PWP Nation’s Zak Fellows explains and examines the slow build to an eventual Roman Reigns heel turn.
Even with the decries of poor direction and not meeting our unrealistic demands, we as wrestling fans do enjoy seeing the result of when a promotion cater to the majority of reaction. I don’t think I, along with so many others, would have become so invested in the New Day and their current personas if not for the negativity that arose from seeing them in their original incarnation. We have seen the positive effects that come from a promoter rearranging their protagonists and antagonists, to fit what the audience prefers, and through those come the creation of strong personalities.
I bring this up because, in the aftermath of Roman Reigns’ victory over Triple H at WrestleMania 32 to become the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, the calls for his heel turn to accommodate the majority of boos that he receives has become one of the major topics of discussion in WWE. Taking away that this could very well just be another incident where wrestling fans hates somebody so much they can’t stop talking about them, the talks of his heel turn intensified in the wake of the Raw after WrestleMania.
For the benefit of those who may not have seen, Reigns cut a promo, amidst a barrage of boos, that he wasn’t a bad guy, he wasn’t a good guy but rather he was THE guy as he was introduced to several title contenders that would culminate in AJ Styles picking up the victory in a match that will be taking place at Payback 2016.
The segment, in of itself, was not the most world shaking of events to transpire but rather it was Reigns approach that had people, including our own John Dimiceli and myself, reacting positively towards him. He spoke his lines with more apparent arrogance and smugness and his body language was displayed to the contrary of someone trying to receive cheers for example dismissing Sami Zayn. This got several fans invested in a potential slow burn towards a full blown heel turn for Reigns but unfortunately since than the idea has slowly fallen away.
Without wishing to appear as if I’m jumping to conclusions without really letting something play out, the smugness and encouragement of negative reactions has been largely absent (even non-existent) since the Raw after WrestleMania. So either Reigns is a lot more subtle than we give him credit for or that prevalent sense of self-awareness during his promo is now gone. Granted, Reigns is always going to be a hot topic for fans, love or hate, but that was a moment when people were paying attention to what he was doing as opposed to four other very over and very talented performers.
WWE has reached a point where ignoring the reactions of Reigns is near impossible just based on how overwhelming and guttural a lot of it is. With that said, capitalizing on it presents itself as a very simple effort which they managed to do through speech mannerisms, facial expressions and body language. While Reigns has never been, what I would consider, the apex of promo wordsmiths (nor did he even have to be I mean his template doesn’t really have mike skills as a dominant quality) he does pull off acting smug relatively well as seen in the aforementioned promo.
On the surface, this seems like a regular promo: The taking on all comers of a fighting champion. But through certain nuances it makes it appear as if Reigns is either a heel or on the brink of becoming one and to my disappointment, those nuances just haven’t been especially noticeable. Since the events of the Raw after WrestleMania, THE Guy, which has become Reigns new catchphrase more or less, doesn’t feel like an approach or encouragement towards negative reactions than it does dismissing the boos that you will no doubt be hearing from week to week and to a lesser extent the cheers.
I guess you could say this makes him, in the grand scheme of things, a tweener/neutral character but in reality that just means Reigns will be whatever a feud demands him to be, which in the case of this feud with AJ Styles makes him the heel by default.
You will forgive me for focusing too much on this promo because it does show elements of a potential character type in Reigns that has proven fruitful to WWE in delivering one of their most over acts today: The disingenuous hero. At its core, they serve as an antagonist that acts and believes that they are the hero by having positive characteristics played to be almost an annoyance. This ultimately served as the basis for Bo Dallas in his Bo-lieve shtick: Acting as a role model and inspiration but being more an irritation and that over act I was referring to? The New Day.
Yes, before the Booty-O’s and unicorns, the New Day got their heel turn and momentum going by acting as more obnoxious versions of what their original characters were turning their positivity up to eleven to make them overbearing and annoying which ultimately results in admiration because us wrestling fans are weird creatures.
In a way, that’s how Roman Reigns can have a seamless heel turn and turn what people hate about him, what they hate him for changes by the week mind, into something that encourages the best reaction. Again, I hate to jump to conclusions but the overall potential of a Roman Reigns turn entails more of a preemptive focus in my opinion. He has shown potential in being able to become a disingenuous and arrogant hero for people to really sink their teeth into and love to hate. But I suppose its win-win I mean people would rather focus on how much they hate Reigns as opposed to how much they love someone.
[Zak Fellows will let go when you let go.]
“If you hate something I don’t like, you must be a Roman Reigns fan”…typical YouTube fumb duck 2016.
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