Stone Cold didn't really make The Ringmaster work all that well. He only got to break out and be awesome once Ted DiBiase bolted for WCW.

I do think that Reigns is really badly booked. How good he could be with optimal booking I don't really know, but if they had simply allowed him to organically arrive at his best possible persona in the midcard before a moon push, he would certainly be better off. But Vince has decided that he already knows what the optimal persona is, and that it's John Cena/Hulk Hogan.

To be honest, Austin was doing nothing with The Ringmaster gimmick. It wasn't until he became Stone Cold and was able to talk that he started to draw money. New Day were also doing nothing in their original gimmick as faces. It wasn't until they became heels that they got over. And I think a lot of us agree that if Reigns was allow to turn heel he would be doing a lot better than he currently is.

I think he needs a few months as face champ before they turn him heel.

AJD, I think they just need to breakaway from the cookie cutter, smiling, doing make-a-wish, kissing babies, babyface. Of course they can do M-A-W, it just doesn't need to be on the show. Let them have personality and, in Roman's case, vulnerability.

One thing that I think Roman lacks after watching this past Monday's promo is intensity on the mic. He tried as hard as he could to be intense and you could tell, but he was **** at it. It's just the authority behind his voice or lack of. He needs to be smug because that doesn't take intensity. In order to be smug, you need to be a heel.

He lacks any kind of real human emotion on the mic, he is a cartoon/video game character. He has pre-determined lines, expressions and mannerisms and lacks the ability to come off as someone to care about or be relate-able. Giving him the Bryan role is ridiculous.

Reigns isn't going to be able to do well in the Cena role or the Rock role or the Bryan role. Because he isn't those people. And he isn't an actor.

The underlying issue I have is that they go out and find good looking people, give them acting classes and try and jam them into preconceived roles. But wrestling has always been best when the company finds characters (people who are just naturally entertaining as themselves) or lets the individual wrestlers develop a character they personally can relate to and pull off, and then the company books based on the characters available to them. This is Vince wanting WWE to not be wrestling, but instead be a movie or some other form of 'entertainment'.

That's why nothing comes off as organic. You would think Vince of all people would know that emotion is a major aspect of any form of entertainment. A major reason people got behind Bryan was because the struggle was real.

I suspect the problem is that Romans real life personality does not align with his look. If you've seen some of his minor less visible promos (backstage stuff, post rr comes to mind) you can tell he's sort of laid back and goofy. So when the writers try to make him a badass it comes off as fake and forced. Partially on him for not being able to fake the intensity but also on creative for trying to fit him into something he jsnt. Tater tot, magic bean stuff doesn't help either obv

The best gimmicks are exaggerations of a wrestler's real life personality

well there's nothing wrong with that, but they already have cena, which i assume is your point

Eva Marie seems like an obvious counter-example to this theory.

Strouman had wrestled 9 matches total in his life when he debuted on Raw.

I totally agree with your first paragraph. I don't need to see all of the great work they do for charity every time they do it. I do think it's great that they do, just stop throwing it in our faces every week. But I guess that is what you get when your Brand Manager sent a tweet out some time back stating that philanthropy is the next great marketing tool. Also, I really don't need to see heels doing charity work either. Again it's great but I don't want to be taken out of the moment like that.

As for your second paragraph, I'm not ready to make any judgement of Reigns' mic skills until he goes out there a couple times and does his own thing. Until then they only thing we really know is that he isn't good at being in a 12 minute promo where he does nothing but memorize and regurgitate lines that someone wrote for him.

I have noted before a couple times that those quick 90 sec.- 2 min backstage deals he does occasionally are his best work. He isn't the only one.Sheamus had one up on WWE.vom after he cashed in that was probably better than anything on RAW outside of Miz and Heyman

Philly is popping for Roman Reigns!

Seems like they accomplished something last night.

And heel Steph is the best.

Aaaaaaand they're letting him talk.

It seems like this is kind of working, but I can't get over that it's just combining Lesnar and Bryan (the only two things they've done well for like three years).

Oh we get Vince tonight.

i made it to when he came down all mean mugging then started smiling in the camera saying hi to his daughter

like thats john cena levels of just not taking anything serious
so they made is like 120 seconds for me

lemme know if it gets better

Vince!

That was some strong work by Steph.

It was working until Steph started acting like the bad ass and got the Vince pop. Bringing Vince in is a bad idea cause he's going to get the pop over Roman tonight.

The kept that segment short and sweet. Not bad at all imo

i actually liked that segment and am excited to see vince on TV. I bet Vince has it in him to take a spear.

I hope my hometown peeps don't pop huge for Vince. He is the one who was trying to shove Reigbs down their throats. But it won't shock me if they do.

Ok I admit it, Miz is fourth

There has never been a firmer lock. They will pop for him. The odds of Vince entering to a negative reaction is about on par with the odds of Fandango shipping the world title tonight.