How Adam Would Book... Roman Reigns
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It's the Big Dog. After 5 long years of hurt, Adam tackles Roman Reigns' rise to the Main Event. Is heel Reigns the answers? Or is there... another way...
#partsfunknown #wrestling #fantasybooking
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/
It's the Big Dog. After 5 long years of hurt, Adam tackles Roman Reigns' rise to the Main Event. Is heel Reigns the answers? Or is there... another way...
#partsfunknown #wrestling #fantasybooking
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SportsTranscript
00:00 What's he doing when he does this?
00:06 Righto so in booking terms and also I guess in kayfabe he is the big dog.
00:12 I'm Adam Hailing from PartsFunknown and let's talk about Roman Reigns.
00:17 How long have you got?
00:18 Let's start by saying that right now as of recording this Roman Reigns is off WWE TV
00:22 and probably will be for quite some time because owing to his leukemia he's immunocompromised,
00:28 he's more at risk in this time than most other people.
00:31 So I think it's great that he's prioritising himself over WWE's Stay Safe Roman.
00:35 That well wishing to the person being put to one side, I think it's safe to say that
00:39 most people have a relationship with Roman Reigns, the character that can be summarised,
00:43 well let's just say they'd rather shove a boiling teapot up their cock than see him
00:46 win a world championship.
00:48 Get out of here you bog dog.
00:50 Oh I like him.
00:53 Now for me the tea is that actually I'm not one of those people.
00:56 I think Roman Reigns is really great.
00:58 He carries himself like a superstar, he cuts a decent promo these days.
01:04 He's a good boy.
01:05 Who's a good boy?
01:06 You're a good boy.
01:08 You're a good boy.
01:09 See like my father who hasn't changed his suitcase in 25 years, Roman Reigns carries
01:12 with him a lot of toxic baggage.
01:14 Which is a shame because there's someone very human buried deep inside the trademark of
01:19 Roman Reigns and his name is Joe.
01:22 Joe, the brief time that we saw him, was an unironic superhero.
01:27 He punked out cancer, he spoke eloquently and humbly, and also he didn't dress like
01:32 Action Man's Myspace face.
01:35 The shock of Joe revealing that he was suffering from leukaemia was the cold splash of water
01:40 across all of our faces that we so desperately needed to make that red mist clear and see
01:45 a human being standing in front of us.
01:47 Now we haven't seen Joe for quite a while and once again a vocal part of the fanbase,
01:51 it's not as big as it used to be, Roman's generally getting better reactions than he
01:55 used to, but a vocal part of the fanbase still has that anyone but you attitude to Roman
01:58 Reigns in the main event despite the fact that the Bogdog hasn't won a world championship
02:02 in a year and a half.
02:04 And the thing is really at the heart of it, people don't hate Roman Reigns.
02:09 If anything they hate John Cena.
02:11 And they don't really hate John Cena, if anything they hate Hulk Hogan.
02:14 And if anything they actually hate this idea that WWE has to be built around one guy.
02:19 The idea that there has to be a chosen one, someone who is put in the main event because
02:24 of design rather than because of circumstances.
02:28 Because this way the audience doesn't get a chance to participate in the conversation.
02:32 Someone catches fire and that could all be for nothing because the WrestleMania main
02:36 event has been set in concrete with Roman Reigns being a part of it for the fifth or
02:40 sixth year in a row.
02:42 And that feels unnatural and like why would we invest our time in this?
02:46 That one guy tentpole system is a system that Roman's been wrapped up in since June 2nd
02:52 2014 when the shield imploded thanks to the sudden and nasal betrayal of someone who fell
02:56 asleep on a yellow park bench before the painter dried.
02:59 And something that I think a lot of people constantly forget is in June 2014 Roman Reigns
03:04 was cool.
03:06 I'm not.
03:07 He was popular, he dominated to a great reaction at Survivor Series 2013.
03:11 At the Royal Rumble he was one of the final two and he got a gigantic babyface reaction
03:16 when compared to Batista.
03:17 Yet one year later at Royal Rumble 2015 he was being booed like he'd shat on a flag.
03:23 What happened?
03:24 Well straight off the bat they made a couple of really weird decisions that didn't make
03:28 Roman Reigns seem like a human and more like a corporate project.
03:32 First of all, with no explanation, he was the one who got to keep all the shield stuff.
03:36 He got to keep the music, he got to keep his stupid vest, why does it have a spider man
03:41 on the front?
03:42 And so despite him winning the breakup, he was the only one that didn't also then get
03:47 into a really heated feud with another shield mate about it.
03:52 WWE distanced Roman from the shield breakup narrative whilst also giving him all of the
03:58 brand stuff that they as a group had made popular.
04:02 And fans noticed.
04:03 It's like if One Direction broke up because Niall killed Louis and then Niall and Liam
04:09 have this bitter feud.
04:10 But Harry Styles doesn't get involved in that, instead he just keeps producing music
04:14 as if nothing's happened and also he keeps calling himself One Direction.
04:18 It's really weird and the fans noticed.
