WWE Going Full Circle with Roman Reigns.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Talk Wrestling World, I hope you are all well and good! Last month I was supposed to upload a blog post talking all about how the WWE have gone full circle with Roman Reigns. After getting sick and dealing with some family uses I ended up completely forgetting about the post and not having any time to actually write and upload it. A month later I have found some notes I made in preparation for the post and I have decided to write and upload it now. I'm not completely sure whether or not it's too late to do this post but it's something I'm super passionate about and have wanted to get up since the start of the year. Keep in  mind this was a bitch of blog post to write and at times I legit wanted to smash my laptop into pieces but I'm finally happy with the end result and I really really really hope you guys like it. Of course I will link bellow any recent blog posts including my most recent RAW Review and my WWE Fastlane Review and Reactions post. As always you can let me know what your opinions are on today's blog post and Roman Reigns by leaving a comment bellow or by tweeting me at @TezangiVictoria.

To start this blog post we are going right back to two thousand and eleven and the days of Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), where Roman Reigns would work under the ring name Leakee. We saw several character changes back then as the WWE tried to figure what was the best image for a man who certain to have a solid WWE career. He's early days saw him work with Tyler Breeze (then known as Mike Dalton) in tag team success. He went on to compete in a handful of memorable FCW matches including a triple threat alongside Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins witch you can still go back and watch online. Everyone was paying some degree of attention to Leakee/Reigns. He had a look that could not go unnoticed and with he's family history/name he was always sure to be a superstar the WWE would push massively. When FCW re-branded into NXT we started to see slightly less of a now Roman Reigns but when we did see him he was playing a strong heel with still plenty of  potential. However, the direction of he's character seemed a little bleak. It was a very limited gimmick and I personally wasn't sure how long it would be until they would shake things up again. I'm not saying this was a terrible character because it wasn't at all but there was nothing different about it. Nothing, from the all suit wearing gimmick that was Roman Reigns gave off the vibe that he could be something unique. It was a generic character with little long term direction. However, Reigns alongside two of he's fellow FCW rivals would soon be put together to create one of the most dominate and successful tag teams of the past decade. The Shield.

The Shield. A faction consisting of three very different superstars. Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, and of course Roman Reigns. With Ambrose and Rollins having several years of wrestling experience and Reigns only a couple he was constantly playing catch up and it became clear whenever he would compete or cut a promo that he was the least experienced and needed more time to improve. However, he was able to keep up with both Rollins and Ambrose and he never once came across as any kind of weak link. The WWE booked him in a clever way that allowed us all to believe he was just as dangerous and just as skilled as he;s more experienced Shield brothers. Throughout the two years the Shield were together, Reigns was always pushed as the power house of the faction. As the largest of the three, Reigns would find himself taking on the bigger opponents and using the spear to eventually pick up the victory for he's team. Just like he's FCW days, Reigns would find early tag team success on the WWE main roster when he and Seth Rollins would go on to win the Tag team championships several months into debuting. Despite being a tag team champion, Reigns was always spoken about very highly by the WWE and as time went on it became clear who out of the three were the company favourite and who would be going on to have great success in the WWE in the future as a singles competitor. When you look back it was always Reigns scoring the big victory, Reigns who the commentary team spoke so highly of, talking about his family legacy/history. Despite not being the strongest all round performer during the Shields first pay per view match it was Reigns who picked up the winning pin. At Survivor Series a year later he had one of the best and most memorable survivor series performances in WWE history and as time went by it became perfectly clear to fans who we should all be keeping a strong eye on. He was pushed as the leader of the Shield, the most promising, the more dominate, and a future big name in the WWE. Everything was going right for Roman Reigns and more importantly the fans were massively behind him as they were for both Rollins and Ambrose.

