10 Major Mistakes WWE Has Made In 2016 (So Far)
2. A Hard Reigns Gonna Fall
A vast amount of column inches have been devoted to the problem of Roman Reigns over the last couple of years, and you’ve all heard the bullet points of the argument before. Let's try not to go over too much of that old ground again here: I'm specifically writing about the main event of WrestleMania 32.
I’m of the view that - promos aside - Reigns has improved so much as a performer that it’s clear he can hang in the WWE main event… but even fans of the man tend to acknowledge that WWE has screwed the pooch in their efforts to get him as over as they need him to be.
Nowhere was that more evident that at WrestleMania this year, the moment of Reigns’ final, long-delayed coronation as The Man in WWE, where he’d take on Triple H for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in the main event.
They’d had cold feet before when trying to bring this moment about, but this was it: the company were sticking to their guns this time. No swerves, no last minute booking choices, no Money In The Bank winners to stick it to him again - Reigns pinned The Game clean after a 27 minute straight singles match to win the title he’d been chasing for fifteen months.
Of course, this was the headlining match on a five hour show (seven hours, for the poor b*stards in attendance). Judging by the booing he received upon his entrance, the majority of the people in the crowd weren’t looking forward to the title fight anyway, and after a long, long day like that, they were in no mood to be generous.
The match was oddly lifeless, too: there were no real attempts to spice up the match, no stipulations or gimmicks, and no pandering to the anti-Reigns faction of the fanbase. Where WrestleMania XXX and WrestleMania 31 had featured intensely crowd-pleasing main event finishes, this one was just workmanlike: grimly slogging its way to a foregone conclusion, in the latest in a long line of lacklustre Triple H WrestleMania main events.
Not the greatest way to present the world with the babyface champion you intend to build the company around in years to come. Not the greatest way to end the supposed biggest WrestleMania of all time, either.