WWE: Arn Anderson is correct about past mistakes made with Roman Reigns

Roman Reigns is the biggest star in professional wrestling, but WWE didn’t always give him the best material to work with.

With his new character as the Tribal Chief, Roman Reigns has made it clear that he aims on establishing himself as the greatest of all-time. Being the top star in WWE isn’t enough for the Big Dog, because that’s basically stating the obvious at this point. There is not a man in the company or in professional wrestling who commands attention quite like Roman each and every week.

His current character and storyline are definitive proof of where he stands among his peers. Reigns is on another level entirely, and his matches with Jey Uso at Clash of Champions and Hell in a Cell offered clear examples of his greatness as a storyteller.

Roman has been WWE’s biggest full-time star for years with WrestleMania main events and world title victories to boot. But he’s doing his best work right now, which has led fans to wonder why WWE would overwrite his promos and segments in the past to his detriment.

WWE used to hold back Roman Reigns’ true talent

The legendary Arn Anderson admitted as much on The Arn Show, including bringing up the most infamous promo Vince McMahon and WWE wrote for Roman Reigns. You know, the one where he chopped up a word salad at Seth Rollins, with only an all-time bad attempt at alliteration, “Sniveling pile of Sufferin’ Succotash, son”, standing out from everything he said.

"“Yeah, when you’re writing his promos for him and you’re having a guy like Roman Reigns, the beast that he is, and the intelligent guy that he is, the athlete that he is, the accomplished worker that he is, and he’s saying stupid s–t like suffering succotash – I think there were a lot of mistakes made along the way.”"

[H/T to WrestlingInc.com’s Austin Lee for the transcription.]

You said it, Arn.

Contrary to what some fans who have since been proven horribly wrong will say, Roman Reigns was always “over”. He was always recognized as a big star who could be one of the best ever. The problem is that the thing holding him back from going from “great” to “all-time great” was WWE’s writing. That’s it. The matches, the presence, the charisma, the character, the athleticism…it was all there. Roman has always been very much the total package.

Now it’s obvious, even to those few fans who resisted giving the man his due as much as they could. And it’s wonderful seeing Reigns thrive in this new character, which he will take to new heights as his lengthy title reign continues.