04:22 Because WWE fans may be many things, they may be impatient, resentful, overdramatic,
04:28 but they're not f***ing blind.
04:30 The next PPV after the shield broke up, Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, they fought in the
04:34 ladder match for the Money in the Bank briefcase, whereas Roman Reigns was shunted up the card
04:38 into the ladder match for the vacant WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
04:42 And there's the writing on the wall right there.
04:45 While Ambrose and Rollins were battering each other in an emotional feud that ran from Money
04:48 in the Bank all the way down to Hell in a Cell, Roman Reigns fought for the top championship
04:51 again at Battleground, then he had an underwhelming match with Randy Orton at SummerSlam, and
04:56 then to WWE's credit he was supposed to fight Seth one on one at Night of Champions
05:00 before he went out with a herniated rib and he was out for most of the year.
05:03 He did come back in time to collect his Superstar of the Year slammy though, in 2014.
05:08 WrestleMania 30 had happened that year, and Roman Reigns was Superstar of the Year.
05:14 Not this guy.
05:15 Not him.
05:16 Roman Reigns.
05:17 It just felt off.
05:19 And not just that, WWE started to change the way Roman Reigns cut promos.
05:23 Now a lot of people have it in their head that Roman Reigns was a really bad promo in
05:27 2014, and he's not.
05:28 He's decent at being himself.
05:31 Go back and watch some old Shield promos at the time.
05:33 Granted, Dean Ambrose is the man on the stick, but Roman Reigns was really good at being
05:37 a quiet, simmering badass.
05:40 That time he told Roddy Piper, "If you ever touch me again, I'm going to break your
05:44 old ass in half."
05:45 I believe you, Roman.
05:47 I believe you will tear my bottom in twain.
05:49 It's a persona that Roman Reigns was really good at because he'd spent the last two
05:53 years cultivating it.
05:55 But then, once the WWE separated him from Dean and Seth, they made the baffling decision
05:59 to change his attitude to being that of f***ing Bugs Bunny.
06:03 He started cutting promos, calling his opponents "sniveling little suck-up sellouts full
06:07 of suffering suckatash son" and also referring to people's junk as "tater toss".
06:12 What the f*** is that?
06:13 For Roman Reigns to go from an actually charismatic, actually cool thug badass like me to a cloying
06:19 stand-up comedian who practices his type 5 on his opponent's f***ing dick, that is
06:23 a jarring betrayal of everything Roman Reigns was, and the fans noticed this stuff.
06:29 And WWE fans may be many things, they may be reactionary, cruel, smelly, but they're
06:33 not f***ing death.
06:35 And then WWE made the fatal error in the push of Roman Reigns to a main event talent.
06:42 They brought Daniel Bryan back before the Royal Rumble 2015.
06:47 See at its absolute simplest, what happened to Roman is that at a very specific point
06:52 in time, he wasn't Daniel Bryan and WWE fans have never forgiven him for it.
06:58 On June 9th, just a week after the shield imploded, Daniel Bryan vacated the WWE World
07:05 Heavyweight Championship and went to have neck surgery.
07:07 For anyone who had followed his long, long journey to WrestleMania 30, this was a heartbreaking
07:14 development.
07:15 When it became obvious that Daniel Bryan would be out for the rest of the year, WWE very
07:18 smartly decided to put their belt on Brock Lesnar, who in 2014, let's not forget, was
07:23 not the cynical Finnish spammer that he is today, but rather a proper marquee main event
07:27 talent.
07:28 And not only that, he got the belt by squashing John Cena.
07:32 That was interesting.
07:33 It was different.
07:34 So fans were like, OK, WWE, let's see what you got.
07:37 Then the rumors came out that Brock Lesnar's contract would be running out at WrestleMania
07:41 31.
07:42 So obviously a new champion would be crowned in January 2015 before the Royal Rumble, Daniel
07:49 Bryan returned and suddenly you've got your story.
07:53 Fans had their superhero back and a perfect underdog comeback narrative to slot him right
07:59 into.
08:00 Daniel Bryan was snubbed from the 2014 Royal Rumble.
08:03 He tore his way into the main event and then lost the championship without even losing
08:09 it.
08:10 A year later, he returns before the Royal Rumble.
08:12 He is announced for that match.
08:14 All he has to do is win it.
08:16 Go on to WrestleMania, have the purest example of a David versus Goliath story that WWE had
08:22 on their plate at that time and an outwrestled Brock at Mania win the championship.
08:27 Once again, the championship that he never lost.
08:30 It's too like how it's perfect.
08:35 It's perfect.
08:36 Were it not for the fact that WWE have this system of one guy, one dependable guy that
08:41 they can put on the poster every single year.
08:44 And Daniel Bryan had got hurt.
08:46 He had had to give up the belt.
08:48 He was no longer dependable.
08:50 He'd had his moment.
08:51 It was time for someone else.
08:52 No matter that the story was perfect for Daniel Bryan, Roman Reigns was now the chosen one.
08:58 He was John Cena.
09:00 He was Hulk Hogan.
09:01 And therefore, boo.
