Simon K

Thanks to @twist3dtinkerbell, @gaydragonlord21, and @cryptidwrestling for wanting this and full GIF credit to @mocooper98 ♥

Also to be clear, this is an opinion piece on my read of Roman Reigns as a character, not of Joe Anoa'i the human being. It's okay if you don't agree with me! This is just a deep dive I like to do with wrestling characters for fun and I hope you enjoy.

From the start of his career, Roman Reigns has had a mountain of pressure on him to be successful. A former football player in a legacy wrestling family with countless successes over failures - it seems that the more successful a family is in a particular line of business, the more pressure there is for their legacy to continue to flourish.

I don't know about you reading this, but in my town, we have a few family businesses that have been around for multiple generations. One in particular is a family of chocolatiers, and I remember hearing about one of the family members not wanting to continue the business and going into accounting instead. I can't tell you how many people saw this as "disgraceful" or "shameful" to the chocolatier family. To this day, there is still talk in this town about how that person is a failure because they chose a different career path, or how it's probably because he "wasn't good at the daily happenings of the business and couldn't make the recipes correctly". These things are not true, but as word spreads, sometimes this becomes the accepted truth, and the person affected is left to defend themselves and prove to strangers that they are much more than what they were assumed to be.

How does this relate to Roman Reigns? From the moment he stepped in OVW, it was almost like the pressure was on for him to catch on quick and get fan support sooner rather than later. He was put in the Shield to give him some solid indie talent to work alongside and build his stock. He was considered THE Vince guy of the 2010's. Despite how new he was and how rusty his skills were in the beginning, he had every single brick laid out for him to be the next successful member of the Anoa'i legacy, but many fans (and even casuals) could feel the artificiality of his Big Dog run seeping through every word he spoke and every move in the ring. And so, as wrestling fans do, they turned on him. But they turned on him in a way that was so disgustingly mean. Blaming him when their favorites weren't pushed instead, booing main events and hijacking shows with vitriolic chants. Everyone points out his 2016 Rumble win, where Rock came to the ring as a way to show the fans that "Hey, you CAN cheer for him! I endorse him, this is my GUY!" But even those most loyal to the Attitude era couldn't help but shower the both of them with a chorus of boo's.

For YEARS, Roman - the whitest meat babyface of the late 2010's, showed up to his job and was showered with heckling at best and violence at worst over steps and decisions that he wasn't even making.

And then he announced his cancer diagnosis. Coming out to that usual showering of hatred and it completely flipping to cheers and adoration within minutes was probably so jarring for him. For once, Roman got praised. He got cheered. He was thanked... and acknowledged.

When he came back in 2020, this became the cornerstone of his promo work: Acknowledge me. You people did not appreciate what I gave you before I left, but you're going to do it now. People don't beg for acknowledgement or praise when they're confident in themselves. You don't see someone vague posting on Instagram for compliments on their new lipstick, or posting a thirst trap from the gym right after a workout because it's fun. They are seeking external validation for a void that has been created inside of them. You can see it in certain matches (Mania 39 is a great example) where the fans boo Roman and he has this flabbergasted look on his face, almost looking like he was back at the 2016 Rumble all over again.

Roman is insecure of the person he is and begs for acknowledgement from a fleeting and fickle audience to try and fill a void that can never be filled.

Which leads to my other point: Roman gets very defensive with how much he's put towards the business, and his defensiveness varies depending on which two groups an opponent lands in.

The first group covers those who are obvious threats to the title who have no relation to him. These are your John Cenas, your Cody Rhodes, anyone who could be considered contenders for the top spot and top championship. Roman takes on this cocky, arrogant personality, justifying himself being at the top purely because he believes he's better than them and deserves the position he's in because of his lineage. He uses his family and connections to his advantage, buttering them up to a point of jaded commitment so they will do the hard work for him, all in the guise of "loyalty to your bloodline".

On the flipside, you have the juicier group: those in his family that challenge for his spot as champion and his spot at this proverbial "table" that he built and assigned himself the head of. You see this with his interactions with Jey in 2020 and even with Jacob recently, where Roman devalues their accomplishments and bolsters his in the process, where he pushes the value of one's children aside for the value of his own. He gives them these angered, glaring looks as fans cheer for their arrivals and chant their names, giving them the praise that he has never received organically. After all he's been through, after how hard he's worked, after the blood and sweat and tears and dog food and embarrassing angles he's been in, they still give this praise to people he sees as less than him. And the worst part is, he's done so much and has put himself so high up that he is unable to see why they are so organically loved.

