Roman Reigns Quietly Becoming the Top-Tier Star WWE Wants Him to Be

WWE was right about Roman Reigns. The audience rejected the company's crown prince upon his coronation, but Reigns has since been steadily improving and steadily proving himself worthy of the spot WWE had planned for him.

In the midst of this year's Royal Rumble, when Daniel Bryan hit the floor and when Dolph Ziggler took an assisted trip over the top rope, it was clear Reigns would win. That confirmed all the previous hints that WWE was prepping Reigns as its next big thing.

Backlash bubbled up.

Boos echoed before Reigns' victory was even official. Fans griped about his not being the one they wanted on top, about his not being ready for a main event run and about his being shoved down their throats.

So WWE backed off. Anointing him would have to wait. Seth Rollins instead took home the WWE title at WrestleMania.

Meanwhile, Reigns has been hovering around the main event but no longer standing in the center of the spotlight. With the pressure off and more focus on Rollins, Brock Lesnar, John Cena and the like, Reigns is becoming just what WWE believed he would—a top-flight star.

Whether he has enhanced his overall game thanks to a chip on his shoulder or this is an inevitable part of an evolution WWE officials foresaw, it doesn't matter now. Reigns looks like a captivating superhero capable of being the centerpiece for the sports entertainment giant.

The two biggest qualms most fans had about Reigns were he lacked charisma with a microphone in his hand and his matches were one-dimensional, predictable affairs.

In the months since the Royal Rumble and the time following his WrestleMania defeat, Reigns has shown progress in both areas.

He isn't and will never be a grade-A mic-worker. However, he's gone from being a mannequin in interviews to a much more engaging, sneering warrior.

One of the biggest things holding him back as a talker was the fact that he simply didn't seem comfortable. It was like he was trying to swing at a baseball wearing a scuba suit. He hadn't found his voice, and WWE didn't help him out with its scripts. The company asked him to try to get asinine lines over.

His verbal skills have slowly grown better over time.

When he sat down with Michael Cole before Battleground, it was the most at ease we had seen Reigns. He wasn't trying to force things so much. He wasn't being wooden like he had been in the past.

This isn't Dusty Rhodes' "hard times" promo, but it's good enough to be a part of a main event storyline. Though Reigns doesn't have a stellar acting range, he can handle rage and intensity. And in the world of constant feuds he operates in on a nightly basis, that's mostly all one needs.

Besides, a top star doesn't need to talk as much as Cena does.

Undertaker's gimmick allows him to deliver infrequent verbal outbursts and be more of the "talk with my fists" type. WWE can lead Reigns in that direction if it so chooses, but his mic work isn't nearly the set of shackles around his ankles it was once was.

One has to believe he'll get better over time as well.

As for what happens between the ropes, Reigns has taken his biggest strides there. Some within the crowd thought him incapable of putting on an interesting match and doing much more than going on an offensive flurry with the same small set of moves. He's spent the last few months proving them wrong.

He's becoming more varied in the ring, for one. Reigns will never whip out an in-ring arsenal like Dean Malenko's, but his bouts now feature a variation on the Saito suplex, a barrage of clotheslines in the corner and other minor additions to his move set.

Whether he's wielding a long list of moves or not, he's been producing matches worthy of being in the main event.

At first, many wanted to dismiss that as a product of working with superior wrestlers. He excelled against Bryan at Fastlane. "Bryan carried him," some said. He and Lesnar tore the house down at WrestleMania. "Lesnar carried him," folks would say.

How do you explain his getting a really good match out of the plodding, past-his-prime Big Show?

The explanation is that Reigns delivers. He has done so time and time again on pay-per-view this year, earning an impressive number of high ratings from Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

Event	Match	Star Rating (Out of 5)
Fastlane	Roman Reigns vs. Daniel Bryan	4.5
WrestleMania	Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar (vs. Seth Rollins)	4.5
Extreme Rules	Roman Reigns vs. Big Show	4
Payback	Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins vs. Randy Orton vs. Dean Ambrose	3.75
Money in the Bank	Money in the Bank Ladder Match	3.5
Battleground	Roman Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt	3.75

Keep in mind that twice—at both Battleground and Extreme Rules—his match outdid the main event in terms of Meltzer's star ratings.

That's not a fluke. That's evidence of excellence.

As spectators with our hearts tied up in the fate of particular wrestlers, we often believe WWE is trying to slight us. There were many who thought WWE simply wanted to screw Bryan fans by putting its own guy in the top spot instead.

Injuries have since derailed Bryan's career, bringing up questions about whether he will ever wrestle again.

Reigns, meanwhile, the rejected product of the WWE machine, is making Vince McMahon and Co. look smart. They saw stardom of the highest order under that mess of black hair and in those steel eyes. More and more, Reigns' resume looks like what WWE had hoped for.

Pushed off the top of the mountain, he's spent his time making it clear he belongs at WWE's peak.