The Bad Guy and The Underdog

[CCIV]

The art of the bad guy and creation of the underdog and eventual hero.

Everyone says Austin vs McMahon was the the greatest feud of all time, however it wasn't simply man versus man like it is today or wrestler vs wrestler. It was Austin versus The World (within wrestling and storylines). McMahon had all the power of corporate, he had all the power over every wrestler and could fine and fire Austin at the drop of hat which was written around and teased and eventually executed many times. Austin was the underdog and our eventual hero because of the odds and obstacles he faced and had to overcome. It wasn't simply Austin vs McMahon.

Storyline 2 of underdog and eventual hero was HHH vs The Rock. This feud carried the company for almost 3 years however it was never simply HHH versus The Rock. Once again the bad guy had the world at his or their disposal. HHH had Stephanie McMahon, Road Dogg, Gunn, Xpac, and every wrestler on the roster who didn't want to be screwed or fired. Our underdog in the Rock would face 2 on 1 matches, 3 on 1 matches, stacked lumberjack matches and we'd watch the obstacles build and build hoping our hero could overcome them.

My point is their is no clear cut underdog or eventual hero storyline on Raw or Smackdown or in the WWE right now or has their been in quite a few years. If Roman Reigns is the next guy then where is his counterpart bad guy to stack the odds against our hero and make us care?

So free of charge to the WWE I will tell you how to do this with Roman Reigns. The guy you use with Reigns is..... Shane McMahon. You do Austin vs McMahon 2.0 with Reigns vs McMahon.

How the hell can you do Reigns vs Shane McMahon when Reigns is being booed and Shane is currently being cheered?!!!! It's called writing and if done right we flip the script on the two characters and Shane will be a hated piece of crap.

Slowly over on Smackdown Shane McMahon drops the sneakers, jeans, jacket and dancing and starts appearing in suits. When asked about the change by talent or interviewers he vaguely speaks about that it's time to grow up. That's all the info we get at that time. Shane slowly starts to talk and treat others like dirt. His main phrase we as an audience hear over and over is " Do you know who I am?" He will eventually add to that phrase " I am the son of the greatest man in wrestling and sports entertainment, Vincent Kennedy McMahon!"

Over on Raw Roman Reigns is being screwed out of Universal title chances one by one month after month. First Samoa Joe interferes to cost Reigns a win. The Miz next and eventually Strowman. Reigns frustrated calls out the three men on a Raw to find out just what is going on. The three men come out and stand on the stage and then Shane McMahon's music hits. No one knows what the hell is going on. Shane in his suit with his suit wearing entourage and goofs along with the three Raw superstars make their way to the ring. Joe, Miz and Strowman remain outside the ring as Shane (now in the storyline as the new Mr. McMahon) stands nose to nose with Reigns in the ring. Shane explains everything. His eventual "growing up", grabbing the bull by the horns and taking over. How boss, owner, head honcho is his rightful place in this business and always was and will be. Shane has made an agreement with Kurt Angle to combine rosters and Kurt now works for Shane. Reigns will not be "The Face of The WWE" under his watch. "Reigns won't decide when he gets title shots. Reigns works for me and Reigns does what I say". And on and on, blah blah blah, with Shane's goons and the Superstars jumping Reigns and starting the Reigns vs McMahon storyline. Shane places roadblock after obstacle after obstacle scenario in front of Reigns making him the underdog. Reigns losses most but when he does get his wins the crowd wins with him as over time he becomes the Austin/ Rock hero. When Reigns finally spits in the face and punches Shane to lead to their epic encounter the WWE Universe will be behind Reigns.

