8 Wrestlers Roman Reigns Couldn't Get Over
WWE has made Roman Reigns the face of their franchise over the past few years to strong success. Roman found his groove by tapping into his heel persona as the Tribal Chief, but his push started many years before. The face run of Reigns saw him also become the top star with a polarizing reception from the audience.
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History goes even deeper as The Shield was used as a tool partially to make Roman a bigger star. Every step of the way saw WWE hoping that some talents would benefit from working with Reigns. Success stories like Drew McIntyre, Sami Zayn, and Braun Strowman got over due to their time with Roman. Unfortunately, the Tribal Chief couldn’t get the following names over as effectively.
8 Jinder Mahal
WWE tried to push Jinder Mahal a few times in the main event picture with failed results. Everyone remembers the WWE Championship experiment that didn’t work out on SmackDown. However, it gets overlooked that Mahal received another main event angle on the Raw brand after getting drafted there.
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Roman Reigns was tasked with having a singles feud against Jinder designed to get the latter more over as a top heel. No one took Mahal seriously as he predictably lost the feud and looked overmatched. WWE started to realize that Jinder just wasn’t going to be a top star after this program flopped.
7 Matt Riddle
The Tribal Chief era of Roman Reigns’ character featured him usually making anyone he works with look like a bigger star. Matt Riddle remains a rare name that didn’t get over as much as WWE had hoped when placing him in a feud with the Bloodline.
Rumors leaked of Riddle being a pet project to become a long-term main eventer when facing Reigns. A loss ended his chance to ever challenge Roman again, but he suffered a worse loss by not increasing his star power. Riddle struggled without Randy Orton at his side to see his momentum squandered around this time.
6 Elias
Roman Reigns moved to SmackDown in the brand split draft for the first time when WWE wanted to make the show feel more important ahead of the move to Fox. The first feud for Reigns was a weird one when working against mid-card mainstay Elias of all people.
Vince McMahon introduced Elias as the biggest acquisition in SmackDown history only for Roman to upstage them. Elias didn’t become a bigger star and moved right back down the card after losing to Reigns. This felt like a waste of Roman’s time in the short and long-term picture each.
5 Bobby Lashley
WWE often protected Roman Reigns in matches by trying to avoid having him take many clean losses. One of the rare forgotten instances of someone getting the better of Roman was Bobby Lashley. The unlikely face vs face scenario saw WWE trying to get Lashley over after a horrible first feud with Sami Zayn.
Lashley scoring the clean win didn’t even elevate him to a higher level. Fans weren’t into his generic babyface character upon returning, and he didn’t get over until a heel turn. Lashley has since become a fixture in WWE’s upper card, but the Reigns win from his early return months isn’t even remembered.
4 Prime Time Players
Roman Reigns’ first title win in WWE featured him and Seth Rollins teaming up to win the WWE Tag Team Championships representing The Shield. There were various tag feuds against credible names like Daniel Bryan, Kane, Randy Orton, and the Usos.
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One forgotten feud featured the Prime Time Players feuding with The Shield’s tag team in hopes of getting them more over. WWE had high hopes for Darren Young and Titus O’Neil, but they never came off as realistic threats to dethrone Roman and Seth.
3 Rusev
WWE moved Roman Reigns down into the mid-card title scene after his suspension for violating the Wellness Policy in 2016. Reigns won the United States Championship and tried to elevate that belt by feuding with Rusev over the next few months.
Rusev was struggling to move into a place of relevance after his undefeated streak ending to John Cena and the on-again/off-again romance with Lana doomed him. Roman loved working with Rusev since they had good matches, but it did little to get Rusev over as he continued to tread water after putting over The Big Dog.
2 Erick Rowan
One of the strangest storylines of Roman Reigns’ career featured a mystery person trying to injure or even kill him with some crazy near incidents backstage. Fans expected Daniel Bryan to be the reveal since he was a top heel, and his enforcer Erick Rowan was spotted at the scene of the crimes.
However, it was to reveal Rowan as the attacker and give him a big singles push vs Reigns while Bryan turned face to unite with Roman. Rowan reuniting with Luke Harper for a tag match against them was the peak of the feud. Fans never bought Rowan as a top singles threat vs Reigns or afterward.
1 Baron Corbin
The worst feud of Roman Reigns’ career came against Baron Corbin shortly into the King Corbin persona. WWE badly wanted to make Corbin a credible top star to pay off the investments of him retiring Kurt Angle and winning the King of the Ring tournament.
Corbin recruiting Bobby Roode and Dolph Ziggler to help him orchestrate attacks and even pouring dog food on Roman lingered way too long. WWE kept dragging the feud on with the hopes of getting Corbin over along the way. Fans were just happy that Reigns winning ended the feud with Corbin struggling to find a top role since then.
