Roman Reigns is in much the same boat as Erick Rowan, being stuck with the leftover gimmicks of The Shield. However, there is one crucial difference... Rowan is not being asked to carry the main event at Wrestlemania 31, Reigns is. This is a problem that needs solving urgently. Roman thrived as part of The Shield. He was the silent one, letting the other two do the talking so that when he DID speak, everything he said had gravity and impact. Ditto the case with his in-ring work. He garnered some impressive performances, notably at the 2013 Survivor Series and the 2014 Royal Rumble. But that was in the past. The Shield is gone, Seth Rollins is a sneaky, devious Mr Money In The Bank with his own security detail, Dean Ambrose is a legitimate lunatic out for his own goals, and where's Reigns? Still with the same music, still coming through the crowd with the same uniform, still using a paraphrased version of the same catchphrase. You could say he's having trouble moving on. As well as this, his shortcomings are becoming more and more apparent as time goes by, particularly on the microphone. The second fans heard "sufferin' succotash", they panicked, and rightly so. Reigns is going to be in the main event at 'mania. That is a fact that cannot be changed, no one will be added to appease the fans like last year. WWE have less than two months to work on Reigns. Nothing drastic needs to be done in terms of his character (other than the terrible fairy tale promos that NEED TO STOP RIGHT NOW), he just needs to visibly come into his own. He should be allowed to let his admittedly impressive presence carry him through the bulk of the lead-up to his match and generally say as few words as possible, allowing Paul Heyman to do the majority of the talking. But his in-ring skills need serious work before people will get excited for this match. It's time for Roman and his cousin The Rock to rent a log cabin in the woods somewhere and go full on Rocky training montage, because they have a main event to save.
Stephen Maher has been a rock star, a bouncer, a banker and a busker on various streets in various countries. He's hung out with Robert Plant, he was at Nelson Mandela's birthday and he's swapped stories with prostitutes and crack addicts. He once performed at a Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras by accident. These days, he passes the time by writing about music, wrestling, games and other forms of nerdery. And he rarely drinks the blood of the innocent.
