My Thoughts on Roman Reigns Winning at the Royal Rumble PPV

I wanted to write a cool title for this, but I couldn't think of anything I liked so I made a simple title. What I'm going to write about here is exactly what the title says. Roman Reigns winning the 2015 Royal Rumble got a huge reaction from WWE fans and I decided this was something I wanted to write about. Wrestling Rambles, the website I usually write at, is still inactive at the moment so I'm writing this exclusively for my blog.

I made this argument, I was like "When you look at the [WWE] roster, how many active members of the roster have been in a WrestleMania main event? How do you expect anybody to get fucking better?" AHL hockey players have to play with NHL hockey players in order to get better. I needed the experience of a main event at WrestleMania with somebody who is equal or better than me so I could learn so I could further become an asset to the fucking product. So I could draw more instead of always being told "Well, you're not a draw." How do you know? Why don't you give me a fucking shot?

- CM Punk on Colt Cabana's Art of Wrestling podcast episode 226

Art of Wrestling #226 is my favorite podcast episode I have ever listened to. CM Punk talked to Colt Cabana for almost two hours and explained in great detail why he left WWE on the night after the 2014 Royal Rumble. During that interview, Punk said the above quote and that quote is for not only himself, but every WWE superstar who has never gotten the opportunity to be a main eventer at WrestleMania. That includes the 2015 Royal Rumble winner Roman Reigns. I was active on Twitter last Sunday night when Reigns won the 30-man Royal Rumble and booked his ticket for a WWE World Heavyweight Championship match at WrestleMania 31. Almost all of the people I follow on Twitter had the same reaction. They were pissed off that Reigns won the match. Many of them were mad because they thought Daniel Bryan should have won. They also thought that Reigns does not deserve to face Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania. They said Reigns can't wrestle, he has no mic skills and he is not ready to be in the main event of WrestleMania. I feel like I'm one of the few who isn't mad that Reigns won the Royal Rumble. I'm very indifferent towards Reigns. I don't hate him, but I'm not really a fan either. Did I want Reigns to win? No. Did I cancel my WWE Network subscription after Reigns won? No. I would have liked to see Bryan or Dolph Ziggler win, but I'm not mad that it was Reigns who won the Royal Rumble. I honestly don't really understand why Reigns is getting so much hate. Maybe it's because the ending of the Royal Rumble was predictable and that's true, but people aren't really complaining about how predictable the ending was. They are complaining that Reigns should not be wrestling in a main event match at WrestleMania. I want to know how these people know a Reigns vs. Lesnar match at WrestleMania is going to be terrible. It's not like Reigns has a track record of bad Pay-Per-View singles matches. Correct me if I'm wrong, Reigns has had only one PPV singles match in his WWE career. That was at SummerSlam last year when he faced Randy Orton and I remember it being a very good match. Was it better than Lesnar vs. John Cena or Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose? I don't think so, but it definitely was one of the best matches of the night.

The people who don't want Reigns in the main event of WrestleMania should re-read the Punk quote above. How do you know that Reigns can't draw? How do you know Reigns can't be one of the top superstars in WWE? Like Punk said, how are we ever going to know if Reigns is ready to be a main eventer if he's not competing in main event matches against top superstars? I'm never going to criticize WWE for pushing young talent unless I'm absolutely sure it is not going to work. I was a lot more critical of WWE for having Batista win the Royal Rumble last year than Reigns winning this year. Batista was 45 years old. Why did WWE think that he needed to main event WrestleMania? How is that going to make WWE better in the future? Something I have noticed is that for the last three years, there has not been a first-time WWE World Champion. The last one was Daniel Bryan when he won the World Heavyweight Championship on December 18, 2011. That's too long. WWE is not getting ready for the future if they keep giving title reigns to Cena, Randy Orton, Lesnar and The Rock. There will be a time when those guys won't be in WWE anymore. One of my predictions for this year is that will we see a first-time WWE World Champion in 2015. If it's not Reigns, it could be Seth Rollins who still has his Money in the Bank briefcase. Creating new stars should be one of WWE's top priorities in 2015. Many fans may agree, but think that Reigns is the wrong young superstar to push. WWE is always going to try to push superstars who look like Reigns. Look at the biggest stars in WWE history. You got Bruno Sammartino. Hulk Hogan. Stone Cold Steve Austin. The Rock. Triple H. John Cena. Smaller guys like Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart got strong pushes too, but the top star in WWE will usually be someone who looks like Reigns and if you look at it that way, there's really no alternate to Reigns. Guys like Ziggler, Rollins, Ambrose and Bryan will get title opportunities and title victories, but it's Reigns who is the most likely to be the next John Cena. It's very possible that Reigns is not the right guy to replace Cena and I think WWE knows that too, but no one will know for sure if Reigns doesn't get main event opportunities. If Reigns fails in the next several months, then WWE will know that Reigns isn't the next top star and they will look for someone else. Reigns needs this opportunity to prove whether or not he is capable of being the face of the company.

