WWE has been hellbent in recent months on getting fans to buy into Roman Reigns as a top-level guy. Sure, hes booked as such, but fans have been slow to rally around him. When he won the Royal Rumble last year, he was booed mercilessly. At WrestleMania XXXI, it was Brock Lesnar, not Roman, who was cheered. However, fans have been slowly and steadily coming around to Reigns, with the same Philadelphia crowd that booed him at the Rumble cheering him when he won the title from Sheamus last month. That kind of turnaround is notable, and it has to make WWE feel good about what theyre doing so far with Roman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_rmTyboBMU But how will the audience react on Sunday at the Rumble with Reigns being the #1 entrant? Hell clearly have to make it to the end, which means outlasting other fan favorites en route to either winning the Rumble, or being screwed out of the title at the end, setting up a WrestleMania main event. Will fans be OK with that, or will they clamor for someone else to take Romans place? This is a central question, as last years boo-fest nearly derailed Reigns and delayed his ascension.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
