Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: pro wrestling, Roman Reigns, wrestling, wwe

Why Do WWE Fans Hate Roman Reigns? #AskBC

A Bleeding Cool reader asks:

Hello bleeding cool I am a fan of your website and I have a question for Jude Terror. Do WWE fans hate Roman Reigns character and how WWE use him or it is just the new cool thing to do? And your opinion about turning him and John Cena heel.

First of all, it's not the new cool thing to do. It's been the cool thing to do for over two years now. So it's the old cool thing to do.

But to answer the question, it's probably not, in most cases, Roman Reigns himself who fans hate. Roman Reigns has come to represent WWE's refusal to listen to its fans, and he pays the price for it through merciless booing and disdain on the internet. The internet disdain is nothing new, of course. What's remarkable is how well the "smark" — that's wrestling terminology for hardcore fans who follow it as much for the behind-the-scenes, business aspect as they do the in-ring product — opinion has translated to full arenas full of people.

That could be because WWE's audience has become smarkier in makeup over the years, thanks to the internet and the weeding out of more casual fans and the "worked shoot" reality era of WWE TV, which blurs the line between real life and "kayfabe" (the fictional continuity of the wrestling universe). As a result, WWE arenas are filled largely with people who are smarks, who read the internet and are influenced by anti-Reigns sentiment, or, who simply come to the same conclusions about Reigns' forced push completely on their own.

But it could also be because WWE has booked Roman Reigns so poorly over the past couple of years. WWE has trained viewers to view the management of the wrestling company, in kayfabe, as "heels" (villains), by portraying them that way pretty much nonstop since Vince McMahon screwed Bret Hart at Survivor Series 1997 and became the evil "Mr. McMahon" character. McMahon, in the role of wrestling's authority figure, feuded with company's biggest star ever, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, during the wildly popular Attitude Era.

Wrestlers who are handpicked by management to be the top wrestler in the company, in kayfabe, are mega heels who get every opportunity handed to them, screwing over "face" (hero) wrestlers who deserve it more. As a story line, that's a classic and it works pretty well, even if it has dominated WWE for two decades now and may be a little played out. Roman Reigns represents that story line in real life.

From the moment Reigns first hit TV screens, it was obvious that WWE saw a lot of potential in him. After all, he has "the look." He's big and handsome, and fits the mold of what Vince McMahon typically believes a top wrestler should be. With John Cena in the tail end of his career, even if he does have several more good years left, WWE needs a replacement to be the top guy. WWE made it obvious that top guy would be Roman Reigns. So, in real life, he's the handpicked champion of management, just as John Cena (who got a good deal of boos over his years on top) was before him.

Reigns also suffered from the effect of not being Daniel Bryan, who was the people's champion, the guy who fans wanted to be on top of the WWE. More famous and experienced wrestlers than Roman Reigns have been done in by not being Daniel Bryan before. On the eve of his big Hollywood debut in Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014, wrestler Batista was meant to make a big return to WWE, starting by winning the Royal Rumble in January, and then main eventing Wrestlemania in April. He was returning to WWE after a long time away, and in any other circumstance would have been wildly cheered. However, fans wanted Daniel Bryan to win the Royal Rumble. He didn't, and Batista payed the price, earning the nickname "Boo-tista" for how savagely fans booed him until WWE was forced to give the fans what they wanted and have Batista lose to Bryan at Wrestlemania.

Though Bryan has since retired due to injury, fans have rallied around other wrestlers as their new favorites, like Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Kevin Owens, and AJ Styles. Those guys all have one thing in common: they aren't Roman Reigns. Roman Reigns is ineligible to be the fan favorite wrestler because he is the handpicked champion of management. That's just the way things work in the WWE universe.

But rather than listen to the fans, WWE has insisted, for more than two years, to push Roman Reigns in exactly that role, in kayfabe. He's battled against fictional onscreen management "The Authority" as an underdog character fighting to earn the opportunities being denied him in favor of The Authority's handpicked champions. But this storyline cannot work, because it's too transparently the opposite of how things are in real life. It breaks immersion and causes fans to resent the storyline. The recipient of boos in response: Roman Reigns.

To see this in action, take a look at the 2015 Royal Rumble, which saw fan favorites Daniel Bryan and Dolph Ziggler eliminated early in the match, with Roman Reigns pulling off an underdog victory (with a little help from The Rock) in the end – to a massive heel reaction. Even The Rock – The Freaking Rock – is shocked by how much the fans hate this ending:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CQyN0VPi0A

It's nothing personal. Most people can see that Reigns is a talented wrestler with charisma (when not being forced to play a character opposite of his real life persona). But he's not their guy, and fans have continued to reject Reigns being forced upon them while WWE continues to try to make it happen.

Now, we come to the second question: should WWE turn Roman Reigns heel. This would be the traditional solution to a problem of a wrestler booked as a face being booed relentlessly by fans. By taking advantage of that "heel heat," WWE could turn Roman Reigns into a bad guy and use him against fan favorite wrestlers, helping to boost their popularity and star power with WWE's audience. By conventional wisdom, after a successful run as a heel, fans would come around to Reigns and start clamoring for him to be champion, allowing him to earn the place with fans WWE wants him to be in.

WWE doesn't seem to be doing this, just as they never did with John Cena (though they are teasing doing so with Cena right now). This makes fans even angrier, and the cycle continues. The only logical reason for this is that WWE is clueless and so stubborn in their choice that they will drive the company into the ground before they give up on putting Roman Reigns over.

That's one theory, anyway. But here's another one: Roman Reigns is already a heel in one of the greatest WWE storylines of the reality era.

I believe that when Roman Reigns came out after winning the title at last year's Wrestlemania, against the wishes of fans and to a chorus of boos on the grandest stage of them all, and the next night on Raw, said this:

Reigns officially turned heel and has been one ever since.

What's the primary job of a heel? To get booed, and to get his opponent – the face – over with the crowd. Roman Reigns does this. Fans are extremely invested in his story lines and matches, rooting for him to lose. They get behind his opponents, rooting for them to win. When Roman Reigns is about to pin an opponent at the end of a PPV main event match, fans are on the edge of their seat. The joyous reaction of the crowd when a wrestler escapes being pinned by Reigns is off the charts. When Reigns defeats a fan favorite wrestler, he gets nuclear heel heat. When a wrestler pins Roman Reigns, especially if they do so without an inordinate amount of cheating, it's seen as a big win that legitimizes them with fans.

Except for a few subtle changes, Reigns is booked exactly the same way as he has been the whole time, which is what makes it so brilliant. If Roman Reigns were to make a traditional heel turn – start telling off the fans, cheating to win, acting cowardly – fans would probably start cheering for him. But by continuing to book Roman Reigns as the face against fans' wishes, they ensure that fans will continue to boo him and root for his opponents.

We're all getting worked! And even though we don't want to admit it, we're really enjoying it.

So the real reason it's the "cool thing" to hate Roman Reigns: because we're really enjoying his performance as one of the greatest heels of all time.

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