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More Reigns!



To me, the turning point for Roman's demise was immediately after the Rollins betrayal.  Look at the contrast between the reactions of Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns:

Dean Ambrose: Goes off the deep end seeking revenge and talking Rollins, turning it into the hottest feud in the WWE for a couple of months.
Roman Reigns: "Meh."

Yeah, but in Vince's mind that's a feature, not a bug.  The John Cena Babyface Prototype is always stoic in the face of setbacks, laughs off big losses because he can always get another title shot, and presents himself as being above the midcarders because he's a star.  That was their way of pushing Reigns.  

Comments

  1. Fat, Ugly Inner-City SweathogMarch 3, 2015 at 3:30 PM

    Agreed. The fans invested in Ambrose and Rollins after the Shield breakup and I'm sure that's why. Reigns didn't care, but it created a blood feud (theoretically) between the other two. I really think they should have had Reigns & Rollins both turn and go Corporate. Build Reigns as a silent, dominant enforcer for the Authority. Then do a slow-burn when you think Roman is ready to break away and be his own man.

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  2. Theberzerker, #HUSSAPPROVEDMarch 3, 2015 at 3:30 PM

    When it Reigns, it pours! Ha Haaaaaaaaa!


    Seriously I hope a steel girder falls on him during the show.


    OK that's too harsh...I hope it falls on Vince.


    Repeatedly.

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  3. There was just no heat for Reigns last night during the main event. He's taking on the whole authority to deafening silence.

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  4. Dear WWE,


    Nobody gives two fucks about Roman Reigns.


    Thanks,


    The Fans.

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  5. Well, if Reigns had gone after Rollins (which, yes, would have made sense), what would Ambrose have done? Would you have done a bunch of tag team matches with Reigns and Ambrose (who did just seem to drift apart) against Rollins and Orton?


    Reigns was doing OK getting elevated into the title picture (though it didn't make a ton of sense why), but losing two title matches in a row hurt. It made more sense for the emotional Ambrose to become obsessed with revenge than the laid-back Reigns anyway, and it certainly was a better feud (hologram aside).


    As for what was done, it seemed like the storyline was leading to Ambrose failing to get the job done with Rollins and then Reigns getting a big win over Rollins around Survivor Series on his path to 'Mania, but then his injury derailed that (remember Rollins' forfeit victory over Reigns?). Rollins needed to win his first feud as a heel, and if he were facing Reigns right away, he wasn't going to win that feud.

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  6. Virgil's Gimmick TableMarch 3, 2015 at 3:44 PM

    Because Brock is slamming it on him over and over.

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  7. http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l2ohd3paSa1qc073co1_r1_400.gif

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  8. But John Cena isn't above the mid carders, he was going to enter the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal dammit!

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  9. I like your logic, but I still think it hurts Reigns to seemingly not care about being betrayed by his "brother." I think even if he was just around Ambrose for moral support while Ambrose was chasing Reigns, it would have gone better. As it is, it makes Reigns feel like you can screw him over and he won't care.

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  10. Should have booked him like Naomichi Marufuji

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  11. I thought stairs were the deadliest weapon in the WWE

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  12. I hate, hate, hate the "laugh-it-off" face thing the WWE pushes now. Austin, Rock, Hogan, etc all got PISSED OFF when a heel screwed them over. It made them human. Which, not surprisingly, got the fans behind them even more.

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  13. Can we get to this part already ? http://media.giphy.com/media/9cWutx2rZ4pu8/giphy.gif

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  14. Reigns came off like he had more important things to focus on so the Shield breakup wasn't a big deal to him, which goes against all the "brothers" stuff prior to that.

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  15. Not only does Cena laugh everything off, HE NEVER MAKES A SAVE. Even if Austin or Rock or Hogan didn't care for the face in peril, if their rival was having their way at the end of a RAW or whatever Hogan was on, you bet your glass was shattering or we were smelling what the Rock was cooking, because they wanted their hands on some sumbitch. Cena not only puts nothing over as a threat, he's the most selfish #1 face ever.

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  16. It's a mix of tepid cheers, stronger boos, and loudest: apathy. They had the best story available in David v. Goliath. Now David is the fans and their slingshot is the remote.

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  17. Not sure how having reigns job to big show and Rollins in the wrestlemania build up is supposed to help his push...

    I do wonder if hhh agrees with Vince on the reigns over Bryan push

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  18. Worst_in_the_WorldMarch 3, 2015 at 5:22 PM

    If reigns had made it clear right after the split taht he wanted to destroy HHH for buying off Rollins, then that's a perfectly fine way of getting Reigns over. Ambrose goes after Rollins, Reigns goes after the guy who paid Rollins off.

    But instead they went right from a hot Shield/Evolution feud into HHH reverting back to a shades of gray tweener "fake bad guy" who gave Roman title shots but als maybe didn't like Roman and soon Roman sorta didn't mind HHH, and all the heat was gone.

    Reigns wanting to kill HHH and then beating him to a pulp in a Cell at Summerslam absolutely gets Reigns way more over at that point.

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  19. and also against the fact that he is the only one who kept the entrance, the gear and the music. He look like he is perpetually waiting for the Shield to reform.

