If WWE and Roman Reigns are on bad terms, WWE can blame no one but themselves

Amid rumors concerning WWE and Roman Reigns’ current relationship, there is only one party who is truly at fault and the reason for the strain: WWE.

Roman Reigns has spent the better part of a half decade serving as the proverbial Big Dog of the WWE. He has been the company’s literal poster child at the forefront of WWE storylines and and is frequently front and center at media events as the company’s key representative.

By all means, Roman Reigns has earned his stripes as WWE’s flag bearer. Even in the days when fans unapologetically and openly rejected him as the next top star, Reigns was able to push forward and do his best as one of WWE’s best employees. In a perfect world, he’d have a job with WWE for life.

Sadly, the world isn’t so perfect right now. We are all collectively affected in some way, shape, or form by a pandemic sputtered by the novel coronavirus. One of those affected has been Roman Reigns, who due to being immunocompromised as a leukemia survivor, made the smart and difficult decision to drop out of all WWE tapings until further notice, effective as of mere weeks before he was set to win the Universal Championship from Goldberg at WrestleMania.

Oddly enough, WWE has not so much as mentioned Roman Reigns since he started his hiatus. When Braun Strowman was announced as Reigns’ replacement for Mania, it was just that: a casual announcement without mentioning why Strowman was now facing Goldberg or even who he was replacing and why.

Initially, many of us assumed it was merely because WWE does not want to mention anything related to the coronavirus pandemic on their television airwaves. Hard to mention Roman Reigns when we can’t talk about why he’s out in the first place.

Then things got weird when we started learning of reports suggesting that Vince McMahon was angry at Reigns for dropping out of tapings and made it a point to not mention him on TV as a result. Now, WrestlingNews.Co is reporting that WWE have removed all images and mention of Reigns’ involvement from their Make A Wish videos.

Of course, all rumors and speculation are nothing more than that: rumors and speculation. Things don’t look good, but it’s all speculation until things get confirmed. But until proven otherwise, all signs seem to point towards a strained relationship.

Let’s be hypothetical for a second and assume that all of these rumors concerning their relationship are true. If it all is true, WWE (specifically, Vince McMahon) has no one to blame but themselves.

Vince McMahon took a risk by allowing all wrestling tapings to continue during a pandemic. Sure, precautions were made by moving all tapings exclusively to the Performance Center in front of no crowds, but there is no safer precaution than cancelling shows altogether.

As with all risks, there are consequences. Some wrestlers had to briefly take their own hiatuses to quarantine for a couple weeks, there were confirmed reports of employees within the company contracting the virus, and of course Roman Reigns dropping out entirely until further notice.

Vince can’t be mad when those risks with consequences were on the table from the start and are now suddenly coming to fruition. He can’t be mad at Roman Reigns because Reigns has done nothing wrong. In fact, even prior to the pandemic, Reigns has done more than he’s ever asked for.

This is the same man who made his in-ring return just four months after announcing his hiatus from wrestling following a second leukemia diagnosis. No one would have blamed Reigns if he opted to take closer to a year off, but he was ready to report back to work as soon as he could.

Now that he’s chosen to put his health as a priority this time, after everything he’s given to this company, there should be no fault on his shoulders. It would be ridiculous on anyone’s part to think otherwise.

Hopefully, these rumors are merely just rumors, but if they are based in fact, WWE have no one to blame but themselves if the relationship with Reigns is strained or worse: if (hypothetically saying) Reigns opted to leave the company entirely.