped make WWE interested in a reunion.

At Impact, Lashley once held all the gold, and he did so as an arrogant jock-like heel. He also improved noticeably on the microphone at TNA, especially in comparison to his subpar work in his first stint with WWE.

The issue with Lashley is that he’s more soft-spoken than anything else. His promos lack power right now, because he is more of a polite babyface. That works for some wrestlers, but Lashley looks like such a monster and performs like such a machine that the juxtaposition throws off some of the audience. Lashley is a killer in the ring, but he’s mild-mannered on the microphone. Now I’m personally OK with that, but it just doesn’t captivate the WWE audience.

It’s important to remember that while Lesnar is an animal inside the ring and could probably tear people in half if he wanted to, he also doesn’t like talking much. Like Lashley, Lesnar prefers to let his strength and athleticism do the talking. Lesnar can talk, as he showed this week on Raw, but he prefers not to. Heyman does the talking for him.

That’s how Heyman could help Lashley. See, Lashley wouldn’t have to force himself on the microphone as much, because Heyman could do the selling for him. Lashley can remain relatively quiet, speaking selectively so that his words do end up carrying more weight when he does talk.

Meanwhile, Heyman can play him up, discuss those legit tools more, and help Lashley become a future Universal Champion by giving the audience an impetus to tune in to the former ECW Champion.

(Yes, the ECW link counts for something, as does the fact that Lashley once referred to himself as the “side chick” in the Lesnar/Heyman relationship.)