In their own ways, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns are flourishing as two of the top heels in the WWE today.
The longtime babyfaces made drastic heel turns in a span of nine months. Rollins made the switch to bad guy after Survivor Series 2019, following a long-term run as the top babyface on Raw.
Reigns made his unexpected heel turn at the end of SummerSlam 2020, attacking Bray Wyatt and Braun Strowman following their Universal title match. Reigns cemented the change to bad guy by teaming up with legendary manager Paul Heyman on the ensuing episode of SmackDown.
While Rollins has alternated between good guy and bad guy runs as a singles superstar, this is Reigns' first time performing as a heel on his own.
So how does The Architect feel about Reigns' character change and run as a Universal Champion? He only had nice things to say during an interview on WWE's The Bump (h/t Brie Coder of WrestlingInc.com):
"He’s absolutely killing the game! He’s doing incredible things as the ‘Head of the Table’ and Universal Champion. It’s incredible to watch someone take hold of their own belief system and their own career. He’s a guy who, you know, followed the path before him for years and did the right thing every step of the way. Now, he’s marching to the beat of his own drum. He’s really doing his own thing, and it’s paying dividends.
Like I said, you can’t back down when people want to push against you. I think, you know, that’s something that’s big in our society today is people wanting to backtrack and not wanting to put their beliefs out there because they’re afraid they’re going to be judged with all this cancel culture going on out there. You can’t do that. You got to put your foot in the ground, and you got to move forward, or no progress will be made."
Prior to the heel turn at SummerSlam, Reigns hadn't portrayed a villainous character since 2014, when he was a member of The Shield with Rollins and Dean Ambrose. The trio became babyfaces on the March 17 episode of Raw, and the rest is history.
After Reigns won the 2015 Royal Rumble, Vince McMahon began to push him as the next major face of the company. But it didn't exactly go according to plan, as Reigns struggled to fully win over the WWE Universe.
Rather than continue the babyface push, WWE simply decided to move away from that and rebuild Reigns as their top villain. So far, so good.
This Is Reigns' Best Singles Run Yet
Reigns has received strong praise - and rightfully so - over his work as a top-notch heel. Many fans called for WWE to turn him heel, something they never did with John Cena, previously the top face of WWE. Sure enough, Reigns would embrace the challenge to go from good guy to bad guys. He is arguably the most entertaining and exciting superstar in WWE right now. You can argue that WWE should have made him a heel much earlier, but it's better late than never.