Roman Reigns Won’t Give WWE The Hero Moment it Wants

Brock Lesnar is so anti-WWE, and he’s so out of control, that he attacked his longtime friend and confidant, Paul Heyman, on last night’s episode of Monday Night Raw.

And … WWE expects that will be enough for you to boo him at SummerSlam.

The wishful thinking aside, the Brock Lesnar segments on Raw this past Monday were very well produced and extremely well written. The story they’re telling is that Lesnar hates WWE. He hates it so much, as he said, that he doesn’t watch the show because he’s not on it. He is so out of control that he attacked Heyman, squeezing his face and throwing him to the mat, before attacking Kurt Angle.

In WWE’s storyline, Roman Reigns is the big hero who will come swinging in at SummerSlam, take the Universal Title from Lesnar, bring it back to “full-time WWE” and save us all from Lesnar’s antics.

That might work if SummerSlam were somewhere in the middle of the country with fans just happy to be in the building. But this is SummerSlam, and it’s in New York. Like WrestleMania, SummerSlam has become a destination pay-per-view for a lot of hardcore fans, and hardcore fans don’t like Roman Reigns.

The Lesnar-Reigns story heading into SummerSlam isn’t a bad idea, and it’s not even a bad story. It’s poor execution, because WWE is tone deaf to its core audience.

Produce this same story with Bobby Lashley and Brock Lesnar, and WWE might get the reaction it’s looking for when Lesnar loses the title at SummerSlam. But WWE is not going to get that hero moment with Reigns, in New York. And WWE should know that.

Instead, they’re going to have an arena full of anti-Reigns fans, who all know before the match even begins that Reigns is going to win the Universal Title. That’s a recipe for a disaster.

WWE fans, especially at big shows, have shown the tendency to “take over” the show. This will be no different.