Unpopular Opinion: Roman Reigns is a Good Wrestler
- LDR
- May 16, 2020
- 6 min read
Source: wwe.com
Roman Reigns is such a divisive figure amongst the WWE Universe that even the commentary team bring it up from time to time. Now, granted, a lot of the negativity towards Reigns has subsided since he returned from his battle with leukaemia, but there are still those who hold no love towards the Big Dog. I myself am not a big fan of Reigns, but it is his character and presentation that I dislike, not his skill as a WWE Superstar. Roman would never have reached the level of stardom that he has without being skilled in the ring. It is very rare in this Super-worker Era that anyone makes it to the top without some level of ability. All that being said, let’s look in to the reasons why Roman Reigns, despite the general consensus, is a good wrestler, as well as what has made people think that he is not.
Going back to Roman’s debut with The Shield – alongside Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose – shows us what Roman is capable of when he is untethered. The multiple triple threat matches that The Shield were involved in were rightly lauded at the time, with an incredible TLC match debut against Kane, Daniel Bryan and Ryback marking the start of something special. The trio went on to win gold on the same night at Extreme Rules 2013, with Ambrose taking the United States championship from Kofi Kingston and Rollins and Reigns winning the tag straps from Team Hell No. At this point, Ambrose seemed to be the “leader” of the group, but Reigns was quietly becoming a more rounded performer as the group worked together, clearly learning from his more experienced stablemates. The work that these three men put in was evident, so much so that the group was forced to turn face due to the overwhelming fan support.
Source: wwe.com
This change of heart actually led The Shield to the main event slots that they would all continue to occupy throughout their tenures. Having worked alongside The Authority as their attack dogs, the group drew the line at attacking Jerry “The King” Lawler and turned on their bosses. They feuded with The Authority for a long while, leading Triple H to call on some old buddies and reunite Evolution with Batista and Randy Orton. After a win for The Shield at Payback, Batista quit WWE, forcing Triple H to announce his “Plan B”. This actually turned out to be Seth Rollins betraying his brothers and joining forces with the Authority. Now, up to this point, all three members of The Shield were considered high class athletes and in-ring performers, with Reigns standing out as the agile, impressive powerhouse of the group. Unfortunately, this is also where things started to go south.
Very soon after the dissolution of The Shield, Reigns set his sights on world championship glory. Now this in itself wasn’t a problem, but the way that he was presented pretty much from this point onward was the issue. After a few failed attempts at winning the World Heavyweight championship, Reigns had to take some time off due to injury. Upon his return, he immediately inserted himself back into the title picture by getting involved in Seth Rollins’ match against John Cena. At Royal Rumble 2015, Reigns won the titular match, setting himself up for his first Wrestlemania main event. Just a year removed from the toxic environment created by NOT having Daniel Bryan win the Rumble, the fans in Philadelphia rained boos down on this result too. The fans had already begun turning on Roman by this point, so it was to be expected – and WWE clearly saw it coming, sending perennial favourite The Rock out to save his cousin and win back the fans to Reigns cause. Unsuccessful in the extreme and managing to get The Rock booed (and looking completely confused), WWE tried another tactic. The fans love Bryan, right? So we’ll put Roman’s title shot on the line against the massively over fan favourite and have Roman win again. That will get them to cheer him, right? Wrong. This vehement hate against Reigns continued to be so strong that Seth Rollins’ Money in the Bank cash-in was used as a backdoor out of the corner WWE had painted themselves in to in the Wrestlemania 31 match between Reigns and Lesnar.
Source: wwe.com
This sort of booking pattern continued for the next few years, with Roman being pushed to beat everyone who was put in front of him en route to challenging for the World Championship. His first title win came at Survivor Series 2015, beating the ever-popular Dean Ambrose in a tournament final for the vacant belt. This didn’t go over well with the fans at all, but the arrival of Triple H was enough to distract Roman for Sheamus to cash in his Money in the Bank opportunity and take the title, turning the boos into cheers. It should be noted that Sheamus had been deemed a poor choice as MitB winner and was generally met with apathy around this time, so the cheers weren’t directed at him winning, so much as Reigns losing. Roman did manage to regain the belt the next night on RAW, but was forced to defend it in the Royal Rumble match, being eliminated by eventual winner Triple H. Reigns then won a triple threat against Dean Ambrose and Brock Lesnar to claim a rematch at Wrestlemania 32. Roman won the belt back that night in a fairly drab affair and claimed his 3rd championship reign in less than a year.
It was this kind of hardcore, non-stop push of Roman that turned the fans on him as a character, but what made it even worse was that, as Roman became more and more of a main event concern, his moveset was reduced from power and agility based to a very John Cena-esque short list of moves that only he really seemed to use. His matches with Lesnar became a particular bore, as Lesnar had entered his “Suplex City” phase by that point and Reigns was tasked mainly with hitting just Superman Punches and Spears. Up until the time Roman stepped away to recover from his leukaemia, he was booed out of most buildings, even after having taken a step away from the main event scene for a while. It is a shame that Roman was presented this way, because I have just one question for you. When was the last time Roman Reigns did anything that was asked of him to anything less than a “good” standard?
Source: wwe.com
The man is an exemplary professional and you can see why Vince chose him as the man to replace John Cena as the top babyface of his company. It is actually this “replacement” of Cena that causes such an issue. Cena was great in his role, whether you like him or not, but Roman Reigns is NOT John Cena, just as Cena was not The Rock and The Rock was not Hulk Hogan. Reigns puts 100% into absolutely everything he does, which is usually more than enough to create a good or even great match. Have a look at his post-Wrestlemania 32 match series with AJ Styles and his over the top but insanely entertaining murder feud with Braun Strowman for proof that Reigns, when given the right material, can be one of the best in a WWE ring. His strong work in the early days of The Shield and most of his matches away from the main event tend to be nothing short of great, moving towards excellent. Reigns is stifled in the role that has been given to him and WWE’s insistence on having “simple” main events that are easily digestible for even the most casual fan prohibits him from reaching the popularity levels of other main eventers throughout the world (Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kazuchika Okada spring to mind as almost national heroes) or trying to climb to the heights of legends such as Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock or Hulk Hogan.
A collective lack of popularity does not mean that someone is a poor wrestler and Roman Reigns certainly is not. He has a collection of strong matches to back him up and, while some of his main events aren’t the most thrilling, Roman puts fourth his best performance every time he steps between the ropes. I ask again, when was the last time you saw anything less than good from Roman Reigns?
Do you agree with this unpopular opinion? Do you think Roman is overrated? Is there someone or something else that gets a lot of love or hate that you completely disagree with? What are your unpopular wrestling opinions? Let me know down below!
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