How the WWE Failed Roman Reigns (2014-2020)

it's 2023 and Roman Reigns has officially reached 1 000 days as universal Champion as he sits at the top of the mountain he's no longer the big dog but now he's the head of the table he is now the tribal Chief Roman Reigns for the past few years has finally become the main attraction in pro wrestling the top draw in the business the needle mover the main event he has finally become the face of the WWE since the day he walked into the business this was supposed to be the end goal this was what the harps wanted from day one this is what the potential looked like and the top was where Roman was destined to be however it was not that easy what was supposed to be an easy pass to the top the man was supposed to be a Surefire lock found himself in limbo for six years for six years the man found himself being booed out of Arenas being the most hated man in wrestling being considered the most over-pushed wrestler in decades winning Awards such as most overrated by the wrestling Observer the most hated wrestler of the Year by pro wrestling illustrator and somehow turning that around to being awarded best box office draw in 2022 Roman Reigns clearly had all the tools all the potential but for six years he was Public Enemy Number One for good reason and the crazy part was it wasn't even his fault so let's go back and take a look at that six year span and take a look back at how bad it really was for Roman Reigns Delta and the story began right after the shield broke up it was obvious that the company had three main eventers on their hands three single stars who will carry the company into the future but there's never any doubt that Roman was clearly going to be number one that Roman was going to be the John Cena for the Next Generation the problem was though they wanted him to be exactly like John Cena like yeah overnight after the shoot was over Roman Reigns became a totally different person apparently he had a split personality or something because out of nowhere he went from being normal to doing the most extra and annoying facial expressions every time he was in the ring he went from never talking to having the most cringe dialogue you could imagine every single week Roman Reigns went from being the silent killer to a PG era kissing babies and hugging fat girls John Cena wannabe real quick and as a result by the end of the year the resentment towards Roman Reigns was in full effect just like that the company was pushing Roman Reigns to the Moon all while completely changing what the fans loved about Roman in the first place he was going to the top before he or the fans were even ready for it and they were making the same mistake they made 20 years prior basically the company diesled Roman Reigns diesel in 1994 was awesome the fans loved him as a quiet badass bodyguard to Sean Michaels then out of nowhere Vince makes him the champion and overnight diesel went from being the quiet badass that everyone loved to wearing suits going on talk shows cutting promos every single week having a personality trying to be funny and just being the clean-cut face of the company the nice guy but the issue was nobody wanted that and just wanted to look like diesel was the next big star of the company he just ended up being average and business just kept going down and down when diesel was on top and he never recovered until he went to WCW became a heel and became Kevin Nash and here in 2014 it seemed like history was repeating itself and everyone was noticing it Roman Reigns was getting the corporate makeover so they wanted him to smile more they wanted him to make some more jokes and make the crowd laugh and Roman Reigns just six months after leaving this Shield was about to win the Royal Rumble mind you he had been injured and out of action from September to December so after just two months of being on his own getting injured and missing months of TV he was brought back and just like that he was going to win the Royal Rumble what for other stars like stina Austin Rock took years to build from mid-card titles to Legendary feuds before they ever even sniffed the main event for those Stars they built them up so much that the fans were begging for them to be the top star but with Roman Reigns it was like it was so fast and the evolution was so rushed that change was so drastic that it became the company was begging the fans to treat him like a top star and of course that did not work out the booze just got louder and louder every single week and this man was still wearing the same Shield outfit coming out to the same Shield theme they were trying to bank on any good will The Shield aesthetic had Roman Reigns to no fault of his own was being booked as a total disaster and the rest was just history when he won the Royal Rumble and the crowd rejected him so bad that even The Rock was confused it was a surprise to No One except apparently the company there was no need to rush him into that position there was no need to set him up like that but these idiots just kept digging the grave deeper and deeper so he wins the Royal Rumble he gets rejected what do they do they make him look like a total sucker going into the main event of WrestleMania no one will ever forget the legendary tug of rope to build up the Wrestlemania main event and just like that the Roman Reigns character became a buffoon the way he was presented it was clear that this was a man to not be taken seriously he was really a meme which looking back was so tragic clearly this man had all the tools clearly he had what it took to be the mad but the company absolutely destroyed him and they definitely set him up for failure so when he didn't walk out of WrestleMania Champion you bet your ass the fans were happy and then no matter what the company did there was nothing that was gonna save him as awesome as the match was at WrestleMania realistically he should have been the one beating Rusev and ending the US Title reign he should have been tearing it up in the mid card so much so that the fans would get behind him and would eventually want him as a world champion but instead they were just making it worse as 2015 was coming to an end they would have him win the title and get screwed so they could get some sympathy for him plot twist there was no sympathy to be found they were down so bad they even brought back a 70 year old Vince McMahon to beef him to try to recreate some Stone Cold magic like its 1998 or something just so maybe the crowd will get behind him and you know what the crazy part was sometimes they actually would sometimes the crowd would cheer for him because Roman clearly had the potential to be a star but they ruined it every single time they would book him as a buffoon yet at the same time they would push him to the top so it just made no sense like what were you guys doing he was out here getting low blowed by his 70 year old man still doing that stupid ass smile still