7 Ways Fans Were Tricked Into Rooting For Roman Reigns On Raw This Week

The WWE Universe might have shown absolute disdain for Roman Reigns in the past, but it is becoming harder and harder to do with how the company has booked the current Universal championship. In fact, between The Shield reunion, a legitimate-looking win over Brock Lesnar and better promos, it's almost impossible to hate Reigns at this point.

Unfortunately for the WWE Universe, it became even more impossible not to root for Roman Reigns this week on Raw and the company is definitely winning the war on making him the top guy. With that being said and a lot happening on the last edition of Raw to make this happen, here is everything they did in order to get Reigns cheered by the end of the night.

As always, let us know your thoughts about the tactics to get Roman Reigns cheered in the comments below and be sure to let us know if you think WWE will succeed in making Roman Reigns the top guy of the company. Finally, please tell us if you noticed something else WWE did to get Reigns cheered that we may have missed along the way.

---

#7 Teaming Roman Reigns up with Braun Strowman

Teaming up Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman together had an obvious effect on The WWE Universe.

It was interesting to see Braun Strowman and Roman Reigns be on the same page during the opening segment of Monday night raw and there is no doubt that WWE used that to their advantage. Not only was that evident by the one-liners both babyfaces threw at McIntyre and Ziggler, but also by how WWE teamed them up together for the main event

WWE has done this before countless times to try to transfer one person's popularity to another and it seemed to absolutely work Monday Night on Raw. Maybe that was due to how amazing of a team they seemed to be together or by the obvious tension that was there during the match, but the overall intent of the team up was to try to get Braun Strowman fans behind Roman Reigns.

#6 Keeping The Shield apart until the end

WWE seems to always leave fans wanting more when it comes to Roman Reigns and The Shield.

Another genius thing that WWE did was keep The Shield separated for most of Monday Night Raw this week. Not only does that allow for WWE to not overuse The Hounds of Justice to get fans behind Reigns, it also makes it just that much more special when the three Shield brethren finally do unite in the ring to carry out their version of justice.

Of course, it can be a little disheartening to wait until the end of the show to see The Shield all together, but the results have been totally worth it so far. Whether that trend continues or not remains to be seen, but its at least making fans have white hot reactions when the three finally come together and dominate their opponents.

#5 Continuing to keep Reigns a tweener

WWE is exactly a babyface anymore, but he really isn't a heel either.

While WWE has made some questionable booking decisions when it comes to Roman Reigns, one of their best ones seems to be keeping him in a tweener role. At least that way Reigns doesn't have to be overly babyface and can also explore his anti-hero side a little bit, which is really starting to endear him to fans.

Again, the storyline might not be making sense at time, especially since Reigns wants to claim he is a fighting champion and then has his Shield brethren help him take down Braun Strowman, but WWE is doing a really good job of making Reigns look so badass that fans are starting to forget why they hated him in the first place.

#4 Burying Finn Balor

Is WWE trying to make Finn Balor look bad?

While the company originally had high hopes for the high flying Demon king, these high hopes have now become mixed with an unfortunate reality where Balor look far from the main-event star that he is supposed to be.

Even worse, however, is the fact that they are using his loss last week to Reigns and this week to Corbin to completely bury the former Universal champion. Whether fans want to admit it or not, this will sooner or later result in fans giving up on Balor as a top guy, meaning one less superstar on Roman Reigns' ascendancy to the top of the food chain.

Of course, Balor will always have some kind of role in WWE if he wants it and will probably get a few more cracks at The Universal title before his career is done, but may never be the "top guy" in the WWE.

#3 Stringing The Shield out

WWE is doing some interesting things with The Shield right now, but what's the purpose?

It's no secret that The Shield is one of the most popular factions in WWE history and while its fun to trot them all out at once, doing it one at a time makes things more interesting. It also allows fans to break in the Shield storyline action when they need it, which means they are no longer having Reigns shoved down their throats.

Think about it! Staring Reigns off alone at the beginning was a great way to start Raw. It allowed Strowman to make their match and set the stage for the main event. Later on, Seth Rollins battled Owens in an absolute barn burner of a match, which only got fans more and more excited about The Shield's recent reunion

Then WWE brought Ambrose out for his match and against Jinder Mahal, and once again the crowd responded positively due to the association between all three stars. In the end, it allowed WWE to see different segments with The Shield throughout the night and eventually allowed them to set the stage for the final outcome of it all.

#2 Having The Shield get destroyed

Believe it or not, having The Shield get beat up in the main event of Raw had a very specific purpose.

The main event of Monday Night Raw was a bit of a mixed bag of sorts and while it did come at the cost of one superstar's career, it at least allowed The Shield to look sympathetic as they got laid out by Ziggler, McIntyre and Strowman. In fact, it turned the tables and seemingly made The Shield look like the good guys again.

Another thing that added to that is the way that WWE sold The Shield's injuries throughout the night, which was a great bit of storytelling and a great excuse for why the group couldn't overcome Strowman's new squad. It also was a brilliant way to make the feud interesting and set up an eventual six-man tag team match later on down the line.

#1 Turning Braun Strowman heel

Was it the right move?

By far the most obvious land most infuriating move that WWE made in order to get fans behind Roman Reigns was how they turned Braun Strowman heel over the course of one night. Not only was that a bad idea since Strowman is the hottest face right now besides Rollins, but also by what it does to Strowman's future.

In fact, WWE could end up just using Strowman to put over The Shield and finally establishing Roman Reigns as the top guy of the company. In the end, if Strowman loses to Reigns for the title, fans are going to lose faith in him and be forced to throw their support behind someone else.

Maybe Strowman will come out on top eventually and give him the run he deserved more a year now, but that seems really unlikely with current booking The Shield right now. Furthermore, it seems very unlikely that WWE is going to waste a title reign on Strowman when Reigns is growing more and more in fan support by the day.