The Problem With Roman Reigns That Nobody Wants To Talk About

In 2015, before Nick Jackson first pressed record on his iPhone and filmed the Vines that informed Being The Elite, before Kenny Omega changed the language and landscape of the industry on January 4, 2017, before AEW provided action, angle-heavy reprieve from WWE's 15 minute opening segment, the Tribal Chief might have made a difference.

WWE was unchallenged. The super-indies were making noise, but the echo was heard in Full Sail as virtually every name talent of renown - those WWE hadn't expressed interest in before they had to keep pace - was recruited to NXT.

Had Roman Reigns turned heel, and used his perception as on office favourite to inform a character like this, things might have unfolded differently. It was that bit easier for scorched WWE fans to embrace a new world when Vince McMahon had told them to f*ck off away from the old, familiar world in which they grew up with his shocking, rampantly antagonistic creative direction. He told them to f*ck off by not presenting this exact character. Now that he has, it doesn't seem to matter.

Roman Reigns is so great that he can jolt you from your seat on those rare occasions he loses his unflappable cool. He is a star. He is intimidating in his resting state. He isn't, in 2021, making the impact you thought this character might have six years prior.

There's an acute irony to this development - the justice of which is tempered by the fact that Roman's performance level deserves so much more - in that those fans have told Vince to f*ck off in kind.