Everyone remembers what happened earlier in the year when the WWE tried to give Roman Reigns a big push. Smarks hated it. Instead of Roman Reigns winning the title at Wrestlemania, Seth Rollins cashed in and walked out with the title. His title reign has not been the greatest, but he has retained the title against a lot of top guys.
But the attention is back on Roman Reigns again. I have seen some fans upset about him once again in the title picture. You have certain top faces not around. Even if Cena and Orton were around, Seth Rollins already feuded against them. He feuded against Dean Ambrose. Dolph Ziggler, another guy some of these fans would rather see pushed than Reigns, has another storyline going on. Do people seriously expect Kevin Owens, a heel holding a title of his own, to get a feud against Seth Rollins? I can run through the whole roster, but Roman Reigns seems like a good choice to push right now. It is better than dragging out his feud with Bray Wyatt.
Has Roman Reigns improved? He has put on some good matches. Many might argue that he was carried. He is still not the greatest on the mic, but at least he is not doing awkward promos like last year. I think he has improved a bit. He is still not someone you would expect to earn a "Superstar of the Year" Slammy, but he has had a good year.
Has his connection with the fans improved? Go back to what I said a little while ago. I said smarks hated his big push. Smarks are a type of wrestling fans that tend to be very critical of the product and usually prefer workers like Daniel Bryan and Cesaro. All fans were not as negative to Roman Reigns. I would sometimes hear Reigns get an okay reaction or read a live event report that said he got a great pop. And this was during his controversial push. He isn't as hated as certain vocal fans might make it seem. He is in the same camp as John Cena. But has Reigns won over those haters? Some of them sound like they have given up. Some might think they can force the WWE's hand by being vocal against Roman Reigns again. In general, I do not think the same negativity is here right now as you had earlier in the year.
Besides the talent of Roman Reigns and how well he was connecting with the fans, another issue that influenced the situation earlier this year was that there was someone hotter that fans would rather see not getting the push. That would be Daniel Bryan. A lot of fans have said that it wasn't just Daniel Bryan and that the fans were upset about all their favorites getting mistreated in that Royal Rumble. I am sure that had a little to do with it, but I still say most of it was fans upset about Daniel Bryan, again. After he got tossed out, fans would have settled for anyone other than the WWE's new chosen one, Roman Reigns. They even would have settled for Rusev. Funny thing is, a year before that, fans would have settled for Roman Reigns over Batista.
There is no face (or heel) that has A+ overness on the active roster right now. None of the regulars are as hot as Daniel Bryan has been. That is another reason I do not see a problem with pushing Roman Reigns now and do not think he will get the same nuclear reaction he had before. If Cesaro was that hot, or anyone else, then it would obviously be a different story. Let the WWE build a star. Not everyone they push has to be a favorite of these vocal fans. Roman Reigns will never be a true A+ player until he wins them over, and will not earn the right to be pushed at that level. But what's wrong with just having him in the main-event rotation?
Speaking of rotation, some people might have thought the WWE would have some sort of rotation with Cena and Orton temporarily out. Have a "centerpiece by committee" approach. In football, some teams like to have one running back that will always be in the game, unless he gets tired, injured, does not need to be in the game any longer, or some other special reason. Some teams rotate running backs and have a "running back by committee" approach. They rotate guys to keep them fresh, depending on what down it is, depending on their skill set, and so on. The WWE could have pushed a group of faces in the spotlight. Have Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose, and Kane chase after Seth Rollins. Have Cesaro be one of those guys. Have some kind of multi-challenger feud for the title. Then again, Survivor Series is coming up. They can easily not have a title feud at all. Just create some kind of big tag match. Seth Rollins would be captain of his team and go against a group of faces being pushed well for the next few weeks. Instead of spreading the spotlight around like that, it looks like the WWE is using this situation to put the spotlight on Reigns. Oh well!
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