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Roman Reigns has reached a level that not many in professional wrestling have touched, let alone in WWE, in years. The Head of the Table finally hit his stride as the heelish Universal Champion on Friday Night SmackDown.
Fans have been clamoring for this kind of run from Roman Reigns for half a decade. But in wanting that, the WWE Universe may have missed out on some of his greatest moments. Through all the heavy booing and outright hatred, fans blinded themselves from some fantastic matches.
Love or hate the guy, Roman Reigns' in-ring ability has always been on point. Looking back on his career, you can see why WWE saw him as the new face of the company. We'll be taking a look at five underappreciated matches from Roman Reigns throughout his career.
If you're looking for his classics with the likes of AJ Styles, Braun Strowman, Seth Rollins, Bray Wyatt, or that fantastic SummerSlam Fatal-4-Way, look elsewhere. We're specifically looking for underrated matches.
Honorable Mentions:
- Roman Reigns vs Buddy Murphy - SmackDown August 13th, 2019
- Roman Reigns vs Kevin Owens vs Big Cass vs Seth Rollins - RAW August 29th, 2016
- Roman Reigns vs Kevin Owens - Royal Rumble 2017
#5 Roman Reigns vs Cesaro - RAW November 16th, 2015
Roman Reigns and Cesaro have clashed a handful of times in WWE. Though we had a stellar showcase between the two at WrestleMania: Backlash this year, one of the greatest matches we got out of the two was in 2015. At this point, we weren't at that peak Roman Reigns hate, but it was getting there.
This was also right after Seth Rollins suffered a freak injury that forced him to abandon the WWE Championship, leading to a sixteen-man tournament to crown a new champion. Reigns defeated Big Show in the opening round while Cesaro knocked off his future tag team partner Sheamus, leading to a stellar quarter-final contest.
Cesaro, always the workhorse, put on an eighteen-minute war with Roman Reigns. Cesaro's incredible power was enough to stall the multi-time WWE Champion, and several times over, the crowd believed he was going to advance. One moment, specifically, saw Cesaro counter a spear with a pop-up European uppercut, and Reigns looked to be out cold.
Roman Reigns had to fight off several submissions as well, as the WWE Universe chanted, "This is awesome!" It was a stellar showcase of both Cesaro's neverending reserves of stamina and Roman's undying will.
#4 Roman Reigns vs Big Show - Extreme Rules 2015
2015 was the year where the WWE Universe began to sour on Roman Reigns. The Big Dog won the Royal Rumble and stormed onto WrestleMania to challenge Brock Lesnar, much to the chagrin of those hoping the returning Daniel Bryan would win the match.
In the years that followed, the WWE Universe showed their disdain for Roman Reigns by booing him out of the building and often missed many of his best matches. In fact, Reigns has been putting on bangers since his debut on the main roster, and fans were just too blinded by unnecessary hate to notice.
Case in point: Extreme Rules 2015. When we learned Roman Reigns would be battling The Big Show in a Last Man Standing Match, nobody expected much. Show was in the twilight of his career at this point, and many still considered Reigns "overrated."
These two tore the house down in a Last Man Standing Match that's often forgotten about, and that's a shame. Roman Reigns and The Big Show threw everything they had at one another in a seemingly never-ending contest.
At one point, Reigns was driven through two tables on the floor with a hellacious chokeslam from inside the ring. He'd later retaliate with a spear to Show through the barricade.
Neither one of those moments was enough to put either man down. It was only when Show had Roman Reigns set up for a chokeslam through the announcer's desk that The Big Dog managed to finally slay the giant. After escaping Big Show's grasp, Reigns speared him into the table.
The Big Show was going to break the count, and that forced Reigns to bury him under the other announce table. With that, Reigns finally kept the legendary behemoth down for the ten-count. This one is a forgotten classic that WWE fans need to relive.
#3 Roman Reigns vs Sheamus - RAW December 14th, 2015
At Royal Rumble 2015, Roman Reigns punched his ticket to WrestleMania 31 and was booed right out of the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Eleven months later, in the same town, in the same building, those same fans that were demanding Roman Reigns' head were screaming and jumping for joy when he won the WWE Championship.
At the Royal Rumble, The Rock couldn't get Roman Reigns cheered. The Rock. The Brahma Bull. The Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment couldn't get a crowd to cheer Roman. But who could?
No, seriously, Sheamus. At Survivor Series 2015 Sheamus cashed in on an exhausted Roman Reigns, who'd just beaten Alberto Del Rio and Jon Moxley in the same night to become the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion. Sheamus would then go onto parody "Austin 3:16" with "Sheamus 5:15" which was the amount of time Roman's first world title reign lasted.
