There is no doubt that Roman Reigns was embarrassed beyond words at the 2015 Royal Rumble when even with The Rock holding his arm up in triumph, the Philadelphia crowd boo’d them out of the building. It was a humbling moment for both Reigns and more so for the WWE. The WWE thought after Reigns was cheered so heavily at the 2014 Rumble that they would love to see him win it this year but they didn’t understand that they were just railing for anyone but Batista and Reigns would have been a fun surprise winner especially with Daniel Bryan not in that match.
So when the 2015 Rumble came the WWE figured Reigns would get a standing ovation even though the WWE Universe was railing for anyone but Roman this year. The WWE knew the crowd might be a little hesitant to cheer and brought out the Rock to hopefully help get that raucous ovation they were hoping for. They were wrong and that was a moment that drastically changed the WWE’s Wrestlemania plans as well as the career of Roman Reigns.
Reigns was set to take on Brock Lesnar and have a huge Mania victory for his first WWE Title against the Beast but the people did not want to see that. They wanted anyone but Roman and the WWE ended up shoehorning Seth Rollins into the fight mid-match for his first WWE Title win. Reigns was kept away from the title picture since and the WWE had to get to work to rebuild their guy.
They’ve done a great job of building him up but there are still fundamental issues with Reigns that the WWE doesn’t seem to understand. He needs to talk less and stop trying to be clever like the Rock. He’s not and in this WWE Universe it comes out looking bad. Let him smile less and continue being the menacing wrecking ball that he is. That’s what makes him cool. You can see in this interview that Reigns is just being himself and more low key. This is what the WWE needs to present on television because hearing him speak about earning the respect of the WWE Universe actually feels real.
Love hearing Michael Cole running down the list of accomplishments prefacing it with, “How could anyone not respect what you’ve been through” and adding Reign’s “unreal” matches with Big Show. Let’s just pretend they weren’t real and those matches never existed.