WrestleMania 32: 12 Booking Steps For John Cena vs. Roman Reigns
If booked properly, this has the potential to be the biggest feud in recent WWE history.
John Cena is the face of WWE. Roman Reigns is a rising star with a lot of promise. If these two were to clash on the biggest stage of them all, it would lead to a huge payoff for WWE, and could even usher in a whole new era for WWE.
For this to work out well, WWE need to book this rivalry very carefully and with considerably more detail than anything else they’ve done recently. This feud needs very specific creative decisions, a long-term outlook and booking strategy, and most importantly, a lot of changes on how both John Cena and Roman Reigns are presented on WWE programming.
For this rivalry to be truly successful, it has to last longer than one year. Instead of starting this feud now and having it culminate at next year's WrestleMania, that PPV should be one of three major stops on a long, deep and complex rivalry that would span a very long time. Cena and Reigns have a lot to bring to the table, and considering their booking, they're just begging to be put together in a long-term program.
If done properly, this could become the most entertaining, deep, and emotionally-satisfying storyline WWE has done in a very long time. All they have to do is follow these twelve booking steps as closely as possible, and they’ll be able to rake in the money from increased fan interest from around the world.
12. Roman Reigns Spends The Rest Of 2015 In The Upper Mid-Card
Instead of having Reigns win the title somewhere else during this calendar year, Reigns should spend the rest of 2015 getting screwed by other wrestlers and never getting another title shot. This would create more sympathy for him and get more people behind him, which cannot be done now because his character is so stale and seems to win so often that any storylines and rivalries are bereft of drama.
Over the remainder of 2015, Reigns gets demolished by the Authority, Seth Rollins and their hired guns. This would amplify the heat towards the Authority, and more people would invest in Reigns. While Reigns is indeed growing as a star, the current direction they’re taking him in won’t yield positive results. Reigns should not try and become another Superman who always overcomes the odds in an ‘unnatural’ sort of way.
Instead, he should become more of a natural fighter, whose matches tell complex stories and his victories are earned through hard work, dramatic selling, and treating his opponents like an equal, instead of overcoming every single thing thrown at him.
If made into a less ‘Superhuman’ kind of character, more people would get behind him, and he would become a much bigger star that way. Fans want to cheer for him, but because he's simply too 'overpowered' and unstoppable, he's not an exciting babyface.
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