Roman is envious of people he sees as direct competition because he sees the things that didn't work for him work incredibly for his competitors, and he's envious of the family he sees as beneath him because he can't comprehend what they have that he doesn't.

Roman can seem like a one-dimensional character with a stale motivation for success (since it's been the same song and dance for over five years now), but when you peel back the curtain and see where this could be coming from, it makes his motives much more complex than wanting the next title or being the greatest of all time.

All of that resentment boiled over during his break where he made a deal with the devil known as Paul Heyman, his Acknowledge Me mission statement feels both like a command and a threat, a last resort, selling out has worked for so many before him that he has nothing left to lose, if they won’t respect him, he’ll tear everything to pieces until they have no choice.

It also symbolises Roman’s utterly depleted confidence, as like you said, anyone who has to flaunt their superiority like this is in no way superior at all and that he’s trying to gain that respect from an audience that is very fickle, he’ll never be able to fill that hole where his soul once was, he won’t ever be happy again until he takes a good look at himself and learns to grow on his own, not with VKM or Heyman tending to his roots, but by caring for himself.

While neither want to admit it, Roman & Solo are actually cut from the same cloth, both forced into being the leader of their units because the bigger person/s moved onto other things (The Rock moving to Hollywood, Roman & The Usos stepping up in WWE, as did many others before them), this is probably why Roman selected Solo as his successor instead of Jimmy, because he knew what it was like to lead the outcasts of the family who fended elsewhere. However as it is with wrestling, power is addicting, a poison that enters the bloodstream and twists good intentions like being the one in charge of a family dynasty into something twisted.

Roman broke the twins to rebuild them as his lifelines to continue his tyrannical reign, and in my opinion, ever since his return only went along with Jey’s ultimatum because he needed help, as shown when he got into Jey’s ear after he lost the World Heavyweight Championship, leading him to eliminate Jimmy from the Battle Royale & confront Punk about him bringing up Roman’s father. Even now in this new story of needing to do things on his own & making Jey feel bad about it might I add, once he was able to prove himself, he took The Usos back as his possessions to prop himself up, they aren’t family to him that he wants to clear a legacy for but a means to an end.

Solo on the other hand broke apart what remained of The Bloodline once he got into power after WM40 because he had a chip on his shoulder from being cast to the side, brought in those like him because he knew what it was like to be left behind, but soon enough, power got to him and he had to be front and centre of their moments like costing Jacob the MITB qualifier for example and how his need to be in control is affecting his relationship with Tama Tonga after he forced him to give The Wyatt Sick’s lantern back.

Speaking of which, more of Roman’s toxic superiority qualities have been passed along the bloodline evidenced when Solo stole the lantern, a symbol of Bray’s legacy, it was an utter showing of disrespect sort of like Roman bringing up Dusty’s name in vein when cutting promos on Cody, cause he saw himself as above them.

At the end of the day, Roman has been entrusted with a massive responsibility and it’s clear this has cracked his very core to where he doesn’t know who he is but a pillar for his dynasty, all he knows is to win gold, to make his sacrifices worth it for the Anoa’i legacy by any means necessary. But is it worth all this, all the broken hearts, spirits and minds? Is it worth destroying the very thing he swore to love and care about in the beginning just to earn that thinly veiled love he’s been chasing?

I'm not a Roman person but I do know when a character has depth and substance, and even though I HATE the Bloodline 2.0 shit, this is a consistent thing in Roman's character that isnt talked about a lot.

You buggy whip arm, no brain hillbilly. You think you can come here to this business, my business of pro wrestling, and run your mouth? Well, you just wrote a check that your narrow ass can't cash.

ok sooo wrestlers do not control how they are booked ( if they win or loose a match etc)

some may have some creative control when it comes to promos (it is more of hey this is where we are going soo u get to pretty much say watever but u need to follow this direction)

but most of them (especially the wrestlers u see on tv every week u know who show up to work on a weekly) have zerooo control so u can hate a character (because he is a heel and going against your fave baby face)