10 Wrestling Promo Lines That Were WAY Too Personal
3. Dean Ambrose Is Scripted To Say Something Horrific About Roman Reigns
...and it was nearly, somehow, even worse.
Roman Reigns announced in October 2018 that, after over a decade of being in remission, his leukaemia had returned. It was an awful situation, the single positive aspect of which is that fans ceased conflating Roman Reigns and Joseph Anoa'i, and, when the performer returned, those fans were significantly more appreciative of the act despite it not truly catching fire until the summer of 2018. Many were guilty of rejecting genuinely terrific individual performances as a result of the booking, and while it was somewhat fair enough, it always felt far too personal. At least with John Cena, fans were contrarian and got behind somebody in the ring to create drama. With Reigns, too often, his matches were flattened.
On the subject of things going too far, WWE of course scripted one of its performers to get "heel heat" by mocking the situation. Dean Ambrose said or more accurately was scripted to say that Roman "has to answer to the man upstairs" for what had become of the Shield.
Grotesque, and pointlessly so.
Nobody bought that Ambrose would believe that, and the opposite of the intended effect was achieved; people just felt very sorry that he had to say it.