WWE executive Bruce Prichard recently drew comparisons between the fan backlash John Cena faced in 2006 and the polarizing reaction to Roman Reigns during the early stages of his main-event push.
Speaking on the Something To Wrestle podcast, Prichard explained that Vince McMahon was never swayed by hostile crowd reactions when business indicators told a different story.
“You had to ignore it. Because that was not some place that Vince was willing to go and he saw John Cena. When you look at whether the loud male views and boos were drowning out everything else, the families in the merchandise sales and the kids and the money was saying otherwise. So that was not a really hard decision. It was one that people didn’t understand, for sure.”
According to Prichard, McMahon held the same unshakable belief in Reigns long before the emergence of the “Tribal Chief” persona.
“Those are the two examples I always use. Go back to when we first started doing this and we were looking at the product then, and I told you from day one, never wavered. Roman Reigns is the biggest star they have, and will be the biggest star. It was he had a look. He had a just a personality that he was made for this business. He’s a star. You look at him, you see a star. The same thing with Cena. He was a star. The audience felt one way, because they felt they were being shoved down their throat. As soon as we stopped shoving Cena down their throat. Then Oh, my God, y’all listening to the people.”
Prichard’s comments reinforce the long-held WWE philosophy that crowd reactions, while important, are ultimately secondary to long-term business metrics — a strategy that eventually paid off for both Cena and Reigns as franchise-defining stars.
