Sheamus vs. Roman Reigns Feud Hinges on WWE Creating Sympathy for the Big Dog

The battle for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship will rely on pathos as much as performance, on whether the company can make fans see Sheamus as the cold-hearted overlord and Roman Reigns as a martyr. 

The more WWE can pull in the audience and make them agonize alongside Reigns, the more powerful this story will become. Done right, it will propel The Big Dog and showcase The Celtic Warrior as a top-tier heel.

At the close of Survivor Series, that story began with Mr. Money in the Bank Sheamus knocking Reigns to the confetti-covered mat. After the referee hit a three-count, Reigns—WWE champion for just a fleeting moment—placed his hands on his head, tears building in his eyes.

Seeing Reigns stunned by disbelief, empty-handed after all his efforts, had to win over a number of fans.

Credit: WWE.com

Here he was one more time, cheated out of a chance at glory. This was WrestleMania all over again. But the whole of the audience is not yet behind him, and Sheamus remains a much-maligned wrestler labeled as "boring" by many.

WWE is heading in the right direction to change those things.

It is employing a narrative where Reigns suffers injustice from a swarming, tyrannical faction. On Monday's Raw, that came in the form of Sheamus' interference in his match with Rusev before the revamped Authority tried to swallow him up.

Rusev and King Barrett have apparently joined Sheamus as new members of Triple H's corporate faction.

That promises to keep Reigns constantly outnumbered and frequently beaten down. For that to work, he can't be the Incredible Hulk flinging soldiers around with little effort. On Monday night, he fended off everyone by brandishing a steel chair.

It was too easy. Fans will be more invested the more mortal he is. 

Sheamus will have to gain the upper hand in dastardly fashion. He will have to cheat, make good use of his henchmen and be a symbol of all that is unjust in wrestling's alternate world.

In that way, WWE will be playing out a parallel. It will be Daniel Bryan-versus-the world all over again.

James Caldwell of PWTorch is among those who sees WWE reprising that narrative. He wrote, "It looks like they're going the Daniel Bryan route of beating down Reigns mentally and physically for weeks, trying to build sympathy for an eventual WWE title victory."

Caldwell also asked a key question: "Can they get the majority of the audience behind him like Bryan, though?"

Whether this rivalry bombs or flourishes largely depends on the answer to that. It will be a much different task to humanize Reigns compared to Bryan. While Bryan is an everyman and a natural underdog, Reigns is Superman with a GQ look.

The writers' challenge is to make him not seem like a product of the WWE machine, to make a man nicknamed The Juggernaut feel like the long shot. That will require stacking the deck against him in the way WWE did so often with Steve Austin.

"Stone Cold" wasn't ever just battling a single enemy. The Corporation sent The Stooges, Big Boss Man, The Rock and Triple H after him. He was the action-movie hero surrounded by a phalanx of bad guys. And Reigns is poised to be in the same position.

So far, it appears to be working. As the folks at Wrestling Inc pointed out, the crowd on Monday's Raw looked to be behind Reigns:

To continue to make the No. 1 contender a character fans care about, to invoke pity for him, he needs blockade after blockade ahead of him. The bigger the obstacles in front of him, the easier it is to side with him. Suffering shifts him from superhuman to human.

He needs to face lots of screwjobs, as The Mat Men Podcast Twitter account predicted:

The fact that his next title match is a Tables, Ladders & Chairs bout with no disqualifications creates an opportunity for The Authority to cheat Reigns out of the title again. It's a huge chance to transfer Reigns' frustration to the audience.

WWE has the right instinct in how to get Reigns over and generate heat on Sheamus. Its success now depends on execution. 

The company is in the process of telling an us-versus-them tale, one dependent on whether it can make Reigns feel like one of us, not some robotic gladiator WWE itself created.