 

[The Perfect Max]

While these kind of feuds don't really exist anymore, and it would be nice to see them, this scenario works on the premise that we need to be cheering Roman Reigns. I, myself, am a big Reigns fan. I like his work, his look, and pretty much everything about him. But I enjoy booing him too. It's like Jericho, for instance. He's my all-time favourite, but when he's a heel, I can boo the hell out of him. Sounds odd right? But it's true. I appreciate what Reigns does and he's made me a fan despite the overkilling booking that he has endured. I respect what he does. But the booking makes me boo him. The booking makes most people boo him. And then anyone else who boo's him has their own reasons, and anyone he doesn't has theirs as well. Above all else, above whatever makes you boo him, or cheer him, everyone reacts to him. You can't say whenever his music plays that people don't react. And that means more to WWE and the product than anything else. He's the perfect guy to put with anyone, because if it's a younger talent, suddenly the crowd are behind that talent. Look at the ascension of Braun Strowman - it wasn't by accident. You can also put him with a veteran and make a match mean something. Take the match with Undertaker. Arguably his matches since the streak ended meant very little, and that's true for some people, but I'd say his match with WrestleMania 33 was the most talked about match FOR THE MATCH rather than anything else (i.e., unlike the year before, where Shane's return was the big talking point there, and not because it was necessarily Shane vs. Taker. Sure it was unforeseeable, but did you think Shane would win? I doubt it).

My point is, no matter what you do with him from now on, the likelihood is that people will boo Roman Reigns. We are at that point now with John Cena where he has graduated from this stage of his career, and despite many Cena haters of the 2000s coming to that point where they can admit that they respect all he has done, they still boo him. They boo him loud and proud. It's the same with Reigns. And if anything, it's bigger. Attempting anything like your scenario would be beneficial to someone who has the potential to get the crowd behind them. But Reigns is not that guy. He's gone past that point now. Especially in the era we are in where fans cheer the bad guys and boo the good guys, and if you're like Rollins or Bálor who isn't affected by this, you're lucky I guess.

They tried this type of feud with Reigns a few years back. Roman Reigns vs. Triple H wasn't really Reigns vs. H. It was Reigns vs. Triple H, Mr McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, Sheamus, Alberto Del Rio, Rusev, Wade Barrett, and anybody else enlisted to the dirty work. Christ, there was a Royal Rumble match where Reigns had to enter first and defend the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. And it failed. And that is because people didn't want Reigns there. They didn't like the booking. They didn't appreciate the point it was supposed to make. You can blame whoever you want for that, but we are past that point now. It's 'his yard'. And now WWE have carved a great little niche for Reigns to work, they are going to continue operating there.

 

[Azane]

I think they tried really hard to make Roman the Underdog for years.
He was being put in handicap matches and had the boss screw him over, that was last year's Royal Rumble and WM major storylines.

The problem is, WWE is really bad about forcing reactions now compared to 10-20 years ago. The underdog story only works if people root for the underdog, and only happened for Daniel Bryan.... and that story was "real" in the sense that Daniel Bryan was an underdog because Vince hates "Vanilla midgets".

There can't be an underdog story with Reigns, he can't be an underdog, as he gets the most xpac heat I've ever seen (Can we start calling it Roman heat?), and if they make him the bad guy, people will just sigh relief when it's over and thank god it's over, making it a somewhat moot story.

I'm telling you right now; Even if Roman learns to wrestle, gets way better, learns to use a microphone, and eats some humble pie losses, he's still going to get booed out of every Arena outside Corpus Christi. He's tainted goods at this point, he's too far turned and Vince spent 3 years too long shoving him down our throats until we've puked all over. You won't turn Roman Babyface by having him feud with a Face 50 year old businessman.

 

[CCIV]

Say the crowd isn't quite against Shane (Mr.McMahon) just yet and they start their stupid Thank You Shane clap clap clap chant as Shane berates and stacks the odds against Roman. This is when I have Shane rip the audience. It's one of those "shoot" moments I love, instead of two wrestlers shooting on each other which makes me cringe. The show comes to a halt, the play stops the movie breaks the 4th wall as they say and Shane tells the arena and home audience that they just don't seem to understand the power he has. This is now his world, Raw, Smackdown, everything you see and hear and I'll show you what I mean he says. The stuff that follows would have to be practiced to make sure it all works. I'd have Shane take control of the cameras and the audio. He has camera 4 let's say, ringside, zoom in on himself and Roman in the ring. He shows the arena crowd and the home viewers that now no one can see your dumb faces and your waves or volleyball mania or see you chanting and clapping. Secondly I can control the audio. The monkeys in the back please cut the arena audio and filter in general arena audience noise. We get to see and hear the changes Shane just made as he tells us he just took our voices from us. No longer will the WWE universe control a Raw or Smackdown or PPV under Shane McMahon. Roman begins to speak, "You think you can take these peoples voices from them?"
Shane: "Cut his mic!" "I didn't say you could speak."
Booooo! Goes the audience.
And we're on our way with heel boss Shane McMahon.

