We’ve cheered for Roman Reigns, as we’ve genuinely enjoyed many of his matches and even a few of his promos. We’ve rolled our eyes at and shrugged our acceptance of WWE’s blatant attempts to establish him as a traditional babyface - whether of the Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin or Daniel Bryan variety. Lately, when even the people writing the story can’t seem to make up their minds about what to do with his character, we’ve joined in with those who’ve been booing all along.
Now, when the main event of the May 6 Backlash pay-per-view (PPV) featured The Big Dog overcoming again and with WWE’s hype for tonight’s Raw teasing yet another Universal Title match between Reigns and Brock Lesnar... we frankly don’t know what to do.
So we keep watching clips of fans leaving during and immediately after Roman’s win over Samoa Joe in Newark last night...
TONS of people are just walking out #Backlash @bryanalvarez @FO_VVerhei @davemeltzerWON pic.twitter.com/sZUua59MPP
— Ryan Falcone (@RYANFALCONE) May 7, 2018
WWE should maybe rethink their crowd shots when @WWERomanReigns wins... pic.twitter.com/HDaSIcdLRx
— WrasslorMonkey (@WrasslorMonkey) May 7, 2018
Now, “TONS” is an overstatement from someone pushing an agenda, and Jerry Seinfeld was not there, but... this is madness, nonetheless.
How are we still talking about this? If WWE really doesn’t care what kind of response Reigns gets as long as he gets a response, if “polarizing” actually is an acceptable reaction to a top guy, why haven’t they just moved ahead with him as Universal Champ? If they’re done with the Roman push, why is he still being positioned in the main event?
We don’t have any answers. But we’ll probably have more walkout videos to watch if he’s in the main event in New York again tonight - or a clip of folks in Nassau Coliseum booing him if he’s in an earlier segment.
And the beat goes on, even if no one is sure why any more.