Royal Rumble two thousand and fourteen. A huge night for Roman Reigns. Not only did make history when he topped Kane's record for the most amount of eliminations in a single Rumble match but he also came down to the final two with on the animal Batista standing in he's way of main eventing Wrestlemania. The arena went mental for Roman Reigns with everyone on their feet cheering on the powerhouse of the Shield. He got this reaction for two main reasons. The first being that the WWE universe were never going to back Batista as the Rumble winner mainly because they wanted Bryan in that main event who hadn't even entered the Royal Rumble match. The second reason being that in January of two thousand fourteen the Shield were the hottest things in the WWE and a member winning the Rumble would have gone down a treat with any fan. At this point of time the WWE Universe loved Roman Reigns, where they aware he was slightly overrated by the WWE and playing catch up to Ambrose and Rollins? One hundred and ten percent but because of he's booking he was a fan favourite. However, a year later, we could not have predicted the massive turn around. In the space of a year he went from being a favourite to win the Rumble to one of the most hated WWE Superstars of today. Picking up one of the biggest negative crowd reaction I have ever

heard the arena were completely anti-Reigns with the Rock not even being able to get the crowd on team Roman. But where did the WWE go wrong? How did Roman Reigns go from being one of the biggest, most popular, promising, fan favourite superstars to one of the most hated talents in all of the WWE?

It's simple. Fans do not like being told who to like and who to cheer for. We should able to see who is a top talent and who we should be cheering for. This wasn't the case with Roman Reigns. The WWE did not make it a secret as to how high they were on Roman Reigns. The moment the Shield split it was clear that they had every intention on sending Roman Reigns down the same root as John Cena as the next big name. Now, it is perfectly fine to have a new superstar in line as the next top dog. It's something we have seen throughout WWE history the problem however is how it was done. Roman Reigns was clearly not ready for the main event, championship, top superstar place. He was weak on the mic, as a character (lacking charisma), and in the ring and every WWE fan knew it. It didn't matter whether or not you were a fan of he's or not, everyone knew full well that he was not ready but the WWE continued to push him, shoving him down our throats and the more they done that the more we grew to dislike him.

To be fair, after the Royal Rumble (2015), Roman Reigns worked he's butt off to prove everyone wrong and all round improve as a WWE superstar. He worked hard at bettering himself as a character, on the mic, and in the ring and to be fair he did impress me and he did improve greatly. The turning point for him was he's Fastlane match up against Daniel Bryan where he earned he's spot in the main event of Wrestlemania showing improvements and this was the start of Roman Reigns winning the fans over. After he's loss to Brock Lesnar at Mania, a night where he earned even more respect, the WWE finally did the right thing for Reigns when the took him away from the WWE Championship picture and away from the main event picture. This gave Roman time to win the fan over even more and to improve as an all round competitor all round. He had a fantastic feud with Bray Wyatt where he massively improved and earned the respect of the WWE universe greatly. Things were finally heading in the right direction for Roman Reigns. They were finally taking their time with him and giving him the slow build up he needed, the time to improve. However, once Seth Rollins was injured and left out of action having to forfeit the championship the WWE went right back to their old ways and started repeating history once again.

Instead of continuing to build Roman Reigns up the WWE went right back to where they were going wrong in the first place and shoved him right back in the spotlight, Instead of allowing him to carry on earning the respect of the fans wining them over and improving greatly. They once again found themselves in the same situation. Just as Reigns' fan base was growing and the fans were starting to side with him the WWE started going full circle with him. Yes, he had spent time improving greatly there is no doubt that he was in  completely different place from the start of the January to the end of the year but he still was not ready for the top spot and the fans were not over the Royal Rumble and we all knew that. All the mistakes the WWE had made over the past year they were making again. He was shoved in the main event picture, given the title, having the title taken away from him, putting him in predicable matches. It was everything the WWE had done wrong before. They clearly were repeating history and not had learnt their lesson. The WWE universe slowly started turning on Reign again and he was right back where he was at the start of last year. A year later he is back in the main event of Wrestlemania and once again found himself in the situation where he needs to turn things around for himself once again.