09:04 During the 2015 Rumble, Daniel Bryan was eliminated really early on with the hopes that the fans
09:08 would grieve, get over it and then be like, right now I'm all in on Roman Reigns.
09:14 That did not happen, though.
09:17 What actually happened was fans felt like they'd seen something they really cared about
09:20 being lowered slowly into a thresher and then ruined the rest of the Royal Rumble with boos,
09:25 treating Roman Reigns especially like he'd personally and slowly run over their favourite
09:30 pet with his golf cart.
09:31 The fans even booed the celebrity movie man with the big arms and the nice smile.
09:36 That picture of The Rock, this picture of The Rock holding Roman Reigns' hand in the
09:42 air while so angry and confused as to why they hate his dog cousin.
09:49 It's baffling.
09:50 I love this picture.
09:52 Look how cross the movie man is.
09:54 It is the perfect encapsulation of WWE's willful ignorance to the Daniel Bryan storyline.
09:59 It's The Rock!
10:00 Why are you booing?
10:02 Should we have eliminated Daniel Bryan even earlier?
10:04 What do you want?
10:05 Stop chanting Daniel Bryan and tell us what you want.
10:09 This is a toxic baggage that Roman has never recovered from, and it's not his fault.
10:14 There just comes a point when if you dismiss all of the reactions you're getting from
10:18 the crowd, that renders all storytelling inert.
10:21 And once a storyline is dead, even if you do everything right, even if the performers
10:25 do everything right, you just don't care about it.
10:28 So yeah, Roman Reigns was pushed very heavily.
10:32 He got big reactions because reactions are all that WWE cares about, despite the fact
10:37 that the reactions never actually served the story they were trying to tell in the first
10:41 place and we had to watch our screens again after CM Punk and Daniel Bryan made us think
10:46 we were out of the scene of years.
10:48 Once again, we were watching someone being pushed that we didn't want at that time and
10:52 everyone was booing and the commentators all had selective hearing loss to the chant.
10:56 And we're like, it's the Twilight Zone.
10:59 We've gone mad again.
11:01 WWE tried to put the fire out at Fastlane a month later by having Roman Reigns put his
11:05 mania shot on the line versus Daniel Bryan, which made Daniel Bryan seem like an entitled
11:09 dick and made a sham of the Royal Rumble.
11:11 But everything's on fire at this point, so who the f*** cares?
11:15 That match was great.
11:16 Roman Reigns is a really good wrestler.
11:17 Roman won clean.
11:18 Daniel Bryan then explicitly handed in the torch.
11:21 He did everything short of turning to the camera and saying, please, Vince McMahon is
11:25 so angry.
11:28 Stop booing the dog.
11:29 But the fans were galvanized.
11:31 They were not going to back down from this particular fight because they'd been hurt
11:33 before.
11:34 And then at WrestleMania 31, WWE faced an impossible choice.
11:37 Do we have Brock Lesnar, who just re-signed, retain and therefore the heel wins at WrestleMania?
11:44 Or do we have someone that the fans actually hate win at WrestleMania?
11:47 And God help them, like they always do, WWE booked themselves into a corner and then booked
11:52 their way out perfectly.
11:53 Seth Rollins ran in, cashed in money in the bank, turned the match into a triple threat
11:56 and then ran away as fast as little yellow tinged legs could carry him.
12:00 Apparently, the decision to have Seth win it was a very last minute decision and Roman
12:03 Reigns' family got really angry and almost kicked off backstage.
12:07 That's not funny.
12:08 You shouldn't laugh at that.
12:09 With their fingers severely burned from this whole thing, WWE slid Roman Reigns back down
12:13 the card.
12:14 They gave Seth the spotlight.
12:15 They awarded Roman Reigns a few losses here or there, the occasional victory.
12:19 He had a really good last man standing match with The Big Show at Extreme Rules.
12:23 Then he lost a fatal four way at Payback.
12:25 He lost the Money in the Bank match at Money in the Bank.
12:28 He lost to Bray Wyatt at Battleground.
12:29 I mean, say what you want, but WWE really called their shit on the whole Reigns wins
12:33 lol thing.
12:34 Roman and Ambrose finally tagged together on pay-per-view at SummerSlam, beating the Wyatt
12:39 family and then again at Night of Champions when they lost to the Wyatt family.
12:43 After finally blowing off his feud with Bray Wyatt at Hell in a Cell, WWE thought, right,
12:47 that's enough of a cooling off period.
12:48 Daniel Bryan's nowhere in sight.
12:49 Let's push the dog again.
12:51 Seth went out sick, so they had a championship tournament.
12:54 Problem was, during that championship tournament, Ambrose got more over than Reigns.
12:57 Reigns won that and then they teased Ambrose for some reason, again winning the championship
13:03 all the way through Road to WrestleMania, but he didn't make it to WrestleMania.
13:07 Reigns did and then he won versus Triple H. He finally was coronated and the fans replied,
13:12 "F***ing Boo forever."
13:13 "Cool," said WWE.
13:15 Sounds about right.
