FIRST OFF - Don't get me wrong. You're allowed to dislike Roman Reigns, and you're allowed to boo him.
Cool, thanks for the permission.
But come on, at least have a reason. A valid reason. Pack mentality is not a reason.
Please, allow me to give you several.
I'll try and cover some invalid reasons, so people don't go typing them out a hundred times in the replies.
1) He's not great on the mic - but Bryan was never really all that great on the mic either. Neither is Undertaker. I think those two proved that it takes much more than just talking well to become a star.
Bryan could do laps around Roman Reigns on the mic and so could the Undertaker. Being good on the mic isn't about how well you can repeat your lines and say a lot of big words fast - it's about whether what you can say can connect you emotionally to the audience. Roman Reigns has quite literally
never once done that. Roman has never delivered a promo of his own that made the fans give a shit about what he was doing. The WWE is so aware of this fact that they've turned the build to WrestleMania into a silent film as far as Roman Reigns is concerned, because every time he opens his mouth it puts the audience to sleep. You're right - it isn't everything, but you have to at least be capable of saying something that gets the audience to care about you, at some point. You can mask it for a feud as they've done here, but Roman has to say something sometime or else undergo a massive characters shift to having a manager or something (doesn't quite jive with the One versus All gimmick, does it?). The current incarnation of Roman Reigns, as a single, face character against "everyone" so to speak, can't cut it because he'll never deliver a promo that gets anyone to care.
2) He's getting pushed too early - that's not actually his fault. Would you turn down being given the opportunity to main event WrestleMania and win the WWE title? That's a trick question. He doesn't have a choice.
Besides, Rollins got the title before him, and others have gotten it earlier. Time isn't the issue.
Rollins had also been been wrestling for five years longer than Reigns had, and had done so much more of it in front of a live audience (as a champion in Ring of Honor) than Reigns had, who was a pure FCW/Performance Center product. It's clearly been borne out in terms of main event level success in the WWE over the last few years that ROH experience beats FCW experience by a long shot. Furthermore, even putting aside the duration of the experience or its quality, it seems recklessly silly to think that Rollins winning the title earlier than Reigns is an indication he was "less ready". Just evaluate the guy straight up. Entering the main event of Mania 31, Reigns had not successfully sold the feud at all or convinced the audience he should hold it.
Sure, no one can blame Reigns for taking the shots he's been given, but why in the world should it do anything but make me dislike him? He's been gifted with athleticism and looks and the perfect family name to get Vince McMahon 3/4 erect, and he's done the absolute minimum required to convince Vince to keep giving it to him instead of busting his ass and earning it.
3) He's not great in the ring - hey, he's put on great matches before. The 'Mania 31 main event turned out pretty good. He's not Cesaro good, but only Cesaro is Cesaro good. For what it's worth, I think he's miles better in the ring than Ambrose, who always gets very strong positive reactions.
Reigns' list of good matches coincides almost one for one with some of the best wrestlers in the world - Randy Orton, Daniel Bryan, Cesaro, Brock Lesnar, and Dean Ambrose are the ones that come to mind. That's very telling to me about how good Reigns actually is. Roman's ability to tell a compelling story in the ring is almost directly tied to his opponent's ability to do so at this point, which is why on Monday morning we'll talk about how objectively good the main event was despite how shitty the booking is, because Triple H will do everything he can as one of the greatest of all time to make Roman look good. But Roman - much like Cena for a good chunk of his career - if he's going to be the big face they want him to be, is going to have to go up against a lot of people who are not absolute world class, just as he already has, and it's going to be nothing but mediocrity when it happens.
4) He's the new John Cena - I call bullshit, he's perfectly visible.
Roman's not the new John Cena - he's so much worse in every way. There's one thing it was always impossible to take away from Cena as he got deep into his time as the face of the WWE - he was excellent on the mic and on the ring. There are classical examples of his failures on both ends, but for the most part, the consistent body of work John delivered was at least compelling, and the WWE parlayed the mixed response to the booking into some world class stuff - his feud with CM Punk being the best example, probably. So far, Roman lags behind John massively on the mic and in the ring, and his response isn't polarizing - it's nothing but massive heat. They could never have the nuanced Punk vs Cena type feud with Roman, because literally anyone he goes up against will get a massive face response.
I could see why people were disgruntled when he wasn't really ready - but they're booing him as though he's still not ready, when he's actually gone and done things that wrestlers who are 'ready' haven't done before. WWE sees this hypocrisy, and chooses to ignore the boos.
In the most objective sense, Reigns is in some ways at the level of a WWE Champion. He can be at least a competent wrestler, though he can't carry anyone, and he has a good look. His promo work is desperately lacking, but that could be fixed by the booking, probably - Reigns has been severely hamstrung by having material that no one cares about.
Here's the most fundamental problem with Roman Reigns - he's so overwhelmingly miscast in his current role, in much the same way Cena was for years (Cena salvaged it thanks to a number of factors, but that's another thread) and it relies on this simple problem - you cannot be 6'3", 265, a bonafide heavyweight - these, literally, were
Brock Lesnar's dimensions when he won the NCAA heavyweight title - and try to sell a guy as an underdog. It's the reason Cena split the audience in two and it's the reason Reigns will never, ever get over with this character. They almost fixed it with their efforts in December, making Reigns into the dominant one for a change, beating HHH and Sheamus with great physicality and making it look easy for a change, because that's who Reigns should be. The fans might have cheered the massive asskicker as they cheer Brock Lesnar right now, and they were so close to it. But as soon as they snuck the title onto Roman, they reversed course and tried to sell him as the world's biggest underdog, and now any hope of Roman Reigns the face is lost. The last three weeks of booking has actually been excellent for Roman - no underdog bullshit, no terrible promos, just beating people up. And it's failing because the die was cast months ago. The only hope for Reigns now is a full fledged heel turn to erase all memory of the Goliath-sized David and maybe someday they can bring him back around to being the babyface of the company, as they once did with the Rock and Steve Austin back in the day.
The short version of it is that Reigns's major shortcomings in ring and on mic have not only not been covered up by the booking, but have been massively exposed by it, and the systematic and prolonged refusal to adapt him to something that better suits him has created a critical mass of at best disinterest and at worst total hatred that there is no way to fix short of a major heel turn that I doubt they have the guts to pull off. So, enjoy the new era of Reigns getting boo'd at every show from WrestleMania 32 to WrestleMania 42 and beyond.
