Post by Peep's Naitch on Jan 26, 2016 12:43:31 GMT -5
I have been noticing over the last 2 years how the WWE has been trying to use it's marketing muscle to push "The Future of the WWE" Roman Reigns to the stratosphere. Why shouldn't they? Let's be honest, he has it all. Good looks, big, strong and has a pedigree as a family member with the famous Anoa'i surname. A cousin of the Rock. Son of Sika, one half of one of the WWF's most successful tag teams The Wild Samoans. And yet with all that going for him, he can't seem to get over with the fans fully. Some cities love him. Others hate his guts. I have a couple of ideas as to why this is the case. And I think the issue is twofold.
1) The love for Reigns isn't organic.
The fans in the wrestling business gravitate to a character organically. They want to live vicariously through that wrestler. A guy like Daniel Bryan, a great wrestler in his own right, was not looked at by the WWE brass as a guy you build around. 5'10", 220 lbs. He was just a mid-carder, at best, in the eyes of the company. As the company pushed him down, the fans' fascination with him grew. And the WWE couldn't deny it for too long. They eventually pushed him some, and unfortunately he got hurt, yet the fans kept his name relevant by chanting his name at every opportunity. That pissed off management. At every chance, the WWE brass that didn't believe in him tried to bury him in the card. At one point, they tried to turn him heel by putting him with the Wyatt Family. But it didn't work. Because the fans would revolt if he wasn't pushed, and they were VOCAL about it. He had that type of connection with the fans. Bryan personified the "underdog" performer making the most of his opportunity. This is what fans love about other personalities that dominate the mindshare of the fan. Steve Austin, The Rock, Goldberg, Undertaker, Warrior, Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair. It's an organic connection. It can't be manufactured. And this leads me to the second and more mystifying reason;
2) The Mr. McMahon character.
This is where I think Reigns is hurt the most, so stick with me on this one. Ever since the Montreal Screwjob almost 20 years ago, (by virtue of the unintended creation of the Mr. McMahon character), Vince McMahon and, as time went on, the McMahon family, was synonymous with pushing their own corporate ideal, both storyline-wise and company-wise, of what a champion should be. And the McMahon's have always seemingly conditioned the fans to hate everything that they push on you, because that is what the ultimate heel is supposed to do. The family always portrayed a very natural arrogance that permeated it's shows and was assumed, from various sources, that away from the TV broadcast, it was portrayed as their real life behavior. And it's your job as the fan to hate what the heels tell you. "We will force-feed you our corporate champion and you, like Pavlov's Dog, will like it when we say you like it!" As the line has blurred between the candid backstage presentation the WWE shows you on it's network and the kayfabe storyline content shown in it's programming, (the phrase that WWE COO HHH has coined the Reality Era), the fan hatred for a character transcends the show. And it's this perception that can work against the company chosen wrestler that they want to push. This is what Roman Reigns is up against.
The WWE tried to manufacture this same type of push for Batista 2 years ago for a WrestleMania main event run and made him the force-fed winner of the Rumble at the expense of the other wrestlers that the fans wanted to see win and deemed much more worthy of that push. Batista won, entering that match as a face, and he was booed unmercifully. That led to WWE changing his character into a heel to justify the fan reaction. Last year, the fans wanted Daniel Bryan, the overwhelmingly popular choice of the fans, to win last year's Royal Rumble only to have him eliminated early on in the match, to the booing and dismay of the fans. Roman Reigns won that Rumble and main evented WrestleMania. The WWE even had his cousin The Rock come out and try to give him some face heat rub to help smooth over the fans by raising Reigns' hand in victory. And much to the chagrin of the Rock and the consternation of Reigns, the fans booed him into the Stone Ages. And that torrent of boos that cascaded down that night really surprised The Rock, as evidenced by the look on his face as the show signed off. It has taken a long time to get Reigns back into the fans good graces, and because of the lack of heels to really build him up, the McMahons have used HHH as the magnet to attract the venom of the fans and try at get the face heat aimed towards Roman. After Roman basically beat HHH into oblivion, the fans popped hard for Reigns. But it has since dissipated.
Reigns went into this year's Royal Rumble as the champion, having to defend the belt in the Rumble match itself...as the No. 1 entrant. This was done to get the fans behind him as he tried to do the John Cena against-all-odds storyline. After the newest WWE wrestler debuted, former TNA World Champion AJ Styles, entered the Rumble at number 3, the place popped for Styles in a way that can only be described as Bryan-like. And Styles maintained that pop for over 30 mins until he was eliminated by Kevin Owens (which was smart; more palatable for another former ROH wrestler to eliminate him then Reigns). HHH, who was surprise entrant #30, eventually eliminated Reigns and won the match and the belt. Fast forward to today, the day after Raw. And we now know that the next PPV event before WrestleMania, Fastlane, Reigns gets his rematch in a Triple Threat Match with Brock Lesnar and HHH in the fray. Once again, the issue is now all against Reigns. The company positioned him in a match with 2 guys that are arguably more popular than he is, or at least will draw more of a likelihood that the fans will once again boo Reigns. That is not the way to drum up fan support. And the company will need to assure that the fans have a vested interest in cheering for Reigns. They have a month to draw an interesting and viable reason to build up some face heat currency for him. But he has that one problem going against him;
The 800 lb. Gorilla in the room...The lack of a strong, transcendent heel antagonist.
