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

Roman Reigns' Uncle Thinks Fans Are Too Hard On Roman Reigns, So Let's Give Roman Reigns A Chance, Okay?

Wrestling fandom was shocked and moved this week to learn that retired pro wrestler Afa of the legendary tag team The Wild Samoans, who also happens to be the uncle of WWE superstar Roman Reigns, wants fans to go easier on Roman and give him a chance.  Reigns, who was once a popular member of The Shield, has been booed mercilessly ever since the tag team broke up and WWE began pushing him over preferred fan choice Daniel Bryan. Reigns has become a sort of symbol for WWE's desire to promote the wrestlers they find most marketable rather than listen to which wrestlers fans' want to see. Speaking on the subject on Bill Apter's Is Wrestling Fixed? podcast (transcription via 411 Wrestling), Afa said:

It's just like anything else. The thing about my other nephew The Rock was when he first started they were booing him. That was because of his lack of experience. The kid's young. He will grow in to become a somebody someday if he not already is. You've just got to be patient. You've got to give people a chance to grow. He's still learning a lot and just give him some time. There's a lot he needs to learn and me and my brother we kind of want to stay out of it. These kids today are much smarter and the business is different, you know? We kind of just let them do it their own way and every now and then if they need some advice we will give them the "old school" advice. As far the fans go… give the kids a chance. They'll come around. He'll come around.

Afa isn't the first family member of Roman Reigns to try unsuccessfully try to reverse fans' opinion on Reigns. Reigns' cousin Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, arguably the most popular wrestler of all time, was unable to prevent the crowd from booing the ever-loving crap out of Roman Reigns after helping Reigns win the 2015 Royal Rumble. Fans rejection of WWE's plans to have Reigns main event the upcoming Wrestlemania PPV for the WWE championship over Daniel Bryan or literally any other wrestler caused the crowd to actually boo when The Rock entered the ring near the end of the 30-man over-the-top-rope elimination battle to save Reigns, a "face" or "good guy" wrestler from an illegal beatdown by already-eliminate "heel" or "bad guy" wrestlers Kane and The Big Show. If you watch the video below, you can see the crowd's reaction quickly change from joy at seeing The Rock, who appears only rarely in WWE, to a mixed reaction as The Rock performs his signature moves on Kane and The Big Show, to panicked boos as Reigns recovers and fans realize he is going to win, to desperate cheers for anti-American mega-heel Rusev, to a downpour of boos as Reigns wins the match and The Rock enters the ring to raise his cousin's arm and present him to the crowd as the victor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXLev4JKp18

The situation has remained basically unchanged since then, with WWE constantly trying to convince fans to cheer for Reigns, and fans continuing to reject him. The ongoing struggle has become a sort of meta-storyline in the WWE, with WWE unable to help themselves from trying to push Roman Reigns as a face despite being seemingly self-aware about both their obsession and failure. At the 2017 Royal Rumble, which took place at the end of January, Reigns entered the Royal Rumble match as the match's surprise final entrant to a chorus of boos, and promptly began a feud with beloved, legendary wrestler The Undertaker. Current backstage rumors point toward a match at Wrestlemania where Reigns will pin The Undertaker in what could potentially be The Undertaker's last match.

With Seth Rollins' recent injury that could prevent him from fighting Triple H at Wrestlemania, some rumors (possibly ones started by us) even suggest that Triple H could instead be used at the end of Reigns match, coming out to help his defeated friend, The Undertaker. Reigns could challenge Triple H to a match right then and there, because Roman Reigns is "The Guy" and Triple H has "tater tots," so that Roman Reigns could beat and retire both The Undertaker and Triple H in one night, prompting announcer Michael Cole to shout, "The Roman Empire has conquered The Attitude Era" before throwing up in his mouth a little as the stadium crowd openly riots and destroys the city of Orlando.

But now that Afa has asked fans to give Roman Reigns a chance, maybe all of that will change and everyone will finally start cheering him. What do you think?

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