Sheamus and the League of Nations aligned with The Authority. Fans were already sick of the group a year prior, setting Roman Reigns up for the greatest pop of his career. After WWE TLC, where Reigns was again screwed out of the title by the League of Nations and The Authority, Reigns had one final chance to win the gold.
It was a one-on-one match against Sheamus, and if Roman Reigns lost he would be forced to retire. Of course, the deck was stacked against Reigns as Vince McMahon himself was ringside to make sure everything was called "right down the middle."
Reigns had Sheamus beaten, but Vince pulled the referee out of the ring. A bleeding Reigns stared down the Chairman while Sheamus attacked from behind, nearly picking up the win with the White Noise. McMahon then demanded that the ref make a quick count. After shrugging off an assault from the League of Nations, Reigns knocked out McMahon with a Superman Punch, and the crowd shot to their feet.
At that point, the crowd that less than a year before hated Reigns with all their heart were begging to see Reigns come out on top, and that's exactly what they got. Reigns countered the Brogue Kick with a spear, and when the ref counted three, the Wells Fargo Center came unglued.
It was already a great match, with two underappreciated bruisers at the time. Add in the heightened drama of the Authority and League of Nations trying to screw Reigns out of everything he'd worked for, and WWE turned him into the greatest babyface since Daniel Bryan.
...it's a shame they blew it immediately after that, but don't worry, we're not gonna be talking about 2016.
#2 Roman Reigns vs Daniel Bryan - Fastlane 2015
Speaking of matches where fans couldn't see the forest for the trees, Roman Reigns faced off against Daniel Bryan in a match at Fastlane to prove himself ahead of WrestleMania 31.
We've seen Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan face off a few times. These two have incredible chemistry with one another, and it goes all the way back to Roman's time in the Shield when they were battling Team Hell No in their debut year.
However, in 2015 Reigns won the Royal Rumble and punched his ticket to WrestleMania. In an effort to show fans that he deserved the spot, WWE put him in a match with Daniel Bryan at Fastlane that year.
Daniel Bryan believed that Roman Reigns was not mentally prepared for what was to come at WrestleMania 31, and with Bryan coming back from injury three months prior, fans were still hoping to see the leader of the Yes Movement find his way into the Mania main event.
The match-up, much like their feud this year, focused on Daniel Bryan's perfect mat-game and speed against the brute force of Roman Reigns. At a time when fans began to call out Roman for his "moves of doom," a criticism felt by the former face of the company John Cena, Roman broke out a few more complicated offensive maneuvers.
Tilt-a-whirl slams, teardrop suplexes, and belly-to-belly suplexes showed that the heavyweight was expanding his already explosive game, molding into a dominant force. Fastlane 2015 was where Roman Reigns proved he could hang with the best, and was also the beginning of a series of shows throughout the year where he walked away with the best matches of the night.
#1 Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar - WrestleMania 31
At this point, fans were begging for Roman Reigns to lose. Even when it was against the unstoppable WWE Champion and all-around jerk Brock Lesnar, fans couldn't help but boo the Big Dog.
What we were in for was a legit hoss fight, and even when you don't factor in the greatest Money in the Bank cash-in at the end, this match was worthy of WrestleMania's main event spot. It was hard-hitting and a different kind of showcase for both men. Lesnar and Reigns threw their best shots at one another as they walked spaghetti-legged throughout the match.
Almost from the word go, both WWE Superstars realized that they were just one big move away from victory. They threw bomb after bomb, and it seemed that every hit had more force than before. German suplexes, clotheslines, knees, it was a war.
Roman Reigns revealed in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that thirty seconds into the match he even suffered an injury.
"Right off the get-go, I popped him and he scudded me up and ran me into the corner. I think right there I felt a rib shoot out of place. It was a struggle ever since that. From the get-go, I was hurt. He was throwing me around. That's his thing. But I was throwing bombs at the end. He did his thing, and I did mine. I think you saw a couple of juggernauts go at it."
Genuinely, aside from some NXT matches, I can't think of too many WWE match-ups that were as hard-hitting as this WrestleMania main event.
And then...well...
Despite all that, this match is barely an afterthought because what everyone remembers is Seth Rollins' iconic cash-in on Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns. It's one of the greatest moments in all WWE history, hands down. However, fans shouldn't look down on what preceded that moment, as Lesnar and Reigns tore the house down, whether fans wanted them to or not.
Oddly enough, that sums up Roman Reigns' initial four years in WWE; often stealing the show in spite of the fans.
