Poor Roman Reigns. Poor, poor, poor Roman Reigns. All the guy wants is to be taken seriously and at face value on his own (totally worthwhile) merits, but on both ends of the spectrum, wrestling fans and WWE just can’t get out of their own way to undermine what he’s trying to accomplish.
For a while now, WWE has been editing and manipulating video and audio to try and make it seem like wrestling fans hate Reigns slightly less than they (admittedly, largely irrationally) do. WWE has muted crowd boos for Reigns on several events, including the main event of WrestleMania 32 last year. Muting the boos has done nothing but call more attention to the fact that people are booing the guy. Luckily, WWE’s latest Roman Reigns sleight of hand is a bit more deft.
On last week’s episode of Raw, Reigns lost the United States Championship in a handicap match. If you watched the match live, you might have caught a fan jumping for joy when Chris Jericho (a hell) pinned Reigns (a face?) to capture the title. One week later, a recap of that match on Raw was edited, with the footage instead showing the same fan looking saddened and horrified … which was from a different point in the match. Pretty sneaky, WWE, but wrestling fans catch everything. EVERYTHING.
And the celebrating/saddened fan himself has confirmed that yes, he was happy that Reigns lost and yes, he was cheering for Chris Jericho. THE SMOKING GUN(N).
https://twitter.com/totaldivaseps/status/821162508480344066
https://twitter.com/zorak303/status/821444317382344704
Given how silly this whole thing is … and considering that Chris Jericho is involved … I wouldn’t be shocked if this actually got called out on next week’s Raw as a good way for team Chris and Kevin (or Kevin and Chris) to get under Reigns’ skin one last time before the Royal Rumble. If nothing else, it’s good for a nice little chuckle. Thanks, WWE! Who says Raw isn’t entertaining? Not me!
(h/t TJR Wrestling)
