10 Wrestling Props You Totally Don't Remember
2. Roman Reigns' Protective Pad
For understandable reasons - chiefly, most people just want to forget six punishing years of screaming into a void, the only echo from which was "F*ck you, pal!" - many are content with just pretending that the Roman Reigns character has only existed from 2012-3 to 2020-2022. His "next John Cena" role was little more than a dare offered by Vince McMahon to stop watching the product if you hate it so much.
Many did, creating the conditions for AEW to form as WWE's first serious competitor this century.
Fewer remember the 2019 "version" of a character that never changed because no truly horrendously antagonistic moments, like the 2015 Royal Rumble win, stigmatised Roman as the enemy of the hardcore fandom. The programme with Baron Corbin was atrocious, as was the murderous doppelgänger saga with Daniel Bryan and Erick Rowan, but by that point, the real heroism displayed by Joseph Anoa'i diminished the desire to bury the character.
All of which might have made you forget that Reigns was "caught" using a prop - which doesn't necessarily have to be a weapon - that protected his fist upon making his entrance.
When asked to explain his actions to the WWE Universe, he simply buried Goldberg by saying he isn't stupid enough to injure himself getting hyped before a match.
Why did you all boo him again?