They literally need a Reigns heel turn to avoid being atrocious for the near future. Owens has been an incredible flop at the top of the card.

Owens is set up to fail when the only people he has to feud with are ultra lukewarm babyfaces like Reigns and Rollins.

As I ranted about in the PPV thread, I really think Reigns is a legit cancer who brings down the whole show. Heels have no chance to get over when the "top face" is a guy at least half the crowd hates who also acts like a dick.

Owens is not the problem. Put anyone else in his position and they'd be failing too.

The number 1 problem (by miles and miles) continues to be 3 hour Raws and too many PPVs.

I've come around on Reigns' abilities but agree that his character is irreparably damaged from years of bad booking and it drags down the entire roster.

Kevin Owens in June: I'm a BAMF who will do whatever I have to to support my family. I'm also a huge dick.

Kevin Owens in December: I hope Chris Jericho and HHH like me, I'm also the top champion on the top show.

Tell me how that's ever going to be compelling?

Yeah that is so true dar0 and should be totally ****ing obvious but somehow wwe cant see that

From his Nxt debut to beating while Nxt champ Cena, Owens was great feuding with multiple people and like you say was a huge dick and it was great to watch.

Thats the Owens people want to see as champ, not someone who's main story is about being Jericho's bff who can only win matches with help from him or HHH

As sad as it sounds the only guy that can be champion on Raw right now and not have the title be a laughing stock is Reigns, and that's why we need a return of "The Thoroughbred" in the worst way

It's not just WWE, the smarks don't really seem to get it either and blame Roman's lol character despite the fact that the Rollins and Styles feuds were pretty good.

hmmm idk what a good solution is, roman has had some very good matches but his character still is a problem if they decide to give him the title.

We just go back to everyone booing him but wwe still gonna but their fingers in their ears again and pretend he is a face rather than actually let fans boo and cheer who they want.

This is of course correct, but I got the impression that you thought Owens was the biggest (or even the only) problem on Raw.

My point is Reigns is the key. They're in a spot where he's incredibly op and their actual champ is sub midcard level of effective. Strapping Roman and turning him heel is how you save Raw because he's the only one who's been built up to an acceptable level. Until then it will be horrible no matter how much we love Owens, his look is going to keep him in the upper mid card because sniveling chicken**** heel is the only character that makes sense with the big boys because he's no AJ Styles in the ring.

Oh for sure a heel Roman with the belt would be great but he should have been turned a long time ago and at this point i just dont see it happening. I'd defo be way more interested in watching a heel Roman run than another face run but I just think if that was ever going to happen it would have been done by now.

Owens is no AJ but neither is anyone else, i still think he can work well as a dominant bully heel who will do whatever it takes to win and his Nxt work showed this imo. If anything id say with his look, having him as a cowardly heel makes him come off way worse as many people just gonna see him as a fat guy who shouldnt be anywhere near the top of the card.

Best solution imo would be to have Owens and Jericho break up then go back to how Owens was when he was Nxt champ and first got called up. Could have him feuding Jericho, Reigns, Rollins, maybe throw Sami in plus the odd random like how he feuded with Alex Riley in Nxt.

The bully works in NXT because the guys he was bullying were Zayn/ Neville and Borelor. All cruiserweights for all intensive purposes.. Now imagine him trying to pick on the giant ripped dude with model good looks and tell me if that's believeable.

Cena?

With decent booking am sure they could have kept his character the same on Raw as it was on Nxt. As OneOut points out it worked vs Cena when he was making his debut although its not so easy now to turn back the clock due to how he has been portrayed since then.

While i enjoyed how Owens won the title with HHHterference, mainly due to how much of a shock it was, its prob hurt him in the long run as he hasnt been shown to be capable of keeping hold of the belt on his own since then.

While big, Cena has a very different look

It's not the look of someone who can be particularly "bullied" unless by a ridiculous oversized monster though. The fact that Owens was great against Cena is a fair counterpoint that the character that got called up mostly just works against one type.

I haven't really been watching, so I'm not really able to defend KO too well (especially as he won the title and then I stopped watching within a month), but I guess it's also been my assumption that they're not putting him in a good position to succeed.

My point is this guy



Is a helluva lot less intimidating looking than this guy



A lot of this comes back to lol at Reigns being face but I digress

But "bullying" doesn't have to take the form of imposing legit physical dominance. Aggressive blindsiding, cheap shots, whatever. Certainly they don't have to book KO as a pussy. While it's not believable that he could just directly impose his physical will upon Reigns, it's perfectly believable that he could hold his own with him.

I'm actually a huge fan of the booking model of having a cowardly heel keep escaping over and over only to finally get put in a match where it's impossible for them to do so again.

The problem is I think in order for it to work, once they get put in that position they need to cleanly win it and they never ever do that. So rather than the result being a ton of heat from the larger casual base due to someone being clearly able to win on their own and choosing not to anyways (taking the easy way out, being a gutless coward, etc) we get someone that looks like total **** because they can't actually win any matches. And when your heels always look like total **** then its hard for the faces to get reactions.


I was hoping the Jericho/KO mini break up was going to result in it Sunday and now I'll hope it does at the Rumble. But I'm not optimistic.

Cowardly heel title reign is fine for a midcard belt, but personally I can't think of a world title reign where I like it. The current booking of AJ Styles is so much better. And while Owens can't perform at AJ's level since nobody can, I'd like to think that he could still thrive under that sort of booking.

Actually a better foil if you were going to go that route wold be the Miz, he basically always cheats when its an option but then the chips are down he's proven he can win clean vs top guys on his brand.

They're too far down ****s creek with Owens right now and he needs to drop that belt yesterday.

Miz is a great example. Cheated countless times vs Ziggler then beat him clean no questions asked in the ladder match.

Edge was the best cowardly heel ever, Rollins had a great cowardly heel world title reign also.

How is Smackdown so good when RAW is so terrible?