 

[LBGetBack]

Agreed. Which is why Bryan worked. He kept getting screwed. Raw ended with him getting destroyed every week so many times. Stephanie would destroy him on the mic and fans were legitimately livid because they thought that she truly felt that way in real life and wasn't playing fair by booking herself to be able to humiliate Bryan on a weekly basis while speaking her real life feelings on him at the same time. Many thought that the storyline would end without Bryan winning the title and was basically the McMahons way of taunting the IWC. It was brilliant, and fans got behind Bryan to a level not seen since Austin. Bryan eventually won the title and it made for an incredible moment because so many were convinced the McMahons truly didn't want him as champion.

Reigns doesn't work because nobody buys into the McMahons being against him. The perception is that he is their handpicked guy and everyone knows it so making them on screen opponents insults our intelligence.

 

[Deoxyribonucleic A.C.I.D.]

Remember when Roman Reigns was facing against the League of Nations and then Vince made him defend the WWE Championship in the Royal Rumble match? I do.. It didn't go so well. Reigns was still getting booed out of the arena.
But it worked, only for a bit. It worked when Roman punched Vince in the face and then won the WWE Championship. Then it all crumbled when Roman proceeded to beating the hell out of the League week-in, week-out. Well, now it's too late to go back to the "Roman is the underdog" deal. He just beat the Undertaker!!!

Roman is a position that cannot change right. Plus, he's the most over wrestler in the WWE right now. His reaction matches Cena's.

Rollins is the man that needs to get more over. Not Reigns. Rollins has a poor reaction. He's definately not on the level WWE would hope for him to be and he's already a 2-time world champion and has been in main event feuds ever since 2014.
Ambrose also is in need for a change. Balor as well. So what would I do?

Start Shield vs Balor Club. Finn Balor turns heel on Rollins, Rollins gets his buddies back. The fued then transitions into Roman vs heel Ambrose and Rollins vs Balor continues. Rollins is the one that has the world against him and it would help greatly to become a more popular face.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I highly doubt this will work, especially not with these two. Austin vs. McMahon was light lightning in a bottle and came about at just the right time with the right people in place. It can't be replicated with someone who happens to have the last name as Vince and someone that's pegged to be the overall next biggest star of the company.

Austin vs. McMahon saw the feud go down during a time in which wrestling and wrestlers were being portrayed far differently than anything people had seen. It was the era of Crash TV in which all the various rules were already being broken. Jerry Springer was the top "talk show" on television, the use of profanity beyond the words damn and hell was used on top drawing, prime time TV shows, some of those shows even included some degree of nudity here & there, top TV shows featured scenes of women kissing and/or making out with other women, violence was more graphic, etc. Aside from a grittier TV aspect, you had two personalities in Austin & McMahon who were loaded with personality and Vince allowed wrestlers a lot more creativity than he does today. While the feud didn't exactly produce fantastic matches for the most part, it did deliver a lot of big and memorable moments in the ring.

Shane McMahon isn't his father, he has a friendlier personality, he has a more laid back sort of attitude and while I'm sure he has a degree of cockiness, it doesn't remotely approach the massive ego of his father. People know this and even if they didn't, it's pretty easy to sense. People have known for decades that Vince McMahon is an egomaniacal control freak who has wild mood swings and does sometimes get his kicks by keeping people walking on eggshells for some damn reason. As for Roman Reigns, the guy has a great presence but no personality, he certainly doesn't have the sort of personality needed to carry out such a promo intensive setting as an Austin vs. McMahon style feud.

