As we head into WrestleMania, I finally came to the conclusion why my interest in the main event is at an all-time low. While many people share my feelings, I can honestly say that I can’t blame Roman Reigns, the guy has been put into a universally bad position. I can’t blame Brock Lesnar, I can’t blame Paul Heyman. What do I blame?
The mountain.
Or the lack of one.
[adinserter block=”1″]II should elaborate on what I am saying. In the build to WrestleMania and Roman Reigns journey to WrestleMania, he hasn’t faced any major obstacles. The WWE thought that having Reigns get bloodied up and having him face off with Kane and Show at the Rumble would do the trick. This sounds like a neat idea in hindsight except that Show and Kane are about as threatening as a box of kittens in the eyes of fans. Rusev would have been a better final boss and not in the convoluted way it was done.
Just have Rusev straight-up beat the crap out of Reigns for a period of time before having Reigns come back and eliminate him. Heck, they did this already in the battle royal for the last MITB spot, and Reigns got a massive pop. I know the circumstances are very different, but it shows that you have to give the fans a reason to root for this guy.
Think about it like this, Daniel Bryan had to face Triple H and then overcome Orton, Batista in a triple threat match. On top of that, he had to deal with Triple H, Stephanie and the return of Scott Armstrong. That’s a mountain to climb and that’s not even mentioning everything that happened after SummerSlam. If you want one that isn’t a guy getting beaten down, Randy Savage had to deal with Ric Flair and the pictures of Miss Elizabeth going into WrestleMania VIII. Savage wasn’t getting beat up every week, but he had Ric Flair screwing with his head for weeks on end before getting his hands on him.
Before Reigns was injured, it seemed like he was being tabbed to be the man who brought down The Authority. Reigns defeated Orton had defeated Rollins on Raw and was on his way to a showdown with Triple H at Survivor Series. That would have at-least been a feather in his cap, something to make people this guy has a chance in hell against Brock Lesnar. While Lesnar is a big enough of a mountain itself to face, you need a challenger that has the credentials or in this case, the big wins to be a believable threat. The injury would have made for a decent comeback story, but they never used that as something for him to overcome. It wasn’t until Fastlane that the company acknowledged that it could be a problem during the Bryan match.
[adinserter block=”2″]IIf this was Roman Reigns facing a guy like Randy Orton for the championship, these problems wouldn’t stick out to me. Yet, this is Roman Reigns facing the killer of the Streak, the man who destroyed John Cena with a gazillion suplexes and survived a Seth Rollins elbow drop through a table to murderize Rollins and Cena a short time later. This is Brock Lesnar and you can’t just stick a random wrestler in-front of him and tout him as the Lesnar Killer, you need somebody that the fans can believe is capable of being the one who beats the one in twenty one and one.
And they haven’t done that with Reigns.
WWE: The Destruction of the Shield
Grab discounted WWE DVDs, merchandise, t -shirts, figures, and more from the WWE Shop on Amazon.com