Roman Reigns: the biggest failure in professional wrestling history?

For the longest time, while the rest of the hardcore (and increasingly the mainstream) WWE fanbase hated Roman Reigns, I defended him. I truly believed that some of the biggest problems with Roman Reigns the character was caused by poor creative direction, and that with slightly better booking, Roman Reigns could become a great character. I insisted that a heel turn or perhaps a vicious streak was all that Roman needed to get over in the eyes of the fans.

With three WWE World Heavyweight title reigns, 2 WrestleMania main events, and a Royal Rumble win within his first 3 years as a single wrestler. Roman Reigns has truly received one of the greatest pushes in professional wrestling history. Not only was he given endless opportunities to get over, he also received the endorsement from plenty of other superstars like Daniel Bryan and the Rock. Hell, at one point after beating Mark Henry at (placeholder) Mark Henry actually turned face! Roman literally speared the heel out of the world’s strongest man!

And yet, outside of short periods Roman never really got over. Week in week out there would always be a contingent of fans who would just sit there and boo him, However, I never really considered it to be Roman’s fault. He was blatantly booked too strong, and the millions of people. WWE creative ignored all fan response in their relentless pursuit to push Roman Reigns. It turned ugly fast, and Roman got booed off stage after winning the main event of the biggest WrestleMania of all time. Despite all the backlash, I still insisted that Roman Reigns was salvageable, that his problems still mostly lied with the unsuitable role WWE creative was thrusting him into.

WWE tried to book Roman as if he was John Cena. For a very long stretch, Roman opened and closed the show every week with long, drawn out promos. He was booked ridiculously strong, never losing clean in a one on one match ever. He was also the face of the company, appearing on posters and driving WWE’s public relations efforts. What WWE failed to realize, is that Roman Reigns is not John Cena. Cena is truly a once in a lifetime talent, a world class “sports entertainer” who can go in the ring, is brilliant on the mic, and could represent the company in public.

Roman Reigns cannot live up to the high bar John Cena has set, but not many can. Like the vast majority of other wrestlers, he is a flawed performer. In my opinion, ring work was never one of Roman’s problems. Sure, his move set wasn’t the most complex, but every single move of his looked like it hurt like hell. He is also a safe worker and rarely botches. Where Roman really falls apart is his promos and his acting. He lacks the ability to deliver a truly compelling promo, and in a long promo duel, half the roster can run circles around him on the mic.

For most of last year, WWE kept thrusting Roman into situations where he doesn’t belong, perhaps in a misguided belief that if they kept trying hard enough, Roman would finally “get it”. Creative kept booking Roman into situations where he is set up to fail, like when they gave him the “tater tots” line. How many wrestlers in history can pull that kind of childish insult off while not looking bad? I can probably count them all on one hand.

Up until Money in the Bank, I supported Roman Reigns. In my opinion, Roman’s problems were mostly the fault of poor booking. With a bit booking, I think it wouldn’t be difficult to turn Roman Reigns around. WWE was even successful at it for a short while, the combined efforts of HHH, Sheamus and Vince McMahon actually got Roman over for a few weeks towards the end of last year.

Mere days after Money in the Bank news came out that Roman Reigns got suspended for a wellness policy violation. We don’t really know what he got suspended for, and to be honest many of us were truly shocked that WWE would suspend a main eventer like Roman Reigns. I personally always just assumed that the wellness policy only applied to jobbers anyways. Up until this point, I thought Roman Reigns was always fixable, but after this, I truly think there is no redeeming Roman Reigns.

It is often hard to separate the performer from the character in professional wrestling. For years, the problem lied in the creative direction for Roman Reigns, the character. Not Joe Anoaʻi, the man behind the character. But after this suspension, I’m afraid that Joe Anoaʻi has just torpedoed any chance for Roman Reigns to achieve success in the WWE ring.

Within hours of the suspension, news of Roman Reigns’ suspension blew up all over social media and received quite a bit of attention from the mainstream media. The WWE golden boy has been caught with drugs, embarrassing the company quite badly in the eyes of the fans and the media.

By failing the drug test Joe Anoaʻi has effectively flushed all that investment into Roman Reigns down the drain. There is no way that WWE would resume Roman’s push after he comes back from suspension. How could the company push someone that has thoroughly embarrassed them? What would the rest of the locker room if Roman came back to a huge push? The rest of the company jobbed out for over two years to a man who just threw his career away. If he comes back to a massive push locker room morale might just collapse.

In professional wrestling the character and the performer are often strongly intertwined, to the point where it becomes almost impossible to distinguish the two. Roman Reigns the character was failing and struggling to get over, but WWE never gave up. WWE creative simply doubled down on their Roman Reigns investment at every turn. Yet despite all the opportunities handed to him on a silver platter, Joe Anoa’i just had to get himself suspended for drugs. The man behind the character has just demolished any chance of success the character had, writing off WWE’s massive investment on Roman Reigns. At the end of the day, Roman Reigns may very well go down as one of the biggest failures in professional wrestling.