13:16 Some people have justified the hate by saying that Roman Reigns was pushed too soon and
13:21 that his capabilities didn't justify his presentation.
13:23 And certainly his capabilities to be what WWE wanted him to be weren't there.
13:29 He wasn't John Cena.
13:30 He was something cooler than that.
13:32 But in reality, he became world champion two and a half years after his main roster debut.
13:38 That is later than Kurt Angle?
13:40 The Rock?
13:41 Brock Lesnar?
13:42 Even Randy Orton?
13:43 None of them received the wholesale rejection that Reigns received because none of those
13:49 guys were made "The Guy" in such illogical, confusing and anger-inducing circumstances.
13:57 And give me a go.
14:06 Right off the bat, let's clear one thing up right away.
14:08 The solution to all of this is not a Roman Reigns heel turn.
14:13 Don't get me wrong, once it became obvious that the push had failed, that he wasn't
14:18 what WWE wanted him to be, then absolutely they should have listened to the fans and
14:22 turned him heel.
14:23 If they had done that in 2015, Roman Reigns would have gone through the heel process and
14:27 actually probably emerged as a legitimate and cool babyface once again by now.
14:32 And fans really did latch onto it because after all, a heel turn or a face turn is a
14:36 chance to re-brand a character.
14:39 And that was the only thing Roman Reigns ever really needed after the Shield broke up.
14:44 He needed a re-brand.
14:46 And not even a radical one.
14:48 He should have still been himself.
14:50 He shouldn't have been the one-man Shield.
14:53 The only dog left from the hounds of justice.
14:57 Strip away the Shield stuff.
14:58 Let him be good at what he's good at, i.e. wrestling a strong, powerful, high-octane
15:03 style being simmeringly charismatic, and let that be his character going forward.
15:08 If the fans don't respond to it, fine, turn him heel.
15:10 And if they do, wahey, job done.
15:13 Like, for the world's seemingly most unsolvable problem, it's blindingly simple.
15:18 The only thing that's getting in your way is this idea that you have to have Roman Reigns
15:22 be the guy because there has to be the guy.
15:25 So we begin the night after Payback 2014.
15:30 It's the destruction of the Shield, and actually it plays out exactly as it was going to.
15:34 There may be a temptation to make Dean Ambrose the heel, the person who explodes the Shield,
15:39 because they had also been teasing that tension between him and Roman Reigns earlier on in
15:43 that year.
15:44 But in actuality, Rollins was by far the best choice.
15:46 He was the most unexpected.
15:47 He was gifted in the ring.
15:49 He was gifted on the microphone.
15:51 And he had a persona that suited, that sort of intelligent architect persona, suited being
15:56 a cunning heel all the more.
15:58 Repeat the betrayal exactly as it happened, but change the fallout of it significantly.
16:03 To put it in its simplest terms, Roman Reigns needs to give more of a shit about the Shield
16:09 ending because it was like a year and a half of his life.
16:12 These people were his brothers.
16:14 He shouldn't be going off and fighting for trinkets.
16:18 He should be following his brother Dean Ambrose and making sure that Triple H and Seth Rollins
16:22 getting their commutants is his number one priority.
16:26 After the betrayal, stick Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose together like glue.
16:30 Have them become the brothers, but not shit.
16:34 Have them be a tag team, which again is nicely ironic because it felt like these two, their
16:38 tension earlier in the year, that was the thing that was going to make the Shield explode.
16:42 And so for the rest of the calendar year, we're going to keep Dean and Roman on the
16:45 same level on the card.
16:48 This has two main benefits.
16:49 One, Dean Ambrose does most of the talking, whereas Roman Reigns gets to just stand there
16:54 and just sort of simmer with his jaw and his lovely beard and his nice vest.
17:00 Not the padded one, but like, you know, the nice kind of tight black vest.
17:05 He's a handsome man.
17:07 He is a handsome man.
17:08 You know, he gets to tell people, I'm going to break your bottom in half.
17:11 Weehee!
17:12 Only not shit.
17:13 And number two, it nullifies the idea that Roman Reigns is being pushed over his other
17:17 teammates.
17:18 The next pay-per-view is Money in the Bank and all three former Shield members go into
17:22 the ladder match for the briefcase.
17:25 This allows for a glimmer of what we're all building towards, which is the Shield triple
17:29 threat.
17:30 However, because there's so many other people involved, because it's a ladder match, you
17:32 don't give away that match entire.
17:34 Reigns and Ambrose work together in this match to clear out most of the Shield.
17:38 It's clear that they are a brotherhood.
17:40 They are family.
17:41 They keep going after Seth Rollins, but he keeps managing to get his squirrelly ass out
17:45 of Dodge.
17:46 Except Seth Rollins finally makes a mistake.
17:48 While he thinks everyone else is down, he climbs that ladder, reaches for the briefcase
17:51 and looks down and sees Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose standing at the bottom.
17:56 They pick up the ladder, they run towards the ropes and they throw him.
18:01 He leaps from the ladder through the Spanish announce table.
18:04 However, despite Roman and Dean's best efforts, Seth's goons, Kane and Randy Orton, show
18:09 up and each of them cost one of the brothers.
