Roman Reigns and the search for an Identity
If I wrote a blog on wrestling this would be the topic right now. I admittedly didn't see his promo tonight but the feedback I've seen describes it as anywhere from awkward to cringe worthy to excruciatingly embarrassing. So, pretty much in line with his last 2 attempts.
When you look at WWE right now, Rollins has transitioned into being a singles star effortlessly, he was always great in the ring but now he has his heel persona down pat and his mic skills have vastly improved over the last year. Ambrose, well, they are just letting him do him, albeit toned down, and whether you like the rubber power ranger outfit and the ECW reject look, both have clearly separated themselves from their Shield incarnations.
Now look at Roman, he has the same look he had in The Shield and comes out to the same music, but these days he has no one to cover up for him on the mic and nobody to fill out the body of his matches. Essentially they took the engine and chassis out of the car and left the cool body shell.
Given that the other two have gone successfully into the singles phase of their careers with characters that work, did Roman simply not speak up as to how he wants to be portrayed, or is he too green and doesn't really know how to act or talk without his safety net?
Whichever it is the outcome has been Vince doing to him what he did to Cena. On SD when Cena won the WWE title he was really over and had his own style of promo. Then he moved to Raw and suddenly he's all goofy joke promos where he comes off like a lame Rock impersonator who at the same time is trying to be a badass like Austin.
Reigns is now in this slot, Vince eventually chose to just make Cena into Hogan 2.0 and we've had that for 8 years or so, and Cena's charisma and genuine ability on the mic allowed him to overcome the horrendous character interference to a large degree, I am not sure Roman has the natural showmanship or mic skills to do the same.
Logically he should be a man of few words, like early years Taker and Diesel, or even Goldberg as he's got presence and a cool voice for simple, short, no nonsense lines. However WWE is so promo driven they are trying to force him into their mold, but they are doing it by giving him a third hand set of scripts that Rock would have wiped his ass with 15 years ago, and Roman simply doesn't have the experience or natural mic ability to find a way to make these type of promos work.
So where does that leave him? If Vince thinks he can go for another ten years of a split audience top guy I think he's mistaken. Cena made that work with the way he actually played into it and utilized it, his whole colourful look and cheesy grin stuff and mic skills made it gel, Roman will end up closer to Batista unless they alter the course they are on.
It's a tired approach and I'm not wholly sure it would work, but I'd turn him heel, put him with Heyman, give him a suit and some fresh ring gear, and let him grow by cutting promos where he can play off Heyman and grow in confidence on the mic and find his own voice. These days you nearly always need to get over as a heel before you can get over as a face as the audience take convincing to cheer someone, you could argue The Shield was over as heels so he's done that already, I'd argue The Shield was greater than the sum of it's parts at the time and over as a unit, since the split all 3 have needed to get over again.
I'm gonna talk about this when I record my Raw review today.
