Roman Reigns is one of the most polarizing characters in WWE today. He gets a very mixed reaction every time he walks through the curtain. Many people boo him while many others cheer him and WWE seems content with that reaction even though they’ve positioned him as the top babyface in the company. Many fans on the internet have expressed their desire to see Roman Reigns turn heel because he’s already getting the heel reaction. They say it makes no sense for Roman to remain a face because everyone is booing him. I am in agreement with Chris Jericho that turning Roman heel is a mistake and unnecessary.
Jericho commented recently that if WWE were to turn Roman heel, people would suddenly cheer everything he did and Jericho is, in my opinion, absolutely right about that. The idea that Roman Reigns should turn heel comes from the fact that he gets booed often. A lot of people still see the boo as a heel reaction and the cheer as a face reaction. Those who want Roman to turn face justify this desire by saying since Roman is getting booed, he should turn heel so that the crowd reaction matches his character. But the way those people talk insinuates that if Roman were a heel, they would accept all his actions as appropriate, but continue to boo him. I don’t think that would happen. I think those people would start to cheer his heel actions and he would become a heel character getting cheers instead of a face character getting boos.
The problem is not Roman Reigns, the problem is us as fans. We are behaving like fans in the attitude era, but thinking like fans in the classic era. This is not 80s WWF anymore. Long gone are the days when Hulk Hogan told everyone to eat their vitamins and say their prayers and everyone went “YAAAAAAAY I LOVE THAT GUY!” Hogan’s character from the 80s would get booed out of the building today because the way we view heels and faces has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. In Hogan’s days, the face rarely cheated. Can you remember ever seeing Hulkamaniac Hulk Hogan cheat in WWF? Did you ever see him grab a handful of tights in a roll up to secure a win? Or bring a foreign object into the ring and attack his opponent with it? Anyone recall face Hulk Hogan utilizing a thumb to the eye or a rake of the back? How about rolling out of the ring to catch his breath and compose himself after his opponent hit a couple of quick, high impact moves to stun him? All of those are classic heel moves that Hulk Hogan never used when he was marching out to the ring proudly to the heart thumping sound of “Real American” and cascading cheers from 50,000 fans who loved everything he stood for.
Nobody wants to see that kind of face anymore. It all changed with the attitude era. Do you think lying, cheating and stealing Eddie Guerrero would have been cheered in the 80s? Absolutely not. You know who he would have been? The despised, villainous Million Dollar Man. The Rock was one of the biggest faces ever to set foot in WWE. In the 80s he would have been Rowdy Roddy Piper bitterly feuding with America’s hero Hulk Hogan. How about the insanely popular Stone Cold Steve Austin? A guy who cussed and flipped people off while chugging beers on live tv? A guy who’s finish move started with a kick to the groin! In the 80s, Austin is the cocky, demeaning Superstar Billy Graham. Fans during the attitude era gravitated towards more edgy characters and the poster boy idea for the face and the heel changed dramatically. Fans stopped cheering for the classic babyface and started cheering for the classic heel instead.
WWE realized this and changed their formula. I bring your attention to one of the attitude era’s best and most high-profile feuds: The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels vs Bret “The Hitman” Hart. Shawn Michaels was cocky and brash and disrespectful. He talked poorly about Bret Hart’s family and he trivialized Hart’s wrestling ability. Shawn called Bret “old” and claimed his time had passed. Shawn openly said he wanted the spotlight solely on him and stated on multiple occasions that everything was and should be all about him. Shawn Michaels had an incredibly selfish character. A heel character. In contrast, Bret (who was arguably at the height of his face popularity) condemned Shawn’s selfish behavior and actions. Bret said that if Shawn wanted to be the best he should earn it instead of demanding that people think of him that way just because he was handsome. Bret did not approve of the way Shawn treated his friends; friends like Marty Jannetty who Shawn famously super kicked through a glass window. If I gave you that setup and you didn’t know it was Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart, most of you would probably say the Shawn Michaels character was devious and in the wrong while the Bret Hart character was honorable and in the right.. But in the attitude era, people cheered Shawn and booed Bret relentlessly. WWF did not turn Bret Hart heel, the fans did. Roman Reigns suffers from a dilemma that comes from this attitude shift amongst the fans.
