The Real Problem With Roman Reigns

We're six days away from Roman Reigns winning the Universal Championship. You know it. I know it. There are no amount of boos or cleverly worded signs that can keep it from happening. When this happens, it will induce boos and groans from the vocal majority of the crowd. Sure, some of the will be edited out by the following RAW, but the real problem with Roman Reigns is not Roman Reigns. The real problem is not even that they won't let him lean into the boos and become a full heel, although that would be completely refreshing.

The real problem with Roman Reigns is that the booking of RAW has become so repetitve and so lazy that Roman becomes the scapegoat. The sacrificial lamb for all their creative sins.

For the past two months, RAW has essentially been Roman Reigns' personal Groundhog's Day. Every week when we turn on RAW we know that during those three hours, Roman will either cut a promo on Kevin Owens or interrupt a promo from Kevin Owens. We also know that Roman will either be involved in a solo match against Kevin Owens or Chris Jericho or a tag team match against Kevin Owens or Chris Jericho.

Roman has literally faced those two men in one way or another on every single RAW and pay per view since he defeated Rusev for the United State championship at Clash of Champions. For those counting at home, that's 9 straight weeks of essentially the same thing. Survivor Series was the one exception, but Reigns was still involved in a tag match with JeriKO at the PPV, so it's only slightly an exception.

Reigns isn't the only one to suffer from the booking. Seth Rollins has been relegated to a sidekick role while he aimlessly waits for Triple H to return to television. Not only does it hurt Rollins' character to make him seem like he didn't care to lose three straight to Kevin Owens, but he looks ridiculous "searching" for Trips to show up when the entire WWE universe sees HHH weekly at various tournaments or WWE functions.

You can simply look to Smackdown to see what a difference variety in storylines can do for a superstar. Dean Ambrose was growing stale as the WWE champion. As his program with AJ Styles progressed, fans were siding more and more with Styles than the one dimensional lunatic. James Ellsworth, for whatever you think about him, added a spark to the feud and gave Ambrose more purpose. And since the feud ended, Ambrose has been paired in refreshing new matches with The Wyatts and The Miz.

To see just how much the repetitive booking is affecting Roman, look at the one week he shared a moment with Goldberg and Braun Strowman. Suddenly, Reigns looked like a star again. It wasn't that he did anything different, it was simply that the crowd was thrilled to see him interacting with someone other than Kevin Owens.

Since the WWE creative is so hellbent on turning Roman into Cena 2.0, they would have been smart to have Reigns bring the US Open back to RAW. Having Cena work with a different talent every week was such a brilliant move because it showcased his wrestling skills and gave young talent a much needed spotlight. Since winning the championship, Reigns only defended the title against Jericho and Owens.

So, yes, I know we are all "sick of Roman Reigns", but it's not really Roman we're sick of. We're sick of seeing the same thing over and over again, and we're going to take it out on The Guy who is at the center of it all when we should really be revolting over the string pullers behind the curtain.

Reigns has taken so much blame for things that are out of his control I feel like someone needs to pull him aside for a Good Will Hunting moment. It's not your fault, Roman.

It's not your fault.

Luckily, the Royal Rumble should finally put a dagger into the heart of the Reigns vs Owens feud. Hopefully RAW will do a better job of keeping Reigns fresh as the Universal Champion heading into Fastlane and Wrestlemania, but I have my doubts.

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