6 Observations From Attending WWE Survivor Series Live

So this was my first time seeing Roman Reigns live since his Shield days. Much has been made over the past few years of the WWE drowning out boos, pushing Roman too hard and ignoring the fans' reactions. As discussed in the opening, Toronto is not a city where you can manipulate a crowd. Having lived here and been a wrestling fan here most of my life I can attest to the fact that the crowd will cheer for whom they choose not whom they're 'supposed to'. Whether it be a heel Bret Hart over Goldberg (Bret's only great WCW moment) or Hollywood Hogan over the Rock, Toronto does what Toronto does.

That being said Roman Reigns has put on some great matches since his initial push and much has been made about his 'live' fan reactions and how much better they are. Well, Roman got the biggest reaction of the night by a country mile and that reaction was extremely negative. When I say negative, I mean both from a kayfabe heat AND an 'x-pac, go away heat' perspective. When his music initially hit the crowd boo'ed louder and more passionately than any other moment in the night. While he was selling injuries near ringside the crowd chanted 'wake up Roman' and save for his Shield triple powerbomb and spear to Shane McMahon every offensive move was met with a chorus of boos. The crowd reacted with horror when the final participants were Roman, Seth and the Wyatts and fans hurled jeers Roman's way yelling things like 'Nobody wants you to win', finally cheering the Wyatt's victory.

While part of this can be attributed to an older, wrestling starved crowd in Toronto the Roman Reigns experiment still needs to significant tweaking being that he received a hugely negative reaction on an otherwise extremely positive night.