Ric Flair’s podcast seems to be no more for whatever reason, but that didn’t stop him from hopping on Jericho’s pod to talk about the current state of the company (along with crazy war stories from his territory days).
One major thing Flair talked about was the fan reception of WWE World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns:
Look at the match him and AJ [Styles] had [at WWE Payback]. Holy cow! What a match. Start, restart, start, restart. And you know, AJ flies around. [Jericho] should know. He works [Jericho’s] style of work, but Roman hung right there with him for 30 minutes. Roman [has] got legs. It makes him a better performer. You can’t [boo him] anymore. But he just had to work hard to win them over. But the company just proves everybody right. They did the right thing. Bret [Hart], I just saw Bret the other day, but Bret was hammering the company for the way they treat Roman. Roman’s as happy as can be. Bret’s fine now, too! As long as he can put the Sharpshooter on me, he’s happy.
Flair is as big a corporate mouth piece as there is, so he generally backs most of what WWE does. But the jury is still out on Roman’s long-term staying power. Reigns has been able to hang with the best wrestlers in the business, but he hasn’t been able to catch on as a popular figure. Part of this problem was the way he’s been booked. After being so popular and winning over the Philadelphia crowd, creative absolutely castrated him for the Royal Rumble by having him limp to the back and still lose. Things just went downhill from there.
There’s probably good money in a Roman Reigns heel turn to really test his ability — hell, maybe this is the Roman Reigns heel turn. Whatever the case, it’s probably not bad to have the greatest wrestler of all time co-signing your ascension.
(transcription h/t to Wrestling Inc)
