The WWE wanted Roman Reigns to be their biggest babyface, but their strongarm pushing of him straight to the top made many fans rebel against Reigns and the backlash was severe when it came to fans rejecting anything Roman did as a face. When asked about Roman Reigns status in the WWE, former WCW head honcho Eric Bischoff has strong opinions on the booking.
Roman Reigns Push Is A Cop-Out
Eric Bischoff was talking to All Things Wrestling Radio and they asked him about the fact that the WWE was pushing Roman Reigns as a heel/face hybrid. According to Eric, that is a “cop-out” by the WWE creative team, who he thinks should be booking Reigns as a heel or face.
When it comes to a WWE superstar succeeding, Bischoff said that they need to be a face that the fans can relate to and support and get fully behind or they need to be a heel that the fans will soon love to hate. Roman Reigns is trying to be all things to all people.
When Roman Reigns makes arrogant comments about retiring the beloved Undertaker at WrestleMania 33 this year and calling it his yard, it makes it hard for fans to feel bad when he is hospitalized by a monster like Braun Strowman.
Eric Bischoff said that you can’t take the safe road and keep someone neither a face nor a heel because that is, in his words, a “cop-out.” According to Bischoff, they are just sending Roman Reigns out and not giving him a creative direction and seem to think the fans will just choose.
Eric Bischoff’s experience
When Eric Bischoff ran WCW, he had some of the most popular heels of all-time on his roster in the nWo. However, while fans loved to cheer for Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, they did it because they were the “cool heels.” However, there was no time that these heels acted like faces or tweeners.
“You have to make a choice and you have to commit to a character. You’re either a babyface or a character that the fans relate to, support, love and aspire to be, or you’re not. And if you’re not, you’re heel, you’re despicable and they need to learn to love to hate you.”
Fans loved to wear nWo shirts and cheer for the bad guys and even more, fans loved to boo the heels and cheer for Sting, Lex Luger and Diamond Dallas Page to get the upper hand. The split in cheers and boos is similar to what Roman Reigns hears, but WCW made the creative decision to make the nWo heels and still made huge money on the talent.
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