18:12 This opens the door for Seth Rollins to actually win the Money in the Bank briefcase like he
18:15 did in real life because it's a heel prop and he is a perfect sneaky chicken sh*t heel
18:20 and that's what the briefcase is there for.
18:23 The next night on Raw, Seth Rollins tries to cash in on New Champ Cena when he's waylaid
18:26 by Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose.
18:29 Ambrose gets on the mic and tells Seth Rollins "You're a marked man, brother."
18:33 I can't do a Dean Ambrose impression.
18:35 "You're a brother.
18:36 You're gonna go to hell with me, brother.
18:41 I'm Dean Ambrose and I'm crazy."
18:44 I'm lucky to have this job.
18:46 Anyway, he says "You're a marked man, Seth.
18:48 Anytime you poke your head above the parapet, we're gonna shoot you down."
18:52 And Roman just says "Strong, silent, very handsome" and just mouths.
19:05 Scared out of his mind, Seth Rollins begs Triple H to have Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose
19:09 taken out.
19:10 Triple H obliges and instructs Kane and Randy Orton to take out Team Romine.
19:15 That episode of Raw ends with Kane and Randy Orton placing each member of the brothers
19:19 on Seth Rollins shoulders and he powerbombs both of them again and again and again.
19:24 So at Battleground this leads to a 3 on 2 elimination handicap match.
19:29 Seth, Kane and Randy Orton vs Roman and Dean.
19:32 It's elimination because that way pretty much everyone can get a pinfall apart from Kane
19:36 but that's okay because he's a grandpa.
19:38 Ambrose pins Kane after dirty deeds and immediately pops up into an RKO from Randy Orton.
19:43 And this is where we start to get the very first glimmer of Roman Reigns as a main eventor.
19:48 He is down 2 on 1 but he fights from underneath.
19:52 He manages to eliminate Randy Orton after a spear and it looks like he's got Seth Rollins'
19:57 number.
19:58 He is going to win this by himself for his team.
20:01 However, as he runs for a spear, Randy Orton pops in from out of nowhere while the referee
20:04 is distracted by Kane, I guess grandpa.
20:08 Reigns is planted with an RKO and then Seth Rollins follows it up with a curb stomp.
20:13 Seth Rollins gets the pin.
20:15 Roman Reigns had the opportunity to do a John Cena so we're starting to see him in that
20:18 framework but he ultimately came up short for logical reasons.
20:22 The numbers game and also their dicks.
20:25 You're establishing him as a potential superhero but you're not handing him constant wins.
20:29 After Battleground, Reigns and Ambrose up the ante and recreate one of the best angles
20:34 that the Shield ever did which is basically they want something and they're going to kill
20:39 everyone backstage until they get it.
20:41 They just walk around smashing heels through catering, smashing heels through TV screens
20:45 as they're trying to do interviews and they say this is going to keep happening until
20:48 we get what we want which is us versus Seth Rollins and Triple H at SummerSlam.
20:54 Oh and by the way, we want it no holds barred.
21:00 Triple H initially refuses.
21:02 He remembers what happened to Extreme Rules and Payback so he tries to have them escorted
21:07 from the building because of all those murders that they did.
21:10 However, they escape, they run through the crowd but not before promising this will keep
21:13 happening and indeed next week it happens again.
21:16 The week after that it happens again.
21:19 They are becoming a huge problem so finally Triple H relents and agrees as Seth Rollins'
21:25 new boyfriend to beat up his old boyfriend.
21:27 We've all been there.
21:29 Side note by the way, at no point during this feud should Roman or Dean be commandeering
21:34 a hot dog cart and spraying Seth Rollins with mustard or stealing his briefcase and filling
21:39 it with get your own back style gunge.
21:41 They shouldn't do that because that's s***.
21:44 That's why.
21:45 Because it's s***.
21:46 So we get the no holds barred match at SummerSlam and finally Reigns and Ambrose get a chance
21:50 to get their hands on Triple H and Seth Rollins and they munch them.
21:55 Roman gets another slight little Superman moment.
21:57 He's going for a spear on Seth Rollins but Triple H pops out of nowhere, nails him in
22:00 the head with a sledgehammer but Roman Reigns kicks out at two and Triple H does a what
22:07 face that everyone does after every kick out these days.
22:20 Reigns and Ambrose get Rollins up for a double powerbomb through the announce table leaving
22:23 Triple H the mastermind behind the break up of the shield all by himself.
22:27 He tries to pedigree Dean Ambrose who poofs him in the d*** and then he rolls out of the
22:32 way while Roman Reigns with a spear.
22:34 One, two, three, vengeance is the brothers.
22:39 And you know what?
22:40 Roman hits the spear but as he's doing the pin Dean Ambrose jumps on top so they both
22:44 get the visual pin.
22:46 Because that's nice.
22:47 Also at SummerSlam Brock Lesnar destroys John Cena to become WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
22:51 Keep that a sec because it was awesome.
