WWE Needs New Approach with Roman Reigns' Development as a Mic Worker

WWE is asking Roman Reigns to row a boat with a pair of plastic sporks.

Bad promos are hurting his chances of connecting with the crowd. The company needs to shift gears with him in a hurry if it plans on elevating him to the top tier.

Reigns' mic skills are not ready for prime time, and WWE is only making his attempts to improve harder. Turning the powerhouse into a winking, cartoon-quoting goof is simply a poor decision. The key to letting him grow as a talker is to find a more suitable verbal vehicle for him and issue him less ill-fitting promos.

As much star power as he exudes and as impressively athletic as he is, big concerns surround Reigns. Blame the oral part of his game.

His mic work has been inconsistent, awkward and cringe-worthy at times.

Those aren't the adjectives you want attached to a guy many expect to win the Royal Rumble and appears to be nearing a coronation at WrestleMania as the company's next big star. And while he is certainly a work in progress on the mic, WWE has recently tied weights around his ankles as he tries to run to the mountaintop.

Steve Austin himself would struggle with the kind of material Reigns has had to work with.

The most egregious example came on Friday's SmackDown. Reigns interrupted Seth Rollins, who was busy mockingly paying tribute to the wrestlers The Authority fired. The two former Shield members soon stared each other down.

Reigns played a playful, flippant babyface who was one part John Cena, one part Sylvester the Cat from Looney Tunes. As much as fans wanted to like him and what he was saying (he did get some solid chants), it was hard to get behind this version of him.

In his worst line, he said, "You are a sniveling little suck-up sellout, full of suffering succotash, son. I know that was not easy to say." He then proceeded to say that Rollins had "donkey dung for brains."

There is no steadfast blueprint for constructing a wrestling promo, but following a line borrowed from a cartoon character created in the '40s with the kind of insult one second-grader slings at another on a playground is a bad idea.

That idea comes directly from the head of WWE, according to wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer. After the promo aired, Meltzer tweeted:

Earlier, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported (subscription required, h/t Wrestling Inc) many people in company believe that WWE is holding Reigns back with the kind of promos it has given him.

It most certainly is. The speeches are far too corny and just don't suit him.

On the Jan. 5 edition of Raw, WWE had him work in Superman references in an interview with Renee Young, complete with zany sound effects.

A fan calling himself The Lunatic Fringe was one of many to trash it via Twitter:

Superman aficionado @The_Rattenbury took his own shot at the performance:

These weren't two isolated incidents of fan backlash; Reigns' Superman speech was poorly received. That should be no surprise. He is a below-average mic worker trying to pull off wretched material.

As for his SmackDown promo, the one moment where Reigns felt genuine, where his words had impact, was when he said simply, "I'm going to kick your ass."

This is where WWE needs to veer Reigns more often. Instead of having him channel Cena and Sheamus as smiling jokesters, let him be more of the prototypical strong, silent type.

He should be the warrior who scowls, roars and maybe shoots off one straight-ahead line. No need to get cute with him. He's handsome, imposing, a man reminiscent of some gladiator straight out of 300.

Credit: WWE.com

Why try to make him something that he's not?

Let him develop and try to find his own unique voice, not one that sounds like Cena 2.0. He's already shown progress in recent weeks, slowly getting more comfortable and more natural as a talker.

It's best to limit his speeches as he grows. Don't break his confidence by giving him the arduous task of getting donkey dung lines to incorporate into his promos.

Over time, Brock Lesnar, a man folks had similar concerns with, has grown as a mic worker. He once had to exclusively lean on Paul Heyman. More recently, he can do his own trash-talking, and the results are often excellent.

We saw that during his feud with CM Punk where he came off as an unrelenting, unfeeling predator.

Reigns isn't there yet. He may never be. That doesn't mean WWE needs to keep him from ascending the company or that he needs to stay nestled on the midcard.

It can't, though, arm him with childish material. WWE never asked Lesnar to make dung jokes. It let him be a beast, one who rarely spoke at first.

That's the route WWE needs to take with Reigns.

He has true star power and potential that should have WWE fans excited about the future. The company just needs to better make use of his talents and free him from out-of-touch promos.