Why The WWE Universe Hates Roman Reigns

The huge push WWE has given Roman Reigns has been compounded by the large number of other wrestlers that fans consider more worthy of company support. Guys like Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, and Cesaro only serve to build more fan resentment towards Reigns when they outperform him only to see him rise higher and higher on the card. Fans love to rally behind an underdog, and WWE knows this, but for some insane reason they’ve chosen to book Reigns in a way that makes him come off as less of an underdog and more of a heavy favorite in every match. Then they book him to beat the guys that fans rally behind, as if their popularity will transfer to Reigns via pinfall. Dean Ambrose, Daniel Bryan, Bray Wyatt, and AJ Styles have all been served up to Reigns in hopes to get him over, but fans refuse to budge. Instead of admitting they made a mistake, and going back to the drawing board with Reigns, WWE has insisted on making him their top guy, and are using every resource available to them to aide their attempts. The Rock is one of the most popular stars to ever wrestle for Vince McMahon‘s promotion, and like Reigns, he has a rich Samoan heritage. The two share no actual blood relation, but WWE has never let a little thing like facts get in the way of a good story. They have advertised The Rock as Roman Reigns’ real life cousin on multiple occasions, most memorably during the build to his WrestleMania 31 match against Brock Lesnar. Reigns’ family tree is a who’s who of great Samoan wrestlers, but apparently WWE felt being the son of a Wild Samoan and the cousin of former WWE champion Yokozuna, isn’t as good as being related to “The Great One.” Reigns would eventually be crowned WWE Champion at the 2015 Survivor Series, and he would main event WrestleMania for the second straight year, this time against Triple H. His second WrestleMania main event would end with Reigns being crowned WWE Champion, and fans serenading him with boos. WWE would slightly acknowledge the fans’ dislike of Reigns when he began using the catch phrase “I’m not a good guy, I’m not a bad guy, I’m THE guy.” It was the first attempt at even slightly altering Reigns’ struggling character, but it didn’t do much. Fans were going to boo him no matter what type of “guy” he was.