22:53 So as we approach Night of Champions that's when we revert a little bit back to the booking
22:59 that they did in real life because at this time Roman Reigns went out with a herniated
23:03 rib.
23:04 Now I could make the argument that you know injuries are a wrong time wrong place situation
23:09 so if you do a different place in a different time then the injuries might not happen but
23:14 that does feel like a cheat and actually I don't need to cheat at this point.
23:18 So I would have Roman Reigns go out leaving Dean Ambrose versus Seth Rollins as that storyline
23:23 going forward.
23:24 No more Triple H just Dean and Seth.
23:26 Do what they did in real life.
23:27 Have Seth Rollins take out Dean with the stomp through the very very fake cinder blocks.
23:32 Then Dean turns up at Night of Champions after Roman Reigns is forced to forfeit leading
23:36 to hell in a cell.
23:37 Once again I would have them main event.
23:40 It was a brilliant match and also this may be controversial but I cut the spooky ass
23:45 Bray Wyatt hologram from the end.
23:47 I would have Seth Rollins just cheat to win and not do the Obi Wan you're our only hope
23:52 nonsense.
23:54 Scrap the ghost.
23:55 Scrap the entire Dean Ambrose Bray Wyatt feud.
23:59 Have Dean lose but have that play over into Survivor Series.
24:04 Since Roman Reigns is still out with an injury we stick to mostly the same booking which
24:09 is Team Authority versus Team John Cena again another match of the year.
24:14 Only replace Dolph Ziggler in that match with Dean Ambrose.
24:19 We also give Ambrose that final moment of that pay per view.
24:23 After yet another heel turn from Big Show Dean Ambrose is the only one left on his team
24:28 in a three on one advantage.
24:29 He manages to fight out.
24:31 He plants Luke Harper with dirty deeds.
24:33 He manages to roll up Kane when it's finally Dean versus Seth once again out comes Triple
24:40 H out comes Sting and then after everyone has sort of been waylaid Dean and Seth rise
24:45 to their feet.
24:47 Ambrose manages to catch him with dirty deeds and he pins Seth Rollins one two three to
24:52 officially disband the Authority for like a month.
24:57 The additional benefit to Ambrose getting this victory is that by now because they've
25:01 been kept on relatively the same level up until this point fans should hopefully be
25:04 clamouring for Roman Reigns to get his moment.
25:08 So after Survivor Series Dean Ambrose enters into a feud with Kane and the Big Show who's
25:13 recently just allied himself with the Authority who are currently nowhere to be seen.
25:18 Oh no it's chaos.
25:19 Not knowing exactly what to do the two henchmen without men to hench start just pissing on
25:25 Dean Ambrose's chips after a while Dean Ambrose says OK you what you want you want me.
25:30 I can't do it.
25:31 You want me at TLC.
25:33 That was the first time two years ago at TLC pay-per-view the Shield fought on pay-per-view
25:38 for the first time in a TLC match.
25:42 We're going to do it again.
25:43 It's going to be Big Show and Kane versus Dean Ambrose and the returning Roman Reigns.
25:49 And if you're starting to think oh have we not had enough of like remember the Shield
25:54 then good because we're going to start slowly introducing tension between Ambrose and Reigns
25:59 before Mania when we have the big goodbye to the Shield.
26:02 So naturally at the TLC pay-per-view the hot young stars triumph over the slow moving giants
26:08 and it's just power set piece after power set piece power bombs onto ladders onto chairs
26:12 Roman Reigns carrying the Big Show in a powerbomb position onto a pile of chairs Dean Ambrose
26:17 pulling Kane off a ladder into a spear in midair.
26:20 Lots of fun lots of power and a reminder that Roman Reigns is a big main event player.
26:26 Next up the Royal Rumble 2015 aka the time where Roman Reigns was irreversibly broken
26:32 and there are two ways to not do this.
26:35 You could either not have Daniel Bryan return until after the Royal Rumble so you don't
26:40 put that narrative in people's heads or and this is where I'm going you have Daniel
26:45 Bryan just win it.
26:47 Do the story.
26:49 It's it's right there.
26:50 Now I know hindsight being 20/20 about Daniel Bryan's health people might be saying what
26:54 are you talking about don't put him in a match with Brock Lesnar but also he wrestled
26:59 a ladder match at WrestleMania 31 the closing set piece of which was him repeatedly banging
27:05 his head against the head of another man.
27:08 So actually I think this might be a safer way to book Daniel Bryan.
27:11 So you just give people what they want.
27:13 Daniel Bryan wins the Royal Rumble goes on to face Brock Lesnar perfect David and Goliath
27:18 story.
27:19 However Dean enters the Royal Rumble number one because the authority have returned by
27:25 this point.
27:26 I have kept that part of the booking the authority are back and to punish Dean Ambrose because
27:29 he's the one who sent them away.
27:31 You're in the Royal Rumble at number one Billy Boy and then at number seven really
27:35 early on we get Roman Reigns and the brothers fight and eliminate most of the field for
27:42 as long as the match and they can before you bring in Daniel Bryan at like 20 or so.