As has been brought up and touched on, ain't nobody gonna buy into Roman Reigns in the role of an underdog. WWE can't just slap the label of underdog on someone anymore and expect it to work with modern fans because we're simply too smart for our own good. Roman Reigns is a guy who has everything going for him in the sense that he's a 6'2" 250 lbs. tall, dark, handsome alpha male and it's much too late to try to hit the reset button. To a significant degree, cosmetic appearance matters to Vince and that's another thing we've known about him for decades; as a result, we know that he's going to look at someone like Roman Reigns and try to build something around that even if he's not especially good in the mic, there are better all around athletes & wrestlers on the roster. Rollins and Ambrose are a couple of guys who could benefit more from an underdog sort of role because they're a couple of former indy stars who don't have the He-Man look and build whereas Reigns is a true product of the WWE Machine. Reigns is set where he's set and that's pretty much the end of it and he'll be stuck with the mixed reaction he gets for the rest of his career, most likely. However, that's ultimately just fine because it's not like the boos are true signs of not being popular as he helps make too much money for that to be true. Reigns is getting the John Cena type of reaction and we all know what sort of money Cena's brought in over the years for the company.

Also, I'm bored with the authority figure feuds. While we haven't had one like Austin vs. McMahon, the role of on-air authority figure has been the proverbial dead horse of pro wrestling for much of the last 20 years. Keep the authority figures off the show, with the exception of maybe one to two segments at most and keep the focus on the wrestlers.

 

[Navi]

Agreed. Which is why Bryan worked. He kept getting screwed. Raw ended with him getting destroyed every week so many times. Stephanie would destroy him on the mic and fans were legitimately livid because they thought that she truly felt that way in real life and wasn't playing fair by booking herself to be able to humiliate Bryan on a weekly basis while speaking her real life feelings on him at the same time. Many thought that the storyline would end without Bryan winning the title and was basically the McMahons way of taunting the IWC. It was brilliant, and fans got behind Bryan to a level not seen since Austin. Bryan eventually won the title and it made for an incredible moment because so many were convinced the McMahons truly didn't want him as champion.

Reigns doesn't work because nobody buys into the McMahons being against him. The perception is that he is their handpicked guy and everyone knows it so making them on screen opponents insults our intelligence.

This.

And if you compare Daniel Bryan to Roman Reigns, they couldn't be any further apart. Bryan is a treehugger, short, bearded vegan who shouldn't be able to do half of what he does in the ring. Reigns is build like a Greek God, good looking and has half of the roster as relatives, including the highest paid actor in the world as his cousin.

Bryan was the 90 pound weakling on the beach getting sand kicked in his face daily by the Roman Reigns of this world. Roman Reigns no matter what they do with him is not an underdog. As a matter of fact isn't he "The Big Dog".

Shane wouldn't work as the evil corrupt wrestling boss, he's not his sister. He's a nice guy who I think genuinely wants what's best for the guys under him, while at the same time looking out for the company's best interest. Neither one of them could bring the Austin/McMahon feud back to life. As good as it was to try to recapture it would end up in failure.

I have no idea what will happen with Reigns down the road. Right now he's getting a reaction, not a good one but a reaction none the less. A heel turn would get him the same reaction so not really sure how that would benefit him in the long run. I think what the WWE has to worry about most is the day he comes down the ramp to crickets. It might or might not happen, but people will only show their displeasure so long and then give up.

 

[Dagger Dias]

I don't think this would be a good idea for several reasons.

First, let's get the obvious one out of the way. Roman Reigns is never going to get cheered. Not by the majority of the fans anyway. WWE has forcefully tried to push him as the next top guy and most of the fans do NOT want him in that spot. Too much damage has been done in the last 2 and a half years for him to get to that spot at this point. That's without even addressing how he's not an underdog whatsoever. He's better off being a heel. The storyline suggested by the threadstarter could be a good one for other guys like Rollins or Ambrose, if it weren't for another major issue. Which brings me to my next point.