Looking ahead, what can the WWE do in order to turn things back around once again for Roman Reigns? First we need to talk about Wrestlemania. Like I have already mentioned in today's blog post, this was an extremely predicable Wrestlemania main event and because of that the WWE universe really are not as invested in this match as they should be. The writing for this storyline has been so predicable that gaining a strong interest in it has been next to impossible. In order to turn that around the WWE need to add some kind of twist. They need to use the next five weeks leading up to Wrestlemania to completely turn things around. The build up for this match needs to be extremely strong and if the WWE plan on having Roman Reigns walk out as WWE World Heavyweight Champion than they need to get the fans on side. Roman once again finds himself forced to prove everyone that he is worthy of both main eventing Wrestlemania and more importantly holding the WWE World Heavyweight championship. How they do that is going to be tough. In such a short amount of time we have seen so much from Reigns and he's booking has remained very predicable and very repetitive. In order for fan to gain some serious interest in both the main event and Roman Reigns the WWE are going to have to try something new with Reigns. Starting off with he's booking. Longer matches against tougher opponents to start off with. He needs to prove that he can hack it in a lengthy singles match against opponents are much more skilled in the ring. Taking on the likes of Kevin Owens, AJ Styles, and even Chris Jericho will allow us as the fans to see other sides to Reigns' move set while Reigns himself will be forced to explore more of he's in ring capabilities. He also needs to take more losses. Beat downs from the champ are one thing but I'm bored of seeing Reigns compete in tag team matches where he spends most of it in the corner and then picks up the victory. I want to see him in long, growling matches, where he is pushed to he's limits and fails to pick up the win. Yes, momentum is important for Reigns heading into Wrestlemania but while he doesn't need to loose all of he's matches in the build up he sure as hell does not need to win every single one of them. Going one on one with someone like Kevin Owens and loosing to the IC champ may just be what he needs. I don't want to see an invincible Roman Reigns. I want to see a Reigns who can step in the ring, put on great matches, and prove himself, He may pick up a couple of losses in the build up but those losses could be the one thing that allow Reigns to gain so much more respect from the fans. Brutality. That's my next point. This past week on RAW we saw Triple H give Reigns the beating of a lifetime sending a huge message to the challenger. How, Reigns responds will be very interesting. Hardcore fans love to see a good old fashioned brawl/beat down. If Reigns at some point can come back and show Triple H just how dominate and ruthless he can be than that will be one step in impressing the fans. If we can start seeing more of the aggressive ruthless, careless Roman Reigns that we saw back in he's Shield days than once again it's a step forward.

In the long run I honestly think in order for the WWE to get what they want (an over Roman Reigns) they are going to have to look at turning him heel. For over a year now people have been talking about Dean Ambrose turning on Reigns and going heel but I honestly think it should be the other way around. We have seen in both NXT/FCW, and he's early days in the Shield that Roman Reigns makes an extremely good heel. If we take into consideration where he is currently at now in he's career I really do believe he could make a fantastic bad guy. Maybe not at the level of Seth Rollins but sure a great one regardless. So how would they go about it? Well, personally I think the WWE should focus on Wrestlemania as the start of building a Roman Reigns heel turn and it starts off with Dean Ambrose. Lets say Ambrose has a brilliant match against Brock Lesnar but walks out very hurt and in need of an ambulance. Throughout the night we see Roman Reigns worried about Dean Ambrose and Stephanie teasing that he won't be able to go and stay by the side of he's brother. We could even see Reigns talking to Ambrose as he is being put into the Ambulance van. The whole drama with Ambrose leaves Roman anxious and distracted walking into he's main event match with Triple H. The two have an amazing match but because of an Ambrose distraction on titron during the closing moments Triple H is about to use that to pick up the victory of the night. Twenty four hours later on the RAW after Wrestlemania Ambrose comes out to apologise to Reigns and everything in a segment but big shock Roman Reigns turns on he's brother initially turning heel. The WWE universe want to boo Roman Reigns so give us a reason to do so. A heel Roman Reigns is exactly what the company and Reigns himself need. This is an ambitious heel turn but one I really do think would work

amazingly well.

Throughout Reigns' early career he has been compared to John Cena for the obvious reasons. He's fan base is strongly consisting of young children and middle aged women, he's very controversial, and has he's own set of five moves of doom. While I do think that he is heading in the same direction as the fifteen time world champion that is John Cena I think there is a clear set of differences between the two. Cena wasn't always booed by the fans and so controversial. It wasn't until he really started to establish himself and have a great career that he started getting so much heat. While with Roman he's so early into he's career and he is already so controversial and so disliked amongst the fans. What is also striking is that the disliking for Cena is kind of fun. As noted in a podcast I listened to this week, with Cena it's like a game and despite he's controversy he is always carrying excitement and a buzz. With Reigns were booing because we're bored of the same thing and don't believe in him. I do think that Roman has the potential to be a huge huge star and I believe he could easily be as big as John Cena one day but the WWE really do need to slow down and take their time with him. Let him work at bettering himself and establishing himself before trying to make him into John Cena 2.0. As always you can let me know what your opinions are by leaving a comment bellow or by tweeting me at @TezangiVictoria.