10 Wrestlers Vince McMahon Couldn't Get Over

9. Roman Reigns

Vince McMahon slap
WWE

In which the last credible boss commits a cardinal sin that ruins his aura forever.

By late-2015, Roma Reigns was a long, long way from being a top babyface and even further from being where the company had had him pegged to be when they split The Shield in 2014. The sludge culminated in a Survivor Series 2015 title win that was immediately taken from him by Sheamus in a Money In The Bank cash-in designed to ape the devastation of what happened to Daniel Bryan at SummerSlam two years earlier. When that failed to resonate, in strutted Vince McMahon himself.

Only, why would he hate Roman Reigns so much? It was never really explored. It was one thing for countless spineless tossers pretending to start pointless wars with the babyfaces in the never-ending tribute to Austin Vs McMahon. It was quite another for The Chairman to do it himself.

The feud felt like an open acknowledgement of failure on the Roman Reigns front. Ratings briefly spiked for the pair's interactions, but Reigns' eventual victory over Sheamus took the company into Royal Rumble season with an objectively cold Champion and a list of potential challengers dwarfing his popularity.

The duo didn't even have particularly good on-screen chemistry. Here, or three years later...

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett