Roman Reigns' WWE Title Chase Will Hinge on Avoiding Predictability

Predictability hangs over Roman Reigns' quest to regain the WWE World Heavyweight Championship like brewing storm clouds.

In the continued effort to sell the audience on Reigns as the top hero of the WWE world, the company has him battling his way down a road that we can all see coming. The Big Dog is poised to become the No. 1 contender at Fastlane by outlasting Brock Lesnar and Dean Ambrose before conquering Triple H at WrestleMania.

If that's the plan WWE sticks with, it's going to take major creativity to avoid having that story weighed down by a lack of suspense.

Reigns' pursuit of the world championship boasts a surfeit of intriguing elements. With The Game, Lesnar, Ambrose and the McMahons involved, star power is certainly not an issue. The action with Reigns, Ambrose and Lesnar all promises to be special. And with Triple H holding the gold, there is a major passing-of-the-torch moment in the works.

But as it stands, Reigns' triumph threatens to be underwhelming. As Daily DDT's Rob Wolkenbrod wrote, "Roman Reigns is going to get his WrestleMania moment, but it won't feel like other coronations."

Credit: WWE.com

That's partly because WWE has shown its hand already. Few believe that Lesnar will win at Fastlane and take on Triple H. There have been no hints whatsoever of those two rekindling their old feud.

And The Lunatic Fringe feels like he's been put in the bout just to eat the loss. It's been 26 years since the intercontinental champ took on the world titleholder in WrestleMania's headlining match. That happening again is highly improbable.

The result is a good majority of the crowd looking ahead and seeing Reigns and Triple H on the marquee for The Show of Shows. Foreseeing anything but a Reigns win that night is difficult.

Bleacher Report's Dan Pecoraro questioned the logic of booking the Triple Threat match at Fastlane and said the road to WrestleMania is "shaping up to be predictable":

WWE's options to avoid that are to either throw a narrative curveball at one point or add enough entrancing layers to the story in order to better it.

Many saw Triple H's Royal Rumble win coming. Still, WWE managed to pull off a successful Battle Royal thanks in part to having the audience question what it believed was set to happen.

The League of Nations flattened Reigns, sending him to the locker room injured. The Wyatt Family took out Brock Lesnar as a pack. That made the possibility of a Bray Wyatt win far more plausible. WWE had Ambrose make it to the bout's final two competitors, teasing a shocking upset.  

At Fastlane, WWE doesn't have as many moving parts to work with as it did during the Rumble, though.

Instead, the company will have to convince fans that real tension is developing between Ambrose and Reigns. Teasing a heel turn for either one would elevate the storyline. Fans may have pegged the bout's winner but won't know whether they will get a breakup between these brothers and a heel Lunatic Fringe after everything is over.

WWE can create doubt about whether Reigns will even make it to Fastlane with storyline injuries or by having The Authority set up blockades in front of him ahead of the event.

Selling fans on the possibility of Lesnar facing Triple H at WrestleMania will help, too. Play up his issues with The Authority. Bring up those two enemies' previous battles, and hint at one final showdown between them.

That at least makes fans less sure that Reigns vs. Triple H is on the way. 

WWE's other option is to yank Reigns out of the WrestleMania main event altogether. What if Ambrose turned the audience's expectation upside down by beating both Lesnar and Reigns?

That would be an ideal impetus for a shift in Reigns' character, morphing him into an enraged predator who trusts no one. The upset would open up Reigns to enter an unexpected WrestleMania bout. Ambrose, meanwhile, could be the wild card for that pay-per-view, a symbol of WWE's boldness.

And if he were to dethrone The Game, as Dave Scherer of PWInsider wrote, "You get a real WrestleMania moment and elevate another guy to the top of the card at a time when you desperately need new blood headlining shows."

Reigns has enough of an obstacle in front of him with only part of the crowd convinced he's the right man to lead WWE. He has been in prove-his-doubters-wrong mode for over a year now. WWE can't also hamper him with a tale that unfolds exactly as we all expect.

Innovative storytelling will be Reigns' best tag team partner en route to WrestleMania.