7 Times WWE Could Have Turned Roman Reigns Heel
3. Post-Royal Rumble 2015
As previously noted, Daniel Bryan was the odds-on favorite to win the 2015 Royal Rumble match coming off his long layoff due to neck surgery. Having him return, emerge victorious in the Rumble match that he wasn't even involved in the year prior, and go on to WrestleMania 31 to reclaim the WWE World Heavyweight Championship he technically never lost was a story that virtually wrote itself.
Sure, Roman Reigns was originally penciled in to win the thing, but a better opportunity presented itself, so it was logical for WWE to adjust their WrestleMania card accordingly. But as we are all aware, WWE is anything but logical. That and Vince McMahon is known to be stubborn, and he was going to stick with Reigns as their WrestleMania headliner versus Brock Lesnar no matter what.
They likely had a feeling the Philadelphia faithful would reject Reigns, but not quite to the extent they did. Big Show and Kane were booked to survive until the end just so fans could rally behind Reigns, but that was far from the case. It was an embarrassing scene as The Rock endorsed his cousin and the crowd continued to boo him out of the building.
Perhaps WWE thought if they kept him face, fans would learn to accept it, but that was the wrong line of thinking. Doing a double turn with Reigns and Lesnar would have been the quick fix, but WWE just had to portray Reigns as the conquering hero heading into The Show of Shows.