Roman Reigns will go down as one of the more polarizing WWE superstars of his era. He's had a journey to main event stardom like no other. WWE tried pushing Reigns as the top face back in 2015, but it did more harm than good.
Although Reigns is flourishing right now as the top heel on SmackDown, it's hard to forget about all of the opportunities missed. If it weren't for non-stop questionable booking on WWE's end, Reigns could have achieved much higher popularity and stardom by now. Here are 10 ways WWE failed Roman Reigns prior to his surprising yet highly successful heel turn.
10 Dragging On His Feud With King Corbin
Reigns embarked on a mid-card feud with King Corbin in Nov. 2019. And very little actually came out of it. It should have been a short and sweet program, but WWE kept dragging it on for no good reason. They squared off at TLC, at the Royal Rumble and at Super ShowDown. That's right, WWE decided to give this mid-card program three pay-per-view matches.
This would have been an opportune time to place Reigns in the Universal Championship scene with Bray Wyatt ahead of WrestleMania. But they forced him into a program with Corbin that did nothing to help his push.
9 Losing The Title To Sheamus At Survivor Series 2015
Reigns defeated former Shield ally Dean Ambrose at Survivor Series 2015 to become the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion. Reigns actually received a strong reaction from the crowd, but the party didn't last long.
Sheamus appeared unexpectedly and cashed in his Money in the Bank contract to become the new champion, thus spoiling Reigns' special night. WWE spent all this time to build up Reigns' big moment. And it just had to end like this.
8 The Feud With The Authority
The loss to Sheamus at Survivor Series led to the start of a feud with The Authority that seriously damaged Reigns' main event push. WWE tried to help Reigns by making us feel sympathetic towards him. So Vince McMahon and company did all they could to screw over Reigns, but he would continuously overcome all odds.
The whole storyline with The Authority lasted way too long, and it was simply filled with too many predictable victories for Reigns. It stopped being fun after a couple of weeks, but WWE found a way to drag it on for months.
7 Dragging On His Feud With Braun Strowman
Following his split from The Wyatt Family, Braun Strowman began to receive a giant singles push in the second half of 2016. He was built up as a virtually unstoppable monster who soundly defeated the majority of his opponents.
Once Strowman began to feud with Reigns, however, the fans started giving him the babyface treatment. This did no favors for Reigns, who was still being rejected by the WWE Universe.
Reigns handed Strowman his first clean singles loss at Fastlane 2017. Their feud would continue well past WrestleMania, which once again did next to nothing in helping Reigns' push. It was just too much of the same old, same old.
6 2016 Royal Rumble
Reigns had all of the momentum entering the 2016 Royal Rumble. But The Authority decided to screw him over by changing up the Royal Rumble. Instead of earning a title opportunity at WrestleMania 32, the winner would become the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
Triple H was a surprise entry at the Royal Rumble, and he outlasted the competition to become the new champion. This wasn't exactly the best way to derail Reigns' momentum, and we all knew it would set up an eventful match with Triple H at WrestleMania.
5 Having Seth Rollins Steel His Thunder At WrestleMania 31
Reigns was seemingly poised to enjoy his career-defining moment at WrestleMania 31, where he faced Brock Lesnar in the main event.
The two superstars put on a solid back-and-forth affair, but the match was interrupted by Seth Rollins' Money in the Bank cash-in. After Reigns delivered a Spear to Lesnar, Rollins hit the former with the Curb Stomp to become the new champion.
There's no changing the past, obviously. But if Reigns had defeated Lesnar cleanly that night, who knows? His singles push could have gone a whole lot better. But the loss to Rollins here set off the chain of events that led to the underwhelming main event run.
4 WrestleMania 32 Match With Triple H
The buildup for the main event of WrestleMania 32 was completely lackluster. We had already seen Reigns clash with The Authority. Everybody knew who was going to win this match. And quite frankly, the general WWE Universe didn't want Reigns to win. He was met with thunderous boos, and the crowd instead sided with Triple H.
This was nothing like the career-defining victory that Daniel Bryan got at WrestleMania XXX. That's what happens when you do a terrible job building up a main event match to the point where fans lose interest before it even starts.
3 WrestleMania 33 Match With The Undertaker
Rather than learn their lesson from WrestleMania 31, WWE decided to place Reigns in the main event for the third straight year. It was no different than 2016, with the fans consistently giving Reigns the bad guy treatment.
Reigns thoroughly dominated The Undertaker in a forgettable WrestleMania main event that lasted way too long at 23 minutes. The next night on Raw, Reigns cut the infamous "This is my yard now" promo. Spoiler alert: It did nothing to help him receive approval from the fans.
Credit The Undertaker for trying to put Reigns over while wrestling injured. But this was not the time to have Reigns defeat the Phenom. If anything else, Reigns should have ended his WrestleMania streak over Lesnar at WrestleMania XXX.
2 2015 Royal Rumble Winner
All of the entries on this list trace back to the 2015 Royal Rumble. This is where Reigns' giant main event push started, after all. As was the case with the 2014 Royal Rumble, the fans were fully invested in Daniel Bryan. They were furious when he was eliminated from the match, and the winner was likely to be booed no matter what.
So the damage was already done before Reigns won the match. His cousin, The Rock, endorsed him after the match (see photo above). It did nothing to win over the crowd that night. Bryan and Ambrose were far better candidates to win at the time. Reigns simply wasn't ready for the big push. His Royal Rumble victory was the start of "too much, too soon."
1 Not Turning Him Heel Sooner
The heel version of Roman Reigns has been well-received and applauded by the WWE Universe. The company is letting Reigns be himself, and it's doing wonders.
Reigns may be flourishing as a top-notch heel now. But you also can't help but ask yourself how much different things could have been if he turned bad guy some years earlier. Why didn't he turn heel after WrestleMania 32? Or after his victory against Triple H?
The fans were giving Reigns the nonstop boos and heel treatment. Why did they wait until the final quarter of 2020 to make him a heel? Maybe a lengthy run as a villain would have put him on the path to becoming the top face that Vince envisioned. But hey, better late than never.