Our man Merlin recently wrote a thing about Roman Reigns: about how, for a babyface, he's kinda being a heelish dick right now. He was mostly joking, as the tone of the article makes pretty clear... but still, when you look at it, Reigns' recent behaviour has been more heel than babyface. Let's not forget that his hissy fit at TLC didn't come after a screwjob. He lost because Sheamus Brogue Kicked him out of the ring, not because the League of Nations were sitting on him going why are you hitting yourself, Roman, why are you hitting yourself. The layout of the match had Reigns successfully fighting off the interfering Del Rio and Rusev on his own. He was back in the ring, all guns blazing when he lost to Sheamus' highly protected and established finishing move. In storyline terms, right now Reigns is the WWE World Heavyweight Champion that WWE management don't want; he's attacked senior executives, hospitalising one; he's wrecked security guards who came to enforce an order for him to leave the ring; he's mocked and reduced his boss to incoherent rage in public; yet he remains champion and contracted to wrestle for the company. Any of this sound familiar? It should, because it's 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin's storyline beats from 1998. Of course, Roman Reigns isn't 'Stone Cold'. His giggly, gurning work in the ring against Stephanie McMahon Helmsley on Monday night wasn't the work of a crotchety working class anti-hero with impulse control issues and a deep-seated need to rage against the machine. Austin didn't get over by being a good guy that flipped out and hit everyone with chairs when he lost a match: he got over by being the best character on the show for months on end and creating compulsive television... and he did all that as one of the most vicious, psychotic heels the company had ever seen. As a character, babyface Roman Reigns doesn't really exist. Aside from 'looks like he rides dragons', he has no appreciable personality. He's a cipher, an attempt to create a star in a laboratory. I like Joe Anoa'i as a wrestler a whole lot... what I want is a reason to like Roman Reigns, and his horrible, cringeworthy performance against Stephanie on last week's RAW had me muttering "fire him, Steph!" under my breath.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