There is no real hated heel around that the fans can rally around to universally hate. As a face, you need just as big a protagonist as you do an antagonist. And that is very sparse in this situation. No Orton, no Cena (added only for the fans propensity to boo him vociferously), no Seth Rollins. And this is going to work against the company going forward. Roman will still wonder why he can't catch a break. And he will need more than a KitKat bar to get it.
1) The love for Reigns isn't organic.
The fans in the wrestling business gravitate to a character organically. They want to live vicariously through that wrestler. A guy like Daniel Bryan, a great wrestler in his own right, was not looked at by the WWE brass as a guy you build around. 5'10", 220 lbs. He was just a mid-carder, at best, in the eyes of the company. As the company pushed him down, the fans' fascination with him grew. And the WWE couldn't deny it for too long. They eventually pushed him some, and unfortunately he got hurt, yet the fans kept his name relevant by chanting his name at every opportunity. That pissed off management. At every chance, the WWE brass that didn't believe in him tried to bury him in the card. At one point, they tried to turn him heel by putting him with the Wyatt Family. But it didn't work. Because the fans would revolt if he wasn't pushed, and they were VOCAL about it. He had that type of connection with the fans. Bryan personified the "underdog" performer making the most of his opportunity. This is what fans love about other personalities that dominate the mindshare of the fan. Steve Austin, The Rock, Goldberg, Undertaker, Warrior, Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair. It's an organic connection. It can't be manufactured. And this leads me to the second and more mystifying reason;
2) The Mr. McMahon character.
This is where I think Reigns is hurt the most, so stick with me on this one. Ever since the Montreal Screwjob almost 20 years ago, (by virtue of the unintended creation of the Mr. McMahon character), Vince McMahon and, as time went on, the McMahon family, was synonymous with pushing their own corporate ideal, both storyline-wise and company-wise, of what a champion should be. And the McMahon's have always seemingly conditioned the fans to hate everything that they push on you, because that is what the ultimate heel is supposed to do. The family always portrayed a very natural arrogance that permeated it's shows and was assumed, from various sources, that away from the TV broadcast, it was portrayed as their real life behavior. And it's your job as the fan to hate what the heels tell you. "We will force-feed you our corporate champion and you, like Pavlov's Dog, will like it when we say you like it!" As the line has blurred between the candid backstage presentation the WWE shows you on it's network and the kayfabe storyline content shown in it's programming, (the phrase that WWE COO HHH has coined the Reality Era), the fan hatred for a character transcends the show. And it's this perception that can work against the company chosen wrestler that they want to push. This is what Roman Reigns is up against.
The WWE tried to manufacture this same type of push for Batista 2 years ago for a WrestleMania main event run and made him the force-fed winner of the Rumble at the expense of the other wrestlers that the fans wanted to see win and deemed much more worthy of that push. Batista won, entering that match as a face, and he was booed unmercifully. That led to WWE changing his character into a heel to justify the fan reaction. Last year, the fans wanted Daniel Bryan, the overwhelmingly popular choice of the fans, to win last year's Royal Rumble only to have him eliminated early on in the match, to the booing and dismay of the fans. Roman Reigns won that Rumble and main evented WrestleMania. The WWE even had his cousin The Rock come out and try to give him some face heat rub to help smooth over the fans by raising Reigns' hand in victory. And much to the chagrin of the Rock and the consternation of Reigns, the fans booed him into the Stone Ages. And that torrent of boos that cascaded down that night really surprised The Rock, as evidenced by the look on his face as the show signed off. It has taken a long time to get Reigns back into the fans good graces, and because of the lack of heels to really build him up, the McMahons have used HHH as the magnet to attract the venom of the fans and try at get the face heat aimed towards Roman. After Roman basically beat HHH into oblivion, the fans popped hard for Reigns. But it has since dissipated.
Reigns went into this year's Royal Rumble as the champion, having to defend the belt in the Rumble match itself...as the No. 1 entrant. This was done to get the fans behind him as he tried to do the John Cena against-all-odds storyline. After the newest WWE wrestler debuted, former TNA World Champion AJ Styles, entered the Rumble at number 3, the place popped for Styles in a way that can only be described as Bryan-like. And Styles maintained that pop for over 30 mins until he was eliminated by Kevin Owens (which was smart; more palatable for another former ROH wrestler to eliminate him then Reigns). HHH, who was surprise entrant #30, eventually eliminated Reigns and won the match and the belt. Fast forward to today, the day after Raw. And we now know that the next PPV event before WrestleMania, Fastlane, Reigns gets his rematch in a Triple Threat Match with Brock Lesnar and HHH in the fray. Once again, the issue is now all against Reigns. The company positioned him in a match with 2 guys that are arguably more popular than he is, or at least will draw more of a likelihood that the fans will once again boo Reigns. That is not the way to drum up fan support. And the company will need to assure that the fans have a vested interest in cheering for Reigns. They have a month to draw an interesting and viable reason to build up some face heat currency for him. But he has that one problem going against him;
The 800 lb. Gorilla in the room...The lack of a strong, transcendent heel antagonist.
There is no real hated heel around that the fans can rally around to universally hate. As a face, you need just as big a protagonist as you do an antagonist. And that is very sparse in this situation. No Orton, no Cena (added only for the fans propensity to boo him vociferously), no Seth Rollins. And this is going to work against the company going forward. Roman will still wonder why he can't catch a break. And he will need more than a KitKat bar to get it.