Being John Cena
The road to the “mixed reactions” Reigns is receiving has a lot of similarities to what happened to John Cena. Roman came up to the main roster with The Shield just over ten years after John Cena made his debut against Kurt Angle on SmackDown.
The trajectory was different, as Cena came up as a good guy and almost lost his job because they didn’t properly follow up on his great debut and he was as kept as bland as possible for a few months.
He lucked into being given the rap character after the fateful 2002 SmackDown Halloween party, turned heel, and ended up being so awesome that the character was slightly tweaked and became a top babyface.
He won the WWE Championship after almost exactly 3 years on the roster, and within a few months, the powers that be decided to take away just about everything from his character that made the entire crowd love him.
He very quickly went from the top babyface that WWE so badly needed to the top guy that WWE wanted the crowd to love, but instead, ended up being completely polarising.
Thanks to years and years of great performances and sporadic promos like the one he cut on AJ Styles on the SmackDown before Royal Rumble, the crowd has come around to him enough that you see moments like his 16th World title win.
He was cheered much more than he was booed upon his victory. He still gets “Let’s Go Cena - Cena Sucks” chants, but the crowd generally is more on the “Let’s Go Cena” side than the “Cena Sucks” side. It has taken him a long time to get there.
Roman Reigns was getting major cheers after his initial heel run with The Shield. The team itself turned face, and in the 2014 Royal Rumble match people were actually receptive to having him take home a victory (after their heroes were eliminated and it became clear that Batista was going to win).
He was a complete badass, and the crowd loved him. WWE messed up when they started having him talk, and more importantly, pander to the crowd, which was a stark contrast from what he did as a member of The Shield.
Dean Ambrose was chosen by the fans instead of Roman Reigns because he was a likeable, crazy, fearless dude who didn’t pander to the crowd. He didn’t change. Reigns started smiling and making silly jokes, and the crowd turned on him just like they did when John Cena did the same.
And the hatred has kept on growing with the continued silly jokes and the separation from the character that made him popular in the first place.
