Roman Reigns hasn’t really had a lot of diversity in his character. We all moved on from whatever he was doing on NXT as “Leakee” pretty quickly, but beyond being “guy who cocks his fist and looks like he’s jerking off and maybe has blue eyes sometimes,” the big punchy dude from The Shield hasn’t really been given a lot of depth.
One former WWE creative writer tried to change that by highlighting his relationship to the Usos:
One of Vince McMahon’s main directives was that programs involving champions couldn’t just “be for the title.” There needed to be a personal issue.
With that in mind, I suggested that we bring in The Usos’ father, Rikishi, to appear with his sons on Raw. My idea was that he would give them a pep talk after they had been named No. 1 contenders, saying they’ve dreamed of being champions their whole lives and now they have to make the most of their opportunity.
Rikishi then accompanies The Usos to the ring for their tuneup match. After an Usos victory, they dance with their father to his music when The Shield suddenly hits the ring and attacks them from behind. After taking out Jimmy and Jey, The Shield delivers a severe beat-down to Rikishi, culminating in a Triple Powerbomb through the announce table (if Rkishi was physically able to take the move).
The following week, The Usos cut an emotional promo in which they reveal that Reigns is their cousin. They’re devastated — and livid — that he physically assaulted their father.
Makes sense, right? The Anoa’is are one of the greatest, most prolific families in wrestling, and includes people like Rikishi, Yokozuna, and The Rock. He continues:
Surely Vince would love the pitch and I’d get one of his “that’s really good thinking” figurative pats on the back. Instead, Vince and Triple H were in agreement that we absolutely should not acknowledge that Reigns is Samoan.
Their belief was that it would pigeonhole him and damage his mystique. The inference was that the audience had a preconceived notion of what a Samoan wrestler is. You know, a guy in a grass skirt who wears a puka shell necklace.
That’s so weird. Who would ever give people the impression that Samoans are any of those thin-oh. Right. Oops.
WWE would eventually come around to acknowledging his Samoan heritage and his relationship to The Rock when they realized that treating your fist like a dick and being bada boom, the wettest guy in the room wasn’t enough to drag the popularity of The Shield along with him into his singles endeavors.
Man, they were totally right, though. Who would ever want to be associated with this guy?
Just the worst.