trying to live off the shield hype so there was no sympathy while there be sympathy for a guy who didn't have to overcome anything it was like the weirdest thing all this stuff that he should have been facing and overcoming he did it after he had already main evented a WrestleMania how does that make any sense so of course when he beat Triple H in the main event of WrestleMania in front of a hundred thousand people nobody cared because once that stain was on him sadly there was nothing he could do once the fans saw him as a corny over push buffoon there was no coming back and the company instead of changing things up they just kept digging the grave so it didn't matter that he had great matches with AJ Styles because the time for him to have great matches and get the fans behind him that time was already over and it didn't help that Seth Rollins the whole time was the Bret Hart to Roman's diesel in 2016 Seth Rollins became the guy for so many fans all the fans that hated Romans push they just got behind Seth as time went on they did everything they could with Roman they even delegated him to the mid card so he could be U.S champion and grind it out before going to the main event and they were just praying and hoping that maybe just maybe the fans will like him because he's not in the main event anymore nope no matter what feuds no matter what matches he had no matter how good they were Roman Reigns could have went back in time and stopped 911 but at the end of the day it was still Roman Reigns it was still the guy who everyone just perceived as a bozo and things just got worse when he got sent back to the main event for some reason they thought the way to get Roman Reigns over again to get the fans behind him once again on the main event scene was to have the man that everybody hates beat up a 52 year old man who happens to be probably the most beloved Legend on the roster for some reason the company thought making Roman Reigns commit elder abuse was going to get him loved by the fans so no of course not instead after beating up the old man Roman Reigns came out to raw and was booed for 10 minutes straight in one of the most iconic promos of the 2010s Roman Reigns just stood there and the fans from around the world who had three years of built up resentment to this man just let it all out and if there was ever a time to make Roman Reigns heal this was it this is my now but instead they just kept digging the grave so after beating up an old man didn't work what did they do they got desperate they brought back John Cena for a b pay-per-view for no mercy of all shows to put over Roman Reigns to pass the torch quietly and no mercy for some reason and just maybe just maybe the fans will somehow love Roman Reigns the issue was though a week before the match John Cena absolutely murdered Roman Reigns on the microphone Cena left him wasted calling out everything the fans hate about Roman and his three-year push how he will never fit Cena's shoes how he's just a corporate maid John Cena wannabe how he can't cut a promo to save his life and they just had a Roman stand there and just take it looking like the biggest Bozo I had ever seen in my life and yeah eventually he would stand up and talk and say you know Cena you're a [ __ ] but the damage was done so Roman beats Cena Cena passes a torch nah doesn't mean anything Roman Reigns even real mates with this shield with the sole purpose of hey this might get him cheered no and just like I said before Roman Reigns was stuck in limbo he would win titles he would lose titles have horrible WrestleMania Main Events go back to the mid card go back to the main event but Roman was never able to become what he was destined for no matter how hard the push was even though all the tools were right there even though he had it in him the company failed him held the most sympathy and love from the fans he got was when he announced that he had leukemia again and when he came back from it because he finally came off as a real person as a relatable human as as Joe as someone real someone the fans could connect to not a robot design in Stanford Connecticut in WWE headquarters to become the next John Cena Roman Reigns initial run ended with more of the same a stupid Feud with Shane McMahon of all people a feud with Baron Corbin over dog food and was even supposed to wrestle Goldberg for the title at WrestleMania it was literally a career your limbo and it was getting sad okay it was a man who had all the talent in the world who should have been the guy who wasn't some corny buffoon that he was being forced to portray and as time went on we found out that he didn't want to say those stupid ass lines and jokes in the promos he didn't want to make those stupid facial expressions in every promo nah instead it was the WWE the booking the creative the vision that the higher-ups had put Roman in this position and they handled it horribly since day one and because of everything they did in the first year or two the man himself and the fans had to suffer until 2020. but luckily for everyone involved when Roman came back from his ideas during the peak of the pandemic he came back with a vengeance he came back and he came back on his terms he wanted to do things his way to become a heel to work with Paul Heyman no more creative telling him how to act what facial expressions to do this and that it was about him it was Paul Heyman and all the corniness all the years of him being presented as a clown those days were over and he went from being the top dog to the tribal Chief and the rest was history so how bad was the Roman Reigns run from 2014 until 2020 it was bad what was supposed to be the prime of his career was six years that Roman that the company and the fans like to pretend never happened the fans got six years of being force-fed a corny version of Roman reigns Roman Reigns got rejected and booed out of arenas for six years and there was no reason for any of that to happen but the company just kept digging the grave Roman Reigns has been so Elite for the past few years that we almost kind of forgot how bad the first 6 years was and even though it wasn't his fault it's definitely something important to remember that WWE missed out on so much magic for those six years and they almost butchered the career of an all-time great but luckily for them and everyone involved it all worked out and those six years are why the past three years have been so good for Roman Reigns it's why the new attitude and the gimmick have hit so hard because of how bad those years were but that doesn't change the fact and it shouldn't be forgotten just how dirty the WWE did Roman Reigns from 2014 until 2020. it is honestly a miracle that it all worked out how it did

Channel: WrestlinGifs

Views: 161,514

Keywords: WWE, WWF, roman reigns, wwe video, wrestlinggifs, wrestling

Id: 4IhJwJjfhIM

Length: 13min 49sec (829 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 06 2023