27:46 This way you give the brothers a lot of shine without tainting that shine by having them
27:49 throw hands with the people's favorite.
27:51 So I'm not going to rebook the entire Royal Rumble 2015.
27:55 You that's why.
27:56 But here's how I would do the ending.
27:58 So we have the Seth Rollins John Cena Brock Lesnar triple threat earlier in the card because
28:03 it's amazing when the best triple threat if not the best triple threat WWE has ever done.
28:07 Then backstage Seth Rollins is doing his pouty.
28:10 Brown.
28:11 Yeah.
28:12 Look at my cool hair.
28:13 Whereas Triple H puts a hand on his shoulder and says don't worry Seth.
28:17 He's a taxi driver from New York for some reason.
28:20 God he says don't worry Seth.
28:23 I'm bad at this.
28:24 He says don't worry Seth.
28:26 Puts his hand on his shoulders and says your night is not over.
28:32 So instead of that bafflingly bad end of Royal Rumble sequence and then you just oh no oh
28:36 we're gonna do we're gonna do this next to the rope Roman Reigns early up goes and then
28:41 oh you hate it.
28:43 Bring the rock out quick.
28:45 Oh and Rusev I guess and Roman Reigns can win twice because people liked him winning
28:50 the first time.
28:52 So anyway boo.
28:53 None of that Roman and Dean dominate much of the match.
28:56 The final four are Dean Ambrose Roman Reigns Daniel Bryan and the man who entered obviously
29:02 number 30 Seth Rollins.
29:05 Ambrose is eliminated first after being crapped over the head by Seth Rollins his briefcase
29:09 he brings into the ring.
29:11 Dean Ambrose goes out enraged.
29:12 He grabs a chair comes back in and tries to hit Seth but hits Roman Reigns instead.
29:19 Roman Reigns is then eliminated from the Rumble then it's Seth and Daniel Bryan for a while
29:23 before Daniel Bryan finally eliminates Seth Rollins to win the Royal Rumble 2015.
29:29 Hooray.
29:30 And these are where the cracks start forming between Dean and Roman.
29:33 On Raw the next night they have a talk and they agree you know the brotherhood comes
29:37 first fist bumping chest bumping kissing.
29:41 I don't know what friends do.
29:42 With Fastlane on the horizon Roman Reigns finally sets his sight on having a one on
29:47 one match with Seth Rollins.
29:48 Because he never got that chance to properly beat him up himself.
29:53 Dean had that chance but Roman never got it.
29:55 He demands a match from the authority and they decide to give it to him on one condition.
30:00 They're sick of Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns being so buddy buddy.
30:03 So in fact they can fight each other to see who gets Seth at Fastlane.
30:06 If either of them try and throw the match if anyone lets himself gets pinned they're
30:11 both fired.
30:13 So the two men just look at each other being like alright loser buys the beers and just
30:18 go for it.
30:19 True babyface vs babyface style.
30:21 However despite that pact as soon as the bell rings Dean Ambrose turns around immediately
30:25 into a spear from Roman Reigns pins him one two three.
30:28 Roman Reigns tried to make it as quick as he possibly could but obviously Dean Ambrose
30:33 feels incredibly insulted by this and they get in each other's faces you know forehead
30:38 to forehead kissing.
30:40 Roman holds out a fist to Dean Ambrose who looks at it and then just slides under the
30:45 ropes and walks to the back.
30:46 So at Fastlane Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns fight one on one.
30:50 Before the match Ambrose tells Reigns I want to be in your corner but Roman Reigns says
30:55 no look man I went out okay I want this for myself.
31:01 You had that.
31:02 You had a hell in a cell to keep other people from getting involved in the match.
31:05 Just let me have this.
31:06 Dean Ambrose says fine however of course does hate Seth during the match he comes down and
31:13 gets involved.
31:14 This distracts the referee so much that he misses a blatant low blow from Rollins.
31:18 Curb stomp pins Roman Reigns one two three and Roman Reigns is a hot cross dog.
31:26 After the match Dean Ambrose picks Roman Reigns up saying look I'm sorry bang a spear from
31:31 Roman.
31:32 Roman Reigns just stands there and he just waits for Dean Ambrose to get back to his
31:37 feet and he looks at him and he just slides under the bottom rope and it's Roman's
31:41 turn to walk angrily to the back.
31:44 This all leads because of course it does to WrestleMania and finally the shield triple
31:50 threat.
31:51 Ambrose and Reigns have slowly imploded neither of them has really turned heel but they have
31:57 something to prove to each other now and Seth is just in between them both trying to stoke
32:01 that fire for as much as he can get.
32:03 The authority orders Seth to take care of his shield brethren once and for all.
32:09 And there it is the shield triple threat at Mania doesn't need to be any more layers
32:12 to the story.
32:13 So many months after the shield broke up we finally get that marquee match on the stage
32:18 that it belongs not necessarily at battleground.
32:22 Nine months after Seth's betrayal after Dean Ambrose got his own very important victory
32:26 over Seth Rollins Roman Reigns spears Seth and pins him to win the shield triple threat.