The second reason I would be against the idea is that we will never see another Austin VS Vince type of scenario that would be as good as Austin VS Vince was. They have tried this before and it's never as good as the original. Remember when they tried it with Bischoff and Cena back in 2005? It doesn't always work well. If it didn't work with Bischoff (who is one of the best heel authority figures ever) and Cena (who is significantly better than Reigns at promos) then it would never work with Shane (who is actually LIKED by the fans) as a heel boss and Reigns (who is horrible at promos) as an "underdog" face. They could try it with Stephanie and Trips instead of Shane.... Oh wait, they DID.... And the fans hated it. Heel bosses against underdog faces have been done to the point of it being a boring storyline concept. Sure, it worked with Bryan. It is unlikely to work again, especially with someone as disliked as Reigns in the role of an underdog "face".

Even if they had Stephanie and Trips be the heel bosses instead of Shane it still would just be more of the Authority. They should try something different. Turning Shane into an evil heel boss for what would be yet another failed attempt at getting Reigns over is a bad idea. If anything it would do damage to Shane, who is quite popular as a face authority figure right now. Reigns will be hated by the majority no matter what he does so this isn't that great of an idea at all since it would just mess things up for Shane more than anything.

Last but not least, the threadstarter suggested that Shane and Kurt Angle combine the rosters. Horrible idea and quite possibly the worst part of this whole scenario. The WWE makes more money by having twice as many shows for the fans to go to. They should keep the roster structure exactly as it is. I was already against the idea suggested in the opening post however the part of combining the rosters was where they lost me completely. Absolutely not. They should keep Shane a face as well. The way they have it now with Stephanie as a heel commissioner and Shane as a face commissioner works well. Why fix what isn't broken? Exactly. Interesting suggestion by the threadstarter, yet not something that I could see ending well if the WWE tried it.

 

[ShinChan]

I don't think that I can buy Roman Reigns as an underdog. Braun Strowman is an exception but I can't buy Roman Reigns as an underdog against many.

The problem is Roman Reigns' booking. He's really good regardless of the crowd reactions, at least in the ring. Still, mediocre in the promo department. But hear me out.

Just remember when Roman Reigns was cheered heavily? It's not as recent as I would like but still. It was when he got screwed by Triple H and Sheamus and he goes unhinged on everyone there. That's the best Roman Reigns and that's the one I could see become a big star. Bring that Roman Reigns and you'll surely get some cheers back. Silent badass is what he needs to be.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

It takes longer but you would dramatically increase Roman's chances of getting over if you make him one of Shane's henchmen for about six months before he flips and decides to go back to being his own man.

As far as heel Shane goes, I would focus him as more of a lax silver spoon rich kid who is self entitled (i.e. make him be a cross between Trump and Stephanie character).

 

[Kodo Sawaki]

Only way smarks would start to cheer is when they turn him heel. Because then it wouldnt be cool thing to boo him anymore but it would be just logical.

Also Austin wasnt underdog as much as he was rebel. And people loved it because he was sticking to The Boss and you can relate with that. Guess you can do that with Reigns but as others have pointed it was already done and they booked it all wrong. I said it once and would say again, if he was booked more like Strowman, to just go in there and destroys everything, people would cheer. People did cheer when he did that. they stopped when he was booked as "Cena no2" and when it was far too obvious how he was "the chosen". And on the way WWE realized how they dont need to turn something that gets them nice money with kids audience and produces most loudest reaction on every show. When that stops and IWC realize how booing him only contributed for him to be more over and starts to be apathetic toward him, then maybe they will consider to change him.

 

[thebarber]

Why not have John Cena return on July 4.....................and have him side on Independence Day with Jinder Mahal. Have an Interpromotional match with Mahal vs Reigns....Reigns has the match in the bag and Cena turns up. Have Cena and Reigns on either side of the fans fence. They want to boo the shit out of both.......Reigns needs to be a full blown heel without the comedy before he will be embraced down the track as a face. Look at The Rock 1997-98