Fact Or Fiction: WWE Fans Won’t Accept Roman Reigns As The Next WWE Universal Champion

WWE Superstar Roman Reigns may be the most polarizing figure in WWE today and perhaps in the history of WWE. Clearly, Reigns is someone the fans either truly love or truly hate, there is no in-between with guys like him. It seems every week, in every place the WWE goes for WWE RAW, boos flood in. Obviously, you do hear some cheers from the women in the crowd, but they are always drowned out by the rest. Even kids seem to be against the guy as they would rather cheer for others.

Now, WWE is attempting to throw the hints out of a Shield reunion despite how impossible that would be with Dean Ambrose given that he’s currently on WWE SmackDown Live. The only way it would occur is if Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns did, in fact, become a team again to rival Chris Jericho and WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens. Even then, it is not a Shield reunion, because Ambrose isn’t there.

The question remains: Can Reigns actually work on his own? It seems that WWE knows he can’t do so. They have tried pushing him down our throats for years now, only for people to reject him like a kid and cough syrup. WWE is basically making us take our medicine with Reigns, and they are not giving us what we want with him. The women of the world will claim he’s the best thing that ever came to WWE, but they very rarely point to his amazing matches.

Most of the time, you hear Reigns’ fans talking about his look. Of course, he is a handsome man — anyone can see that. However, the WWE is not a fashion show. This is all about entertainment and who does it better than others. Looks are only 10 percent of what it takes to be a WWE Superstar. There have been plenty good-looking people who have tried their hand at wrestling and bombed. Almost everyone in the mid-2000s Diva era is a perfect example.

Looks are good, but with it being a small portion of what makes a WWE Superstar, people often gravitate toward people who do not have the perfect look. The perfect example of this is Kevin Owens, a guy who gets cheers every week despite being a bad guy and insulting fans on a regular basis. AJ Styles gets the same love despite not having a perfect look himself and being a bad guy. Fans don’t care if a person is bad or good as a character because they now gravitate to who best does the job of being a wrestler.

In the 1980s, 90s, early-2000s, the fans did not care as much about this sort of thing and settled for the great look and charisma of a guy. With all the great wrestling currently available across various forms of media, they see the people who are the best and most fun to watch. Roman Reigns would be perfect for the WWE 10 years ago, but, of course, it isn’t 10 years ago. That is why he fails to connect, and his highly scripted promos don’t help matters. Now it appears WWE wants to push Reigns to yet another World Title or Universal Title opportunity.

Rumor has it that Roman Reigns will get a shot at the red belt, which Owens currently holds. But here’s the question: Would WWE fans accept a Roman Reigns WWE Universal Championship run? At this point, no, they simply would not. First and foremost, he is the current WWE United States Champion, and that alone means he should not jump into another division. In fact, he just finished his first successful rivalry as champion at WWE Hell in a Cell a week ago. If anything, it would make sense to see someone go after his title rather than have him go after someone else’s. Reigns is not Conor McGregor, who does not defend titles.

If you recall, Seth Rollins lost the U.S. Title the month after winning it from John Cena at WWE SummerSlam last year in a title-versus-title match. He was a dual champion, but it did not work for long, which is why they killed it off immediately after due to tying up two divisions.

The thing with Reigns is that fans already dislike him now, it would be triple if he did the same as Rollins did in 2015. Yes, there are a lot of Reigns fans out there. However, unless they are Indian or female, you won’t see a lot of love online for his work, because he is by no means a great performer.

To be fair, he has improved but not nearly enough for fans to believe he is ready to go back to the main event. Fans feel he never really earned his way up, and some feel that he sucked along the way. True, he has improved. but his improvement is by no means putting him in the same league as Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins when it comes to great in-ring performers, which is who the fans want to see more of in this day and age.

WWE desperately wants Reigns to get over because he has a great look that they can market, but fans revolt to prove that THEY are the ones who will decide who they like, not a corporation.

That said, another main event run for Roman Reigns does not seem to be what fans want. WWE claims to listen to them, so they might as well do so when it comes to Reigns. Obviously, WWE has a lot invested in the man, and they want to use him well during WrestleMania. However, do not be surprised if he is simply defending his WWE U.S. Title at the event. Roman may be in that mid-card world for a while longer, at least until he can prove he’s worthy of the main event again.

[Featured Image by WWE]