32:32 During the main event Brock Lesnar is tapped out by Daniel Bryan and while it appears that
32:37 Seth is vanquished the next night on Raw Seth cashes in on Daniel Bryan to become the new
32:43 WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
32:46 What a prick because yeah that would be nuclear heat for the lad and I don't I really don't
32:53 want to rebook too much of Daniel Bryan's timeline like I get it again he wasn't in
32:59 a ladder match so who knows but it was the darkest time of his career and I don't feel
33:04 comfortable messing with that so the night after WrestleMania he is sent away after several
33:08 curb stomps onto the briefcase by Seth Rollins.
33:11 Seth Rollins pins him becomes champion and then we have that Seth Rollins run.
33:15 And at this point yet the shield storyline is done everyone's moved on and everyone
33:21 gets a rebrand.
33:22 Roman Reigns should not be wearing his shield colours anymore the brothers have broken up
33:27 so they don't use their shield theme song anymore and Roman Reigns can go back to something
33:32 maybe in more in touch with Samoan roots like something that Samoa Joe had.
33:37 He can wear all black sure because yeah he does look cool but he can wear black trousers
33:42 and like a black vest it doesn't have to be bulletproof.
33:45 So yeah we have this different presentation of Roman he has finally been able to lay his
33:50 demons to rest and he's become his own man.
33:53 He owes nothing to Dean he owes nothing to Seth and now we press on with him focusing
34:00 not on the world title but on the intercontinental title.
34:03 Have him win that match in the next available pay-per-view have him hold it all the way
34:06 down to like hell in a cell or something and have him have non-stop knockdown drag out
34:12 really great 15 minute icy title matches in the middle of the card.
34:16 Because when given that kind of spotlight he is an MVP in the ring and now is the time
34:22 where WWE fans need to realise that this guy can go and he can go.
34:28 He can fight Cesaro, The Miz, Dolph Ziggler, he can fight Sheamus, he can fight Kevin Owens.
34:35 You can get an amazing pay-per-view match out of all of those competitors Roman Reigns would
34:38 do brilliantly against all of them and then why not be the person who manages to finally
34:42 overcome him.
34:43 Why not have that person be Dean Ambrose.
34:45 Dean Ambrose will then take the intercontinental strap through to WrestleMania.
34:49 So as in real life again I don't feel comfortable booking around it Seth Rollins goes out with
34:53 a knee injury before Survivor Series 2015 and instead of the tournament we have a fatal
34:58 four-way for the vacated title and that fatal four-way consists of Alberto Del Rio, Kevin
35:04 Owens, Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar.
35:08 Brock Lesnar wins the championship and this is the first time that he and Roman Reigns
35:14 have a little bit of a stare down.
35:16 They never really managed to get into it properly because of the fatal four-way stipulation
35:20 but we start to picture that match.
35:22 Brock Lesnar takes that title obviously he's going to keep it until WrestleMania and now
35:28 this is when we get the Roman Reigns Royal Rumble win.
35:32 Finally one year on Daniel Bryan got the storyline he deserves so fans aren't clamouring for
35:36 him as much.
35:37 Roman Reigns has been proving himself in the mid card he's proved himself last year at
35:42 WrestleMania.
35:43 I genuinely think with all of this new context fans will be really up to seeing Roman Reigns
35:48 win the 2016 Rumble.
35:49 This leads to Reigns versus Brock at WrestleMania 32 and it can't be worse than him versus
35:54 Triple H. God I was there.
35:56 My first mania.
35:57 F***.
35:58 From that point on Roman Reigns is one of the top guys.
36:01 He is your champion and I know a lot of people are going to be disappointed that this wasn't
36:05 how to book heel Roman Reigns but you didn't need it.
36:09 He'd been a heel.
36:10 He had been in the heel shield.
36:12 The she-heeled.
36:13 He had gone through that and emerged as a cool babyface.
36:17 He'd done the whole rock thing you know.
36:19 They become a cool heel.
36:21 They then turn their targets to babyfaces.
36:24 They debuted looking stupid with their turtlenecks.
36:27 They become cool heels.
36:28 Then they became cool faces.
36:30 He'd already done that.
36:32 He didn't need to do it again.
36:33 The only reason you'd ever need a heel turn is if you drop the f***ing ball in the booking
36:37 in the first place.
36:38 If you become insistent upon this one guy system and don't let any amount of organic
36:44 storytelling or fan swell of support sway you from a plan that you've had in place,
36:49 damn it.
36:50 That's the stuff that crippled Roman Reigns' character.
36:51 If you don't book him like that then fans will see him for what he truly is.
36:55 A very charismatic, very talented wrestler that belongs in the upper echelons of WWE
37:01 which of course he will ascend to once again when he returns whenever that may be.
37:06 So that is how I would book Roman Reigns' rise to the main event.
37:10 What did you think?
37:11 Let us know in the comments.
37:12 What other things would you like me to fantasy book?
37:14 And while you're at it, please do like and subscribe to PartsFunKnown.
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37:25 I'm Adam, hailing from PartsFunKnown, and we'll see you next time.
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