I also want to write about the other side of the coin. It's not just people thinking Reigns was the wrong person to win the Royal Rumble. It's also people thinking Daniel Bryan should have won. Now that CM Punk has left wrestling, Bryan is by far my favorite wrestler. If I was in charge of WWE, Bryan would be the top guy for the next ten years. That said, I can see why WWE decided that Bryan was not the right guy to win the Rumble this year. The biggest reason is Brock Lesnar. I was talking about the Royal Rumble with a co-worker and he mentioned that there's no way WWE could have Bryan defeat Lesnar at WrestleMania. He's right. After seeing how strong Lesnar was booked at the Royal Rumble, how would anyone believe that Bryan could defeat Lesnar. It's unrealistic. There's a lot of casual wrestling fans who would hate seeing someone like Bryan beat Lesnar because it would not be believable. I think that's a big reason why Lesnar ended Undertaker's WrestleMania streak and not CM Punk. The only way Bryan could defeat Lesnar is if someone helped him or if Lesnar botched the shooting star press again. It wouldn't be a clean win for Bryan and I don't think people want to see that. Why does Bryan have to compete for the title at WrestleMania? His rumored WrestleMania opponents are Sheamus or Dolph Ziggler. In my opinion, those two superstars might be Bryan's best opponents to work with. Go watch the Bryan vs. Ziggler Bragging Rights 2010 match or the Bryan vs. Sheamus Extreme Rules 2012 match if you haven't. Both are amazing matches. I have no doubt that either WrestleMania match would be capable of stealing the show. After WrestleMania, Bryan can get a title shot sometime and win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. I would love to see him get a title win at this year's SummerSlam. Another thing to consider about Bryan winning the Rumble is that it would put him in a rare group that WWE may not want to put him in. Let's assume that the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match will be the main event of WrestleMania 31. I did some research and here are the names of the WWE superstars who appeared in two consecutive WrestleMania main events: Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Bret Hart, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, John Cena and the Undertaker. You can add Shawn Michaels if you want to focus on two consecutive WWE World Championship matches at WrestleMania. That is an exclusive group and if WWE doesn't want Bryan in that group, I understand even if I personally feel that Bryan deserves to be in that group. And the last thing I want to say about Bryan is that he just came back from an injury that caused him to miss almost an entire year. It's not a bad decision for WWE to wait a few months before deciding that Bryan is ready to be a world champion again. Like I said, Bryan winning the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam would be awesome and it would make a SummerSlam a must-see event.

I have been critical of WWE a lot in the last several months. I would absolutely cancel my WWE Network subscription if I was very angry at WWE. I almost did it in November when I heard how WWE treated CM Punk. As much as I want to find a reason to be mad at WWE, Roman Reigns winning the Royal Rumble isn't a good enough reason for me. I don't hate Reigns and I'm not going to boo him. I'm very interested in seeing Reigns' Road to WrestleMania and seeing how he performs during the biggest event of the year. I'm hoping Reigns is the first of many young superstars WWE gives a strong push to in the near future.