It's Official: WWE STILL Can't Finish Roman Reigns' Story
It was a very good programme, one very ugly angle involving Jake Roberts aside, but Cody lost some credibility as a babyface because the struggle felt manufactured. His subsequent TNT title run further removed Cody from the hearts of fans. The difference is that Cody was intentionally experimenting with a fluid, puro-adjacent role, one that, ultimately, too many North American fans did not get. Still, there are parallels with a WWE run that might well be flatlining. Cody Vs. Brock feels like a struggle manufactured to get away with jobbing him out. And that's even if he wins. A money angle as a champion, without the belt, it's a diversion. But you see, Cody needs a diversion, another challenge, because there's nowhere for him to go after winning the big one!
The idea that a pro wrestling booker can't "go anywhere" after strapping up a babyface is complete, utter, demonstrable bullsh*t. Paul Heyman is the latest wrestling figure to have pushed this narrative, telling Ariel Helwani of BT Sport (h/t Fightful) "You want the challenger to come out a bigger star than he would have been if he won because then, where do you go from there?"
Heyman did make a salient point elsewhere in the interview, when putting over the legitimately impressive promotional feat of convincing the audience that Drew McIntyre, Sami Zayn, and Cody Rhodes were all thought to be the man that had to beat Roman.
"That's how you make a challenger. If the challenger is, 'I guess this is okay.' Nobody is going to buy that. 'It has to happen now!' That's the promotional business."
Still, this is spin. A carny justification of the wrong result and the carny motivation to book it. WWE can't finish the story because they won't. It is too lucrative. The parallels to WCW's nWo saga are becoming striking; this increasingly feels like WWE are too scared to go anywhere else.
So where does one go after strapping up the babyface?
They book a good babyface title reign. That's it. That's the story. Just because WWE haven't been able to do it for years and years, doesn't mean it cannot be done. This is the company Hulk Hogan built!
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