It's practically a cliche to hate on Roman Reigns at this point. In terms of his perception, he's the Phantom Menace of wrestlers in all essence, reviled by most purists of the product, but generally accepted by the more casual wrestling audience. This isn't a new phenomenon in wrestling either, one only has to look at John Cena, and even beyond that to the likes of Hogan and Luger to see a similar trend; fans who have a better understanding of wrestling's scripted nature generally tend to despise the chipper babyfaces, and love the despicable heels. But what if I told you that I think Reigns and the treatment of his character is almost single-handedly rewriting the long dead tapestry of kayfabe?
You probably think I'm crazy, but hear me out. The revilement Reigns receives currently would be enough to make even Cena at his most hated blush. We've had someone throw a briefcase at his head during a house show (which I'm not in anyway defending, but it's a testament to the animosity Reigns can achieve), we've had Reigns being booed despite the endorsement and support of one of the most famous and beloved wrestlers and celebrities on the planet. And of course, we have this gem:
This is a level of hatred not really seen on a regular basis since the days of old that Cornette and his coterie love to reminisce about. And WWE, for all their incompetence at times, are far from stupid when it gets down to it. They know Reigns is extremely unpopular amongst a large demographic. They also know Reigns is a extremely useful asset to their bottom line in more ways than one. Suffice to say, if he wasn't, he wouldn't be in the position he is right now, and AJ Styles would probably be the #1 guy on WWE television right now. And this is something that I think a lot of people miss, and something that despite Styles' talent, he and a lot of other wrestlers do not have: The ability to act as a pivot.
What do I mean by a pivot? Well, let's watch this clip, one week after the yard promo:
I remember watching this on live TV, and when I saw Roman kissing up to Undertaker after a perfect heel promo the week before, I rolled my eyes. Seriously? They want to keep him as a face after he essentially retired The Undertaker? Thankfully, what happened next was perhaps the greatest star-making segment since the Pipebomb or the Nexus invasion. The pop after "I'M NOT FINISHED WITH YOU!" is one of the biggest pops I've heard in any era, let alone the current era. Braun Strowman, while someone I always liked and is talented in his own right, was often dismissed as just another big man, a pet project of Vince McMahon. But through this promo, and through his work with Reigns, Braun rose to become perhaps the most beloved wrestler on the Raw roster right now.
But when you think about that, it's incredible. If there's one thing the IWC love to do apart from shit on the flagship wrestler, it's to generally show disinterest for the big men, and cheer for the former indy workers. If Braun did this to an internet darling, let's say, AJ Styles or Kevin Owens, the IWC would be almost universally livid. And as I said, Braun, for all his talents and personality, boils down to being another wrestling big guy that the fans wouldn't care too much about if not used very carefully.
This is where I think the WWE have actually made a covertly genius move. By identifying the strongest emotion from the IWC demographic (the hatred of Reigns, a negative emotion), they are using that to their strength. It's the Gorgeous George/Buddy Rogers/Ric Flair mentality: People hate these wrestlers passionately, and want to see these wrestlers get beat up, to the point that the audience will accept anyone that is up to the task. Enter Braun Strowman, a behemoth of a man, and clearly a guy Vince is high on, to challenge Reigns. The giant of a man is getting monster pops even now that his feud with Reigns is over for the time being, and that's entirely because of his prior work with Roman Reigns establishing him as a top-level guy, even in the eyes of the most stubborn of the IWC.
This is where I get to the re-writing of kayfabe side of things. People are buying so much into Roman's deliberately manufactured push to the stratosphere as the next face of the company, and his reputation as a locker room leader nowadays that they're buying into the hype of what goes on behind the scenes. We're at a point where we've almost come full circle from the Rock N Wrestling era, cheering the big, larger than life Herculean once more; because we think they're the underdogs.
The general mentality for wrestling throughout its inception, is to cheer for the underdog. In days old, we booed the monster heels because of their obvious material advantage over their competition, and we booed the deceitful heels for using foul play as a means to claim victory. We cheered the faces because they were at a disadvantage; we wanted to see good beat evil of course, but we wanted to see the underdog prevail above all else. With the inception of the IWC, and the general trend of good guys prevailing in the end, something changed. The internet knew the tricks of the trade, and the ways professional wrestling worked their audience. People like Cena, moulded in a similar vein to the Hogans of the world, were being booed because they were no longer the underdogs, they were the favourites. As the IWC grew, so did the animosity towards this culture. This is probably why you get the easy to mock but simply misguided marks wanting the Attitude Era to come back; because they think the problem is to do with the child-friendly programming. But quite simply, during Cena's time on top, WWE were not operating on close to the same wavelength as the growing IWC.
But through attempting to replicate Cena with Roman Reigns, WWE must have realised something. They had a tool they could use to their advantage, and not just to appease the younger fanbase and female audience (which mind you, are still important demographics to move merchandise, and Reigns is good at that). Reigns could also be used to work with talent WWE wanted to manufacture into top stars in their own right, and the IWC would buy into it, solely for their hatred of Reigns and that he represented peak corporate manufacture. The IWC pride itself on being smart, and being ahead of the curve, and having the correct perception of reality, but most of them are in actuality, probably the most clueless people watching the product right now. Their perception of reality is being warped by the day by WWE's strategy to present an alternative reality.
To give you a recent example of this, earlier this year, Booker T and Corey Graves began having an online, off-air feud after Booker T lost his commentating gig to Jonathan Coachman. This culminated in Booker T threatening to beat up Corey Graves. While you had the people who immediately jumped on the "It's a work" bandwagon with little to no basis in their opinion so they could try and look cynically smart if it turned out to be a work, a lot of people bought into this and it got people talking: Did Booker T and Corey Graves really hate each other? Was Booker being serious about whether he wanted to beat up Graves? It generated a lot of buzz between two people who in the grand scheme of things, are far from the most important in the wrestling business now. But when both men revealed it was a work, almost everyone immediately stopped caring about it. People love talking about reality when it comes to wrestling, just look at all of the stories that came out about Enzo Amore's backstage behaviour(which I'm not saying were fake at all to be very clear). That got a lot of people talking about what happens behind the scenes in the WWE nowadays, when we, the audience, have very little to work with; even Meltzer and co are not exactly reliable on this kind of thing in the grand scheme of things.
WWE knows what that the IWC prides itself on the knowledge it can accumulate through the dirtsheets and interacting with one another online, and WWE have almost undoubtedly started using that pride for their own benefit. And Roman Reigns is WWE's avatar, their champion on this front, making the IWC buy into their perceived reality, when in actuality, they're being worked harder than the casual viewers. It's still early days, but I'm almost certain WWE is using Roman Reigns as essentially a means to re-create kayfabe in the eyes of the hardcore fan, a task once thought impossible.
And that is why Roman Reigns is an all-time great, and is only reaching new heights by the day. He's the right man in the right time, much like Hogan and Austin were, to signal a major change in wrestling's presentation. Hogan was the figure who made wrestling popular to a mainstream audience, Austin was the figure helped wrestling evolve into a must-watch television drama, and while it's still very much early days, Roman is the figure who is resurrecting the long-dead art of kayfabe.
But hey, that's just my opinion.
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Originally Posted by John