Some people say they hate Roman Reigns because he is constantly “shoved down our throats.” I have always struggled to understand that argument. What does “shoved down our throats” mean when it comes to wrestlers? Does it mean they are on tv too much? That can’t be it because Reigns is not on tv any more than Kevin Owens and nobody claims Owens is being “shoved down our throats.” Does it mean he wins too much or refer to the fact that he kicks out of finishers too often? I give you Braun Strowman who hardly even gets knocked down when hit with finishers and who lost exactly TWO singles matches in the entirety of 2016 following the brand split. Nobody claims he’s being “shoved down our throats.” In fact, people seem to love the way Braun Strowman has been booked. I don’t know about you, but based on Braun Strowman’s booking, there are very few people who feel like they can legitimately take him down. One of those people is Roman Reigns because he has been shown to be able to take just as much punishment and Strowman can. That’s good booking. Is it a reaction to the fact that Roman Reigns is in the championship pictures too often? Nobody says Dolph Ziggler is being “shoved down our throats” and he has gone from the WWE Title picture, to the Intercontinental Title picture and back to the WWE Title picture on Smackdown Live since the brand split.
Roman Reigns doesn’t get booed because he’s a bad face. Roman Reigns gets booed because he’s a classic face. He doesn’t do anything underhanded. He never cheats. He stands up for what he believes and most of the time, he’s standing up for things that are classically right. Remember his feud with Bray Wyatt? Bray claiming Roman was handed everything and it wasn’t fair so he made it his mission to make sure that anyone but Roman succeeded? Bray’s catchphrase in that feud was “Anyone but you Roman.” Reigns responded in very classic face fashion: “I never asked anyone to GIVE me anything. I EARNED everything I have. If you want to take it from me you’re welcome to try but I’m not going to give it up without a fight.” That could be right out of a Hulk Hogan promo in response to Randy “Macho Man” Savage after they broke up. Why boo that? Isn’t that what any of us would do faced with that same situation? But fans did boo that because that’s a classic face move and thanks to the attitude era, we don’t identify with the classic face anymore. Roman got massive cheers when he was in The Shield because they cheated all the time. They were classic heels and that’s what the internet fans want. They like cheering for the bad guy. They have since the attitude era.
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Here’s the problem with all the people who say Roman Reigns needs to turn heel. They are forgetting the most important demographic in sports entertainment: kids. It is so easy to say a particular wrestler sucks because they’re only getting cheered by kids but those kids grow up, get jobs, and pay to attend WWE events and buy WWE merchandise. Those kids grow up and watch wrestling with their kids. Their kids grow up and do the same thing and the circle continues. How many of us STARTED watching wrestling as adults? I’d be willing to bet that number is WAY less than those of us like myself who started watching around age 10 and continue to watch today. When that 10-year-old boy sees Roman Reigns shake off a steel chair to the back when the ref is distracted, then hit a superman punch and a spear to win a match, he cheers till his voice is gone. His hero overcame the odds and won again. When that 8-year-old girl sees Bayley take a massive leg drop from Nia Jax and she can’t kick out, it hurts because Bayley is her hero but Nia looks unbeatable. In turn, that girl is on the edge of her seat the entire time the fatal four-way is going on because she’s scared that her hero won’t be able to overcome the villainous Jax. That boy and that girl are likely to still be fans when they’re 30 even though by then they are well aware that the outcomes are scripted. I still remember the absolute fear in my stomach when The Undertaker fought Hulk Hogan all those years ago in what was billed as the Hulkster’s “Gravest Challenge.” I was devastated when The Undertaker won. I hated him for beating my hero. I couldn’t wait for Hogan to return and vanquish him. Today Undertaker is one of my absolute favorite wrestlers of all time. That’s the culture WWE creates with a Roman Reigns and it would be a terrible mistake to undo that culture just because the adult fans who have forgotten where they came from want it to happen.
Submitted by @masterbearjedi. Let us know what you think of his comments!
Couldn’t agree more.
Thanks for reading!