Regarding: Roman Reigns

REIGNS: PROVEN HIMSELF

Obviously as a part of the Shield, Roman Reigns had a simple niche and did it very well, and was a relatively strong part - honestly maybe the most impressive part - of the Shield for quite a while.

Maybe it was booking that made him look like a star when compared to Rollins and Ambrose, considering he was always put ahead of Rollins in their tag matches and Ambrose was floundering in solos competition, but nonetheless, he looked great.

When the Shield split hit and everything hit the fan, people who loved the Shield or even people who hated the Shield felt like they [i]had[/i] to take sides. And it honestly looked like Reigns got the short end of the stick, and Rollins' fanbase was very comparable to the size of Ambrose'.

So because of this dissension between fans, and the apparent need to choose a side, Reigns was probably already fucked. Fans knowing - or thinking - that the weakest member in the ring was Reigns, and when Rollins was obviously the stellar ring worker of the three and Ambrose was clearly the stellar promo cutter, Reigns was stuck behind them in most fans' approval lists.

Despite having a fairly decent showing in singles competition after the split, especially against Randy Orton, the hate was incredible, and honestly at the time it was very warranted, as the match with Orton was only "good" at best, and it still showed Reigns as a flawed performer.

The Rumble came along and Reigns hadn't managed to convince many people of his ability, likely because of the hernia he had taking him out of action, but nevertheless, without proof, even if there's an excuse, wrestling fans will be mad, and still somewhat rightfully so.

Reigns was a [i]victim[/i] of the horrendous booking of the Royal Rumble match. Bray Wyatt, Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler and Dean Ambrose were not the only ones who were effected negatively - in-fact I'd go as far as to say Reigns was effected the most negatively of all - as not even the planned Rock interference to "save" his relative from what has screwed over many a people without anyone thinking about getting involved (in kayfabe of course), could save him from the verbal beatdown from the masses.

However upon entering what may have been an on-the-fly feud with Bryan we got to see Reigns actually perform to a particularly high standard in the ring. Personally, I rated their Fastlane match slightly better than the Royal Rumble triple threat, and I rate it second (so far) to the WrestleMania 31 match of all WWE (not including NXT) matches this year, though I've only watched PPVs and some Raw matches.

The fact is though, in that Fastlane match, Reigns managed to actually put on a great performance as a strong brawler, which is exactly what his character is (and for the record there's absolutely nothing wrong with a power-based brawler wrestler, Stone Cold was a brawler), which fantastically mirrored Daniel Bryan's technical wrestling in the match.

A story was told; a broken and beaten wrestler only recently returned from a very bad injury couldn't manage to defeat the younger, healthier, stronger, albeit less technical brawler. Reigns showed brutality that is pretty heavy for WWE today, utilising a heavy brawler moveset at very good times. I remember a spot where Bryan had Reigns in a leg submission and the only way Reigns escaped was beating the holy hell out of Bryan's face and head with his fists until the hold was broken. Things like this go over a lot of fans' heads, and it was a perfect spot to display the characters and wrestling styles in the match.

However, many fans were more annoyed and displayed that than they did acceptance of Reigns, because he just defeated a recently returned Bryan who fans believed not only should have won the Rumble - which Reigns won - but also won that match in particular. Had fans not let this match cloud their judgement they would've realised Reigns had a very good showing at Fastlane and with the heavy assistance of Bryan, made it a "Match of the Year Contender", personally being THE WWE Match of the Year at the time for me. And also another for the record note, this is not saying Bryan carried Reigns, it's saying that the clash of characters and styles accentuated both in the ring.

[I almost forgot to mention the well-received gauntlet match Reigns and Bryan had before Fastlane, which I never personally watched but heard it was very, very good and did similar to what the Fastlane match did.]

WrestleMania was only just around the corner and people still questioned Reigns - myself included.

Was he ready for a WrestleMania main event match was my biggest question. I knew he was a lot better in the ring than the general consensus of wrestlingforum.com believed, but I wondered if he was good enough to stand toe-to-toe with Lesnar, and put on a decent match.

Remember, Reigns looked very strong in the match against Bryan, but Bryan being injured beforehand and only just returning was also a good excuse for Bryan losing and Reigns looking stronger than he really is.

I always had my doubts, but that WrestleMania match was fantastic. Reigns put on a performance better than Cena did at SummerSlam. The match was very good and very brutal. Far from perfect, but much closer to that than average. Reigns was booked as such a strong guy, having a very impressive track record between the Shield split and the WM31 match against Lesnar, but he couldn't get it done - but he wouldn't give up. It wasn't Cena-esque "Never Give Up!" nonsense, but it was genuinely interesting to see the Reigns character take a slight, subtle, but still relevant change into something a little bit different, and allow him to evolve his character a bit further than what it was already.

Unfortunately for Reigns, since that night, he has regressed again somewhat. Not being given the opportunity for decent matches again might have part to do with that, and being pitted against boring wrestlers recently also might have something to do with it.

But the change in his attitude is likely the main issue. Instead of being a bad-ass, he's coming off as a terribly arrogant, cocky and honestly somewhat obnoxious kid who thinks he deserves everything. The laughing is getting out of hand.

Reigns fans always applauded the concept of him being mostly silent and only using a few words to get his point across, and being a justifiably vindictive force, while keeping the same expression throughout. Some people consider that boring but if it was treated properly it could be a lot better than they think, and it'd always be a lot better than the angsty, cocky, self-righteous version we have now.


So really, there's no reason to even bother attempting to disregard Reigns' wrestling ability, as doing so just makes you look like a blind hater, or just a regular guy without any understanding of how characters and wrestling styles work in the middle of the squared circle. You can happily trash his out-of-ring persona and attitude, however, as that is even a deviation of what his fans around the time of the Shield break-up believed was his best.