Is Roman Reigns overhyped?
Real estate mogul turned podcast czar, Conrad Thompson was on the Ariel Helwani Show earlier this week and one of the main points of discussion was Conrad’s previous comment that one of WWE’s top current stars, Roman Reigns is the most overhyped superstar in wrestling history. Conrad, who is a slick businessman that parlayed his passion for professional wrestling into a profitable side gig, influencing much of the wrestling media landscape today, defended his opinion. Thompson pointed out that Roman was given all the bells and whistles, including the best talker in the business, Paul Heyman, to get over. Conrad went on to explain that Roman’s slow, dramatic entrance is rather stale by now and his limited schedule limits his impact on business.
While I think some of Conrad’s assessments were too general, I agree with some of his philosophy, even if I wouldn’t categorize it to the same degree. It should be noted that Thompson mentioned that he wanted to see the performers make as much money as possible, and it seemed like he genuinely wasn’t trying to tear down the success, but rather provide context to his prior statement. I’ve heard from those that have worked directly with him that Conrad is a nice guy that sincerely appreciates the business. Who knows how accurate that is or isn’t, but in fairness to the discussion, it should be noted that he didn’t come off as attempting to be controversial just for publicity.
The interview made me consider the question at the center of the conversation, is Roman Reigns overhyped?
Of course, pro wrestling is subjective. The green shirt guy that spends thousands of dollars on front row tickets to almost every pay-per-view is probably thrilled any time he gets to see Roman’s very well-done, albeit very repetitive extended routine in the ring. On the other end of the spectrum, you’ll have the die hard All Elite Wrestling fan base that will claim that Roman is a subpar performer because he doesn’t do flips and Meltzer doesn’t rave about all of his pay-per-view matches.
From a more objective point of view, I think the analysis of Roman Reigns’ run at the top reveals a mixed bag, often reflective of the status of the company itself since he was so closely tied to the representation of the brand in the modern era.
It would be too lengthy to detail the pitfalls of the failed baby face super push from over a decade ago, and I already wrote several articles at the time that parsed the particulars of that era. The bottom line is, for the vast majority of the first half of his career, the office put the real-life Joe Anoa’i in a no-win situation. By 2014, TNA got canceled by Spike TV after it was revealed that Vince Russo still secretly worked for the organization after network executives specifically told Dixie Carter that they didn’t want him involved. Russo’s errant e mail of notes that was sent to PWInsider’s Mike Johnson instead of TNA announcer, Mike Tenay revealed that Dixie lied to the network so Impact was canceled. This left WWE with an even more dominate position in the industry, and basically if fans want to watch pro wrestling in the United States, they were going to watch WWE. They were going to watch McMahon’s personal agenda play out on television if they wanted a mainstream sports entertainment option. Vince anointed Roman Reigns as the next John Cena, and fans were going to accept that or else. You know the fan reaction was bad when it become commonplace for Kevin Dunn to turn down the crowd audio to attempt to disguise the boos from the fans. Roman was going to hit the same basic move set, throwing a comical amount of superman punches, and the fans were supposed to buy it because, “he’s the big dog, pal!”
The cringe worthy promos made things even worse, as the guy that should’ve been the Samoan monster was booked into scenarios where he looked like he was desperately trying to be a carbon copy of the previously mentioned Cena. Other wrestlers that were more over with the audience were sacrificed at the expense of the Roman Reigns super push, only adding to the hostility from the fan base. More than anything, it was such a ham-handed attempt to project Roman as the next John Cena that even the most casual WWE fan could see how contrived the entire premise was. The Rock endorsed him when Reigns won the Rumble so he has to be a true main eventer, right? He beat The Undertaker at Wrestlemania, that has to be the passing of the torch, right? The reality is, the hostility toward the Roman Reigns baby face push was directed at management, not the real-life performer.
It’s no coincidence that when Roman finally got over as the biggest star in the company in the early-2020s that he was allowed to organically develop into the first truly main event version of Roman Reigns, not the next John Cena. He evolved as a heel and that cache was eventually used to give him a baby face run. He enhanced his in-ring work during that renewed run and find himself on the mic, which is why he can do solid promo work today. Pairing him with Heyman and eventually building the original Bloodline stable around him was less about propping him up and more about polishing the overall presentation of a dominate champion.
There’s no doubt that Roman Reigns became a legitimate money-drawing star for the WWE, and that isn’t possible if his status is overhyped.
However, and this is the biggest counterpoint to be made, the circumstances that got Roman Reigns over to that level, ran their course. The Bloodline concept has become a caricature of what made it successful so the office is trying to convince the audience that they are watching high-level drama rather than a retread of what they saw years ago. The audience doesn’t buy that they are seeing a epic saga play out because they aren’t, the fans are watching a replay of the same concepts from years earlier. It’s a forced narrative that missed the mark, with the slow and often boring Seth Rollins/Roman Reigns main event at Summer Slam as a prime example. We already saw The Shield narrative reruns before, there simply isn’t a demand for it now.
If I had to throw my two cents into the matter, it’s not so much that Roman Reigns is overhyped, but rather that the current Roman card is simply overplayed.
Reigns was the champion for four years in a row, something that was extremely difficult to get over in the modern era because of the countless hours of television on the WWE line-up. It was much easier to get more mileage out of a title run when there was only one or two hours of original programming each week. That being said, as much as it was an accomplishment to have a four-year run as the titleholder and as much as it was very well-done to be able to boost Cody Rhodes when the belt was finally switched, the reality is that Roman Reigns more or less had him time to shine as the focus of the company. Taking into account the several years that flopped and then stellar run as the dominate champion, there isn’t much more to do with Roman in the main event picture. So, to say that Roman was overhyped probably isn’t completely fair, but there’s undoubtedly a case to be made that he was overexposed, especially during the past two years.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
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