Just What Is WWE Actually Doing With Roman Reigns?

What's happening with Roman Reigns is a great shame. He's a flawed performer, but hysterically undervalued by his greatest detractors, and he's done nothing but show up to work and do exactly what his employers ask of him through all this. He doesn't deserve this plight. Nobody does.

If presented in a way that highlights his strengths and masks his weaknesses, Reigns has the potential to be a huge, money-making asset. WWE have taken the opposite route throughout both his Hogan/Cena-esque Superman run, and his current positioning as the ultimate main event goober.

On top of all this, Reigns' in-ring standards have dwindled greatly. The best one-on-one match he's had all year came on 1 January, when he and Samoa Joe stole the show on Raw. The company have since removed him from the singles Raw rotation, preventing him building his usual annual catalogue of good-to-great TV bouts, which was always a saving grace, no matter how obnoxious his character got.

As far as pay-per-views go, the Lesnar bouts didn't deliver, Roman made a mockery of Braun Strowman's Elimination Chamber dominance by putting him away in the final fall, and the Jinder Mahal clash and Joe rematch were among 2018's dullest. Granted, Roman must take his share of the blame for this, but there's only so much he can do with WWE's overbooked layouts.

Throw all these failings into a mix and you're left with a wrestler for whom the only recovery option may be a full-on character overhaul. A simple heel turn won't do - that ship sailed a long time ago. Instead, WWE must tear their 'Big Dog' down, recalibrate their approach, and rebuild him in a more fitting mould. At this stage, anything less will only compound the agony that has come to define his recent appearances.