page_title: Persona and reception of Roman Reigns
section_title: WWE World Heavyweight Champion and suspension (2016–2017)
hierarchical_section_title: Persona and reception of Roman Reigns / Wrestling persona / WWE World Heavyweight Champion and suspension (2016–2017)
caption_attribution_description: English: WWE performers Roman Regins participates in the 14th Annual Tribute to the Troops Event at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., Dec. 13, 2016. WWE Tribute to the Troops is an annual event held by WWE and Armed Forces Entertainment in December during the holiday season since 2003, to honor and entertain United States Armed Forces members. WWE performers and employees travel to military camps, bases and hospitals, including the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center at Naval Support Activity Bethesda. DoD Photo by Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Dominique A. Pineiro
context_page_description: Professional wrestler Roman Reigns debuted on the WWE main roster in November 2012 as part of a faction called "The Shield" and was well-received by fans and critics. Support began to dwindle upon Reigns's transition to a heroic main event singles act in 2014, largely due to his perceived forced push. This would manifest itself in Reigns main eventing four consecutive editions of WWE's premier annual pay-per-view event, WrestleMania, while being booed in all four appearances. Crowd reactions to Reigns's four world championship victories have ranged from favorable to negative.
  Wrestling journalists have offered both praise and criticism for Reigns, noting both his talent and WWE's apparent attempts to conceal fan hostility towards him. David Shoemaker of Grantland wrote in 2016 that Reigns was the company's "most despised wrestler" in over 25 years. Fans have taken issue with Reigns over various reasons: his perceived special treatment, real-life demeanor, wrestling moveset, speaking skills and character presentation. After Reigns was suspended for drug use, Yahoo! Sports pondered whether he is "the biggest failure in professional wrestling history".
context_section_description: On the Raw after WrestleMania 32, Reigns declared that he was now not a "bad guy" nor a "good guy", but "The Guy", which supposedly indicated a morally ambiguous character turn, but this went nowhere. In April, Pro Wrestling Dot Net reported that WWE "went out of their way to use [the charity] Make A Wish in hopes of getting [Reigns] over as a good guy". As soon as broadcasting for Payback on May 1 stopped, Reigns reportedly turned on the crowd, yelling angrily at them. Also in May, Dave Meltzer said WWE wanted Reigns as "the guy who does the charity work, so he has to be positioned as a babyface" (the heroic character), adding that WWE's "new gimmick" was positioning that people actually "really like" Reigns and only boo because "it's fun to boo him", which Meltzer said was "absolutely not true" in reality. Critics wondered if WWE was "leaving money on the table" by not slotting former Shield teammate Seth Rollins as a fan favorite and Reigns as a villain, as fans were cheering Rollins and booing Reigns. In June, Reigns wrestled against Rollins at both Money in the Bank and the next night on Raw, where Reigns played a villain in the first match and a fan favorite in the second, while on the next night on Raw during his promo he told the fans who were booing him to "shut their mouths". Reigns' wellness policy suspension on June 21 resulted in Yahoo! TV urging WWE to "quit pretending he's some kind of lovable underdog" with a villain turn for Reigns, after wasting a "dozen" chances "since the boos first reigned" at the 2015 Royal Rumble.
  As soon as Reigns returned from suspension in July and leading into SummerSlam, writers from the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter wrote that Raw was "still the Roman Reigns Show", "with him necessarily closing out the show with the last laugh" (post-SummerSlam, "Raw is Roman" continued). Also in August, Anoa'i no longer wore the contact lenses, again changing the Reigns' character look. Although Reigns dropped from world title contention to being United States Champion in September, he remained unable to connect with fans. Nonetheless, calculated efforts to garner crowd support persisted. Wade Keller of the Pro Wrestling Torch said that WWE was damaging its product by associating Reigns with "really good" and "popular" performers in a "hapless attempt" to get him over. Pro Wrestling Dot Net columnist Jason Powell said that McMahon's "obsession" with generating support for Reigns had handicapped Seth Rollins, whom fans wanted to see as a fan favorite in May, but was kept as a villain to oppose the heroic (and thoroughly booed) Reigns until a "horrible" turn into a fan favorite in September. In November, Fin Martin of Power Slam remarked: "Vince [McMahon] has successfully trained or retrained most of his audience to consume what he is serving. Roman Reigns being the exception, of course. It says something that fans will cheer Shane McMahon's toe-curlingly naff attempts at pro wrestling in the ring and his entrance dance ... yet they won't cheer for Reigns, no matter how heroically he is portrayed". As a result of his achievements in 2016, despite topping Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) annual PWI 500 which is mainly about kayfabe results, Reigns was voted by Pro Wrestling Illustrated readers as Most Hated Wrestler of the Year, a first for a heroic character since the award was devised in 1972. Wrestling Observer Newsletter readers instead awarded Reigns the 2016 Most Overrated award. Reigns had finished in second place for Most Overrated in both 2014 and 2015. In January 2017, Pro Wrestling Torch began their weekly "Monday Night Reigns-o-meter", which monitored his "ability to beat the odds and come out on top".
  Going into 2017, WWE continued to edit reactions for Reigns, one example being after he lost the United States Championship to Chris Jericho, when an audience member was shown live jumping for joy at the result, but when WWE showed replays of Reigns' loss they showed a clip of the same fan looking unhappy. Veteran wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin and Pro Wrestling Torch editor Wade Ke
caption: Reigns as United States Champion in December 2016
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