The booking of Roman Reigns throughout the entire Royal Rumble was shoddy, to say the least. He was booked strong, taken out in the classic sympathy-building way and made a triumphant return to the match only to be thwarted at the last by the dastardly authority figure. This is fairly tried and true pro wrestling, and has worked to garner sympathy for babyfaces for years now. But the forced nature of Reigns means that somehow, someway, a crowd was cheering Triple H over the man who is positioned as the number one babyface. This isn't just the result of a smarky crowd either, the reaction to Reigns has been growing more and more negative all the time. Reigns has put on a number of great performances over the last 12 months and certainly doesn't deserve the vitriol he receives now and then. But after doing a stretcher job to be taken out of the match, having him sprint down the aisle to Superman Punch his way back into the match before dishing out spears a plenty was a terrible idea. It didn't help him with regards to the crowd. It's a tried and tested trope, but the hero hobbling down the aisle, holding the midsection and in visible pain but willing to go through it because of his desire is always, always a winner. Any sympathy garnered from the stretcher job vanished at this point, and directly led to the crowd siding with the evil authority over him.
Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.
