Out of bullheadedness and showing a complete disregard for logic, they chose to put Roman Reigns in the main event at WrestleMania. Reigns is a perfectly fine main event wrestler and there would be no problem putting him in the main event at any other ppv, but this is WrestleMania and it is against Brock Lesnar. He should not be there. They have not built him up enough yet. He will be fine as champion one day, but this really is not the time or place for it to happen.
Reigns spent a lot of time in The Shield. Though successful as a concept, the shortcoming of The Shield is that it was the quintessential faction. This meant that they always worked as a group, which didn't give the members a chance to really show any personality as individuals. It was only afterwards that Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose really developed into the characters they are today. Roman Reigns has started to develop, but not nearly enough, in my opinion, to justify the spot that he is in. Most people seem to feel the same way.
As a result, WWE has had to spend the last several weeks having its personalities desperately try to put Reigns over. They have enlisted Daniel Bryan, Paul Heyman and even Mark Henry to try to do this. The truth is, if this needs to be done to this degree so close to the event, it is a real issue. Someone should be in the main event who doesn't need this sort of hype. Having to try to convince and cajole your audience into believing someone deserves to be in the main event and may have a chance of winning is not a good sign. This is particularly true because the person in question is meant to be a face. If they wanted him in the main event at WrestleMania so badly, they should have done a much better job of building him up for it in the previous months. I know that his injury did not help things, but they should have a better plan in place then they seem to have had.
Instead, they had Daniel Bryan come out and, like the good soldier and kind person that he is, do and say everything he could to try to get his fans to support Reigns. It did not really work though, because everyone knew that this was something Bryan had to do as a part of his job. Everyone knows Bryan would do anything he could to help others out in the company. It came off as really distasteful to me because it seemed like Bryan was made to do this by the people in charge to try to build Reigns and to try to hurt his own credibility. I can't really remember too many times when they had one of the top wrestlers go out and hype up someone else like this. It just seems crazy that they would have many perfectly credible candidates for this match and they would choose someone who is clearly not that over instead. It would be different if there were no other options out there, but there are much better ones just sitting there.
Then, they had Paul Heyman come out. He is amazing, but even he could not sell what they were trying to have him shill. Some of what he said was flat out insane. He said that Roman Reigns was better than Bruno Sammartino, Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, The Rock, John Cena and so forth in their prime. This is insane. This is basically saying Reigns is one of the best of all time, right now. He is not even in the top five at the moment, to be honest. To put him in the category of the all-time greats is mindboggling. No one anywhere can actually believe that. Maybe someday he will be, but he is not close at the moment. It just seems as though they were going over the top in sheer desperation and in turn, went a little overboard. Even Heyman could not make this seem credible.
They also began bringing up stuff that was never mentioned before. Suddenly, they mentioned that he is Samoan. This was never really mentioned before. They started to talk about his lineage and bloodline, which they never really spoke about prior. The Rock even came out at the Royal Rumble to try to help him. Suddenly, they were mentioning that The Rock is his cousin. They seem to just be grasping at straws, trying to use anything they can to get Reigns over. My point, again, is they should not have to be doing this—not at this late stage.
Then, they had Mark Henry try to help him. Mark Henry? He has nothing to do with anything, but for some reason, they chose him to be the next one to come out and to try and put Reigns over. Henry has no connection whatsoever to Reigns or Lesnar. His involvement on a storyline level comes out of nowhere, but it was just another attempt to try and make Reigns look good. Mark Henry is not exactly a world beater. He hardly intimidates anyone any more. Beating Mark Henry is not what I would consider impressive. It just seems like another desperate attempt to try to get people to believe in Roman Reigns.
That WWE has had to resort to such tactics smacks of desperation. Brock Lesnar is possibly the toughest opponent imaginable. He beat The Undertaker, ending his streak, and has crushed everything in his path since. He is one of the most credible monster heel champions of all time. We all believe that it will take something really special to beat him. There is not a lot anyone can do to convince many of us that Roman Reigns is a credible threat to do that. He is not quite where he needs to be, or perhaps where WWE believe that he is. They are doing everything they can to change people's minds, but it is being done in a desperate rush. It takes months of hard work and effort to build someone for a title run in wrestling. They just have not put the effort in over the long hall with him yet.
The company just seems to be stubborn. They put their foot down and decided on what they were doing without properly thinking things through. They are not in a situation where they have to do anything they can to try to make people believe that the guy they have chosen has a chance of winning. They can not pretend that this is an ideal situation or one they are happy to be in, but it is one they are in by their own making.
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