Scott,



I don’t know why I give a shit enough to email you about it, but here goes…

Have WWE ever been this stubborn with a push before? As time goes on I’m just absolutely baffled that they carry on with a guy that keeps getting booed.

Apathy… Sigh.

​We’re really getting into some unprecedented territory now. It’s like when Deadpool destroyed everything at the box office last week and sites like Box Office Mojo were totally a loss because there’s no other real point of comparison to figure out how it could happen or what the trend will be.

Closest examples would probably be 1995 Diesel and 1993 Lex Luger, but neither is perfect. Diesel is close, but 1994 Diesel was a raging money train waiting to happen and they pulled the trigger on him just as fans were realizing they wanted the trigger pulled. It was great, and then they fucked it up by wrecking the character completely until fans didn’t care. Reigns is not quite that, because no one wanted him as champion in the first place and it was only WWE telling us over and over and OVER that we want him as champion that people bought him as a legit championship contender for a bit. That and everyone else getting injured. And then you can’t say they wrecked his character like Diesel, because Reigns doesn’t HAVE a character! He’s a series of nicknames and Bugs Bunny references assembled in a factory in Connecticut without a single character attribute that fans can relate to as a babyface. Diesel was at least a big ass-kicking monster who got screwed over by his egomaniac best friend. What’s Roman’s beef? "Oh no, I lost my second World title in a month fair and square to the owner of the company in the Royal Rumble where I was napping for 30 minutes, boo hoo". Like, fuck you, buddy, must be nice to have THAT kind of problems. Do your diamond shoes give you callouses on your feet, too? No wonder people boo this jerk.

The other comparison, to Lex Luger, is also problematic. Much like Reigns, Luger was someone who they pushed Because We Say So, but then he choked and failed to win the big one and they just pulled the plug on him. Realistically the main brunt of his push was from July 93 until he "won" the Royal Rumble in January of 94. It’s not like you were forced to cheer for Luger during that time, either. You also had Undertaker or Bret Hart to choose from on top and all three guys were portrayed as pretty big stars. Not so here. They’ve spent the last year deliberately sabotaging Cena as the main guy and treating Seth Rollins like dirt, building up to Reigns squashing him at Survivor Series before that went out of the window. Ambrose gets over, they job him out. Wyatt gets over, they job him out. If you don’t like Reigns as your top guy, FUCK YOU, PAL. You have no other alternatives for top stars that you are even allowed to support without looking like a loser. You may cheer Reigns, or you may cheer Cena, but Cena ain’t getting the belt back again because that would threaten Reigns too much. And this has been going on now for TWO YEARS. They even had it figured out in December when he beat Sheamus and punched out senile Vince to win the title! He was over and if they would have left well enough alone and had him do shit like beat all four League of Nations jobbers at Royal Rumble and then retain at WM against HHH, it would be mostly OK. But not only has the story peaked already now, but they immediately fucked him at Royal Rumble and now he’s back to square one challenging for a title that he ALREADY WON. TWICE. We’ve literally seen the same story two times in the past three months. It’s done, tell another story with the guy already!

You could also say John Cena, but people would have rioted if he hadn’t won the World title in 2005. Given that he was still drawing money and selling merchandise 10 years later, I’d say they made the right call on that one. Reigns has shown none of the signs of being a top star that Cena did.

So overall, he’s a unique case, and no, there’s no real comparison for someone getting a push for this long and this hard with no payoff coming from it.