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  20. I watching a promo on YouTube the other night from early 2000. The Rock was getting fired up and angry as he prepared to face the Radicalz in a tag match on some random episode of Smackdown. The Rock of course verbally dressed down Saturn, Benoit, Eddie, and Malneko in hilarious fashion, but he had more fire and energy in the promo than anything you'd ever see today. Rock made fun of the heels, but he didn't treat them as jokes and he sincerely acted like he wanted to win and get revenge on the four. Rocky is of course on another level, but it's night and day compared to today.

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  21. This. Austin and Rock were - character-wise - basically assholes. But they wouldn't put up with bigger assholes giving beatdowns.

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  22. I think the thing that gets fans is the hypocrisy of it all. Austin and Rock would be the first guys to tell you that they're assholes so that's fine, but Cena is a guy that they try to write as a guy with a moral compass.

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  23. Reigns: because I am! *sadface*

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  24. Know what would really get Reigns over, pal? Booking him in 50/50 feuds with Big Show and Kane.

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  25. It's most glaring with Cena (and it's fine to hold him to a higher standard), but how often do babyfaces help each other in WWE? Why wasn't Ambrose or Bryan out there for the main event last night? Or Ziggler or Ryback? Spin-kick master vintner Rowan? Or Cena himself, since he was Steph's latest target? And it's not a new thing:

    "A lot of people are probably wondering why I wasn't out there helping Daniel Bryan, or why the Usos weren't out there tonight, or why the Usos weren't out there helping me when it's 3-on-1 against the Shield. The WWE locker room can be a family at times. But when we're out in that ring, we handle our business ourselves."

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izO20swts4w&t=40



    That's from December 30, 2013. It's a valiant attempt to explain something that's stupid: the good guys should always be sticking up for each other; it's the bad guys who make unholy alliances to temporarily get a numbers advantage only to not fully trust each other. You don't have to make the babyfaces all white meat happy-go-lucky dorks, but this shift is just too far. Heels use numbers to get an advantage because they (think) can't win a fair fight; babyfaces should do so to even things out to let the better man/team prove it in the ring in a fair fight. Even if Cena (or Ziggler or Rowan) doesn't like Reigns personally, he should at least be getting involved because of his history with the Authority.


    Even if Rock or Austin were more whooping ass for selfish reasons (vs. trying to save another babyface), at least they were out there, doing the right thing. But Cena, HLR and all that junk, who should be doing the right thing for the right reason, doesn't. Yeah, some people would bitch about Cena hogging the spotlight and trying to steal the spotlight if he were saving DB last year or Reigns this year, but it would be consistent with his character.

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  26. Nah, the fans were hot for HHH/Reigns regardless of storyline missteps. Doing the Orton feud instead hurt Reigns, even though the match itself was pretty solid.

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  27. Who knows about the Reigns/Bryan stuff specifically, but according to some of the dirtsheets, Vince was higher on Big E whereas HHH was higher on Reigns.

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  28. They were decently hot for the post-match beatdown, but really quiet when he was doing his pre-spear Hulking Up thing.

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  29. Come to think of it, did we ever get a proper feud-ending match between Rollins and Ambrose?

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  30. A million times this. Him losing to Big Show was idiotic on multiple levels, but if he's penciled as 1/2 of the mania main event, he shouldn't be losing to anybody.

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  31. Worst_in_the_WorldMarch 3, 2015 at 6:26 PM

    Fans were hot for reigns/HHH that first week when it seemed like that was the direction, but then HHH turned back to fake heel and reigns stopped caring about him. It was two months of reigns being booked in title matches and him and HHH being cool with each other.

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  32. I remember it being vaguely mentioned in passing like twice that Ambrose and Reigns had decided to work together and split targets (which makes no sense; why not work together to take out one followed by the other?), but it was never explicitly said. I think you were supposed to assume it happened, because I guess it would have been too hard to film a short segment where they actually HAD that conversation during all those weeks they had both guys at TV.

    That's (one) big problem with the writing right now. There's a lot of these vague things you're suppose to infer or assume that you never see happen because somehow, 3 hours isn't enough time to fit in a few 30-45 second segments of character exposition.

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  33. Hell in a Cell was it.

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  34. It also undercuts the heel as they no matter how heinous an act they perpetrate, they have no heat b/c the top faces are booked to smirk it off.

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  35. Man, I remember the night after The Rock lost the belt. Can't remember who or anything, but I DO remember him stalking in the shadows backstage and coming out all silent and pissed off.

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  36. Him keeping the gear/music and not caring about the other two after they broke up just came off as then trying to make Reigns appear to be everything that people liked about the Sheild and on to bigger things now that he's shed the other two.

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  37. Dear Fan,


    Given the rage surrounding his push, clearly plenty of people give two fucks or more about Reigns.


    Sincerely,
    A Fellow Fan

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  38. Cena was so upset about Rusev giving him a low blow to beat him, and then refusing to give him a rematch that he... gave up and entered himself in to the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal.

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  39. That reminds me of every Triple H/Kevin Nash feud. These two have never once been on the same side as on-screen characters, yet every time they feud it's pushed as a betrayal of best friends. We're just supposed to know their personal relationship. Granted, it's fairly well known, but it's certainly a disconnect with their stance that the fans don't know what's going on backstage.

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