10 WWE Stars Who Need To Turn In 2017
1. Roman Reigns
It's a pipe dream, admittedly - but the Roman Reigns experiment has been an utter failure, and absolutely everybody, with the exception of the mad scientist, can see it.
Even Vince must see it, really. This is a man who in 1999 knew Kurt Angle was not going to connect with the Attitude Era fans as a white meat babyface, so he booked him as an oblivious heel accordingly. He knows what he's doing - he just doesn't seem to care anymore. And why would he?
WWE is a publicly traded company constantly in thrall to shareholder expectations and demands. Roman Reigns gets booed out of buildings almost en masse, but so many of those drowned out kids buy his merchandise that it ultimately makes no difference. Conventional wisdom has it that a heel turn would provide Reigns with scope to flesh out a persona closer to his own, and there is so much unarguable precedent that one can't help but realise it probably isn't going to happen. There's no light bulb hovering above McMahon's head waiting to illuminate some embryonic thought.
The parallels between The Rock and Reigns are eerie. Much like his distant cousin, Reigns is almost an accidental heel. The insincerity of his act is the problem more so than the performer is - but few if any kids were buying Rocky Maivia t-shirts when the man was the victim of "Die Rocky die!" chants. It's a new world, one populated by a fragmented audience.
The smug and entitled Reigns oozes potential as a heel - but so many calculably buy him as a babyface that it hardly matters. He's a different kind of draw in a different era.