Want more wrestling news, rumors, and results? Be sure to visit PWInsider.com and PWInsiderXtra.com.
You can send us questions for the PWInsider.com Q and A at pwinsider@gmail.com.
As usual I read your q n’ a everyday, more and more frequently I’ve been reading questions about Roman Reigns and your feelings on people who boo him. First of all Roman Reigns did not have cancer, the man who plays him Joe did. And nobody is booing the man Joe, everyone respects him and only wishes him well. However the character of Roman is a guy who plain and simple isn’t liked, mainly because he’s been shoved down peoples throat and hand picked over arguably move deserving wrestlers. So why shouldn’t people boo Roman, is it because the PC brigade (clearly your part of it) will look down from their morale mountain and say no. You wouldn’t start loving a movie or soap villain because the man or woman who plays them got sick. You’d be excited for their return and happy to see them but when the dust settles your going to remember you don’t really like the character but have respect for the man behind the character. So why is WWE?
You know, my initial reaction was to be snide (as you were) in my reply. After all, you say I look down my nose at people while you clearly look down your nose at me with your PC Brigade and what I assume was meant to be Moral Mountain comments. But instead, I will try to make this a teaching moment and just point out where your argument is completely flawed. Maybe you will think about it, maybe not.
Even if you don’t, hopefully someone else reading this, who feels the way that you do, will think about your flawed argument and change the way they think.
Yes, Joe fought cancer. Joe plays Roman Reigns. But, he is not in a movie or a soap opera, which get filmed on a set. He appears during a live event, in front of other human beings and they react to him. Unlike in your example, he gets a live reaction. The people you cited do not. There is hole number one in your argument.
Also, you can’t assert that Roman doesn’t have cancer. They have made his illness part of the storyline that led to his match at WrestleMania, so now both Roman and Joe have fought cancer. So you were incorrect there as well.
Another hole in your thinking is his status. He isn’t a villain to the majority of the audience, despite what you falsely claimed. He has always been presented as a good guy since his singles run started. You don’t like him so you call him a villain, but that doesn’t make him one. It’s like saying that the Earth is flat when the fact is that it isn’t. In the eyes of WWE and most of the fans, he’s a hero that you personally don’t like. He is not a villain. You are making a straw man argument.
The fact is, he is very well liked by the majority of the audience, and almost universally by the target audience (which is not you or me). He sells a lot of merchandise. He does a ton of community work. He is asked to do Make-A-Wishes. Even before he was sick, if you went to an arena far more people are cheering him than booing him. You like to boo him, so you ignore that, but it doesn’t make it true.
At both WrestleMania and Raw, at least 90% of the crowd were cheering for him. So, he is not a villain. I addition to being booked as a babyface, he is liked by the majority of the audience. He just isn’t liked by you. You have every right to not like him, but you don’t have a right to make up “facts” that fit your narrative.
You need to (or at least should) accept that at this point, you are an adult that goes to a Disney movie like Frozen and boo Elsa (which is ironic since now is really the time for you to Let It Go). You have the right to do it, but that doesn’t make you a good audience member or someone that is considerate of the other people at the event. I get that you like what you like, but anyone that follows a product where they are not the target audience has to realize that, well, they are not the target audience and the company isn’t marketing to them. If you can’t grasp that then it’s a you issue.
Beyond that, WWE does market products to you, NXT. NXT UK. 205 Live. Those are the shows geared to the adult male, that give the adult, hardcore fan what they are looking for. At this point, WWE isn’t going to always do that for you but you won’t accept it. So instead, what you are doing is like going into a hamburger joint and raising holy hell when they don’t have Chinese food for you to order. You knew they didn’t have it when you decided to go there. It’s not their fault, it’s yours.
I am part of the PC Brigade? To me, there just a basic decency that people should give someone in their first real day at work after returning from fighting cancer. If you want to boo him down the line, well that is a different discussion. But in his first singles match back after beating cancer? Where him beating cancer was part of the storyline? Yep, I find that to be in really bad taste to boo him. I think it says something about the people that do it and since part of my job is to give my opinion, that is what I do here. Frankly, if I were doing something that someone I respect thought was tasteless, I would really think about it.
On a different note, when I was younger, I cheered for the Russians and booed the Rock and Roll Express. But if Ricky Morton fought and beat cancer, and I was at his first match back, I would have stood up and given him an ovation. In that time and in that place, I feel it’s the right thing to do. Sure, I liked to root for the heels but I also like to be decent.
Down the road? Who knows, but those first days back, I will cheer for both the character and the man who plays him.
The irony is that most of the hate for Roman began when Vince McMahon ridiculously had Daniel Bryan return from injury years ago saying he would be in the Royal Rumble and he would win. When he didn’t, the guy who won was going to feel it from the hardcore fans. Of course, that man was Roman.
So many people that booed Roman said they were doing it to send a message to Vince. At the Raw after WrestleMania 33, the show opened with the fans booing Reigns the entire first segment after he beat The Undertaker the day before. Those fans in attendance were the hardest of the hardcore. Many said they were sending Vince a message because they never see to do it him in person.
Except guess what, he did appear later in the show. He was there to receive any message they wanted to send, and clearly they were angry early in the show. So what happened? They cheered him, big time. Later in the show, he gave the hardcore fans a dream main event of the returning from injury Finn Balor and Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens and Samoa Joe. And what did they do? I think you know the answer.
So even when the fans had the perfect chance to give Vince their wrath, they didn’t. When they could cheer wildly for a dream main event with four of their guys, they didn’t. If you were Vince, would you go out of your way to cater to fans that were so contradictory? More importantly, why should he listen to you when you boo Reigns? He shouldn’t.
So to me, it comes down to this. If you really had respect for the man behind the character, you would have cheered for him last Sunday and Monday, or just did nothing. At least in my opinion you would have. It’s that simple and that’s why your argument is flawed and I think it’s wrong for you to boo Reigns last week. There you have it.
At this point, unless someone makes a good, non-flawed argument I think I am done talking about it.
You can send us questions for the PWInsider.com Q and A at pwinsider@gmail.com.
If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!
Bang On Casino
