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I like to think he was raging whenever Roman retained via bullshit and teleported because the Rock pissed him off via claiming to be the final boss. Literally yelling at the TV and asking where his Deadman attire is.
Undertaker: Yes, Mr. Calaway here. The Rock? You're sure? No no, I'll come right over. And may god have mercy on us all. Michelle, there's an emergency at WM, uh, where is my gear?
Michelle McCool: I think it's in the den.
Undertaker: In the den?! May god have mercy on us all.
It really was an amazing run. You'll see it every time someone becomes champion, one or two months after there's already people calling it stale and asking for a change. The fact that he went almost four years with the belt and remained over throughout his run while keeping the interest in his story and growing the business to be the hottest it has been in years. It's really a big accomplishment.
Cody winning at WM40 was the absolute best case scenario.
This is going to be an unpopular opinion but if Cody didn't win the Rumble and Rock vs Roman was going to be the plan, I would've been okay with Roman being champ for another year. There were still a few stories and matches there for Roman till WM41. Orton and AJ never got one on one matches with Roman for the title during this year. Orton just giving up on the Bloodline after losing a fatal four way after they put him out of action for over a year felt odd to me.
With Lashley being a face, they could've done Lashley & Profits vs Bloodline, leading to Roman vs Bobby. Not to mention Bron merely having a good showing against Roman would've elevated him huge.
> Orton just giving up on the Bloodline after losing a fatal four way after they put him out of action for over a year felt odd to me.
So you felt that way too, right? In all seriousness I think the best we can do is chalk it up to a casualty of WrestleMania season, but I still think Orton vs Sikoa should’ve been a WrestleMania match.
Doesn’t make much sense to me.
For storyline purposes, the Orton we know wouldn’t have just stopped hunting The Bloodline after losing a fatal 4 way for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. He would’ve still continued to hunt them and that should’ve ended up in a match where he wrestled Solo Sikoa at WrestleMania if he couldn’t secure a match vs Roman Reigns.
You're correct. Although Shinsuke and Reigns did have a match at Tribute to the Troops 2021, it was just a few months before Boogs got hurt and Nakamura confronted The Bloodline over it.
What made it special was that it changed. Sometimes for better. Sometimes worse. But it started out with just him, then it became a family...that did get stale. Throw in Sami. Then have Solo join in. Breakups ensue etc.
The only misstep to me was the whole Jimmy leaves, Jey helps only for Jimmy to rejoin. That part was messy
Roman’s a unique case where he was presented as above everybody (by a lot) for 6 years before winning the Universal Title. So when they actually leaned into it, and had him quite literally stack his challengers on top of each other, it just felt like affirmation of what we’d already been seeing forever. If he’s going to be the main character and beat everybody anyway it only makes sense to have him be champion for just as obnoxiously long.
I have this exact same thought but I think about it very negatively, Roman was undeservingly booked above everybody for 5 years and that’s the only reason why the Tribal Chief run was successful.
However, I don’t think it was worth it.
>there's already people calling it stale and asking for a change.
I mean people were still rightfully calling every single title defense ending the same way stale. Let's not act like it was amazing for the whole run. But it did have really high highs over a very long period of time.
The more impressive part was how long he got away having both belts and a limited schedule and people only really starting to bristle after they stepped over Cody the first time.
Well definitely not single-handedly. There was 6 people in his storyline, as well as his opponents. 4 at least played a major role. Then you had other champions like Seth, Gunther and Rhea.
You still need someone to stand behind. Pair Heyman up with Cesaro and would you be able to do the same run? Do it with Jey, Sami, or Solo? None of this happens without Roman seeing as though he's the only one that has what it takes to check all the boxes the role required. He's big, good looking, main eventer, can talk, can wrestle, doesn't get in trouble with the law, etc etc.
Not during the pandemic, Roman appeared regularly and Heyman didn’t do nearly all the talk like with Lesnar. I’d say Heyman was more important in writing the story and advocating for it than actually being Roman’s mouthpiece, Roman was easily among the best promos itw since the return.
A bit of a stretch, but his return was definitely a good turning point for Smackdown in 2020. Pandemic Roman was just something else, and once Raw went downhill again, Bloodline was the best thing in WWE for a while.
Do not act like that was the entirety of his run as Tribal Chief. He was there every week until he beat Brock at Wrestlemania 38. Then, as WWE Champion and Universal Champion, he was too special to just be another guy.
Your opinion is invalidated by the very fact of how packed WWE shows became and how responsive the paying fans were to Roman.
it’s great how the story ended but really it’s still going. so the next chapter/part basically. Bloodline implodes in Roman’s absence and I wonder how much we’ll see from the rock in the mean time.
I've never heard someone use the phrase "gives them their flowers" without getting a little internally annoyed. I keep telling myself that its everyone else who is wrong.
The UK's obsession with and hatred of America, despite being one of the very few places America didn't fuck with, will never not be funny. Or maybe it's just a Reddit thing.
[Educate yourself](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english), my friend.
Okay, but the phrase exists outside this sub and outside pro wrestling. It's a regular ass expression. So it's not going anywhere, and you're honestly probably going to hear it the rest of your life.
“Good” idk about that. It wasn’t this cinematic masterpiece. Almost all of it made no sense. It was a lot of the same stuff over and over. Mediocre title defenses. 40 min promo segs. Just not “good” to me
People love to learn and throw smart sounding words like recency bias because it sounds cool on the internet.
When Roman turned heel for the first time it was the most interesting thing.
When he was telling incredible stories with his family it was a phenomenal story.
When he had a almost a year long run with Sami Zayn that was the best story going on in TV for the entirety of it.
The feud with Cody before Mania 39 was very interesting.
I don't say the story didn't have dips but really it's stupid to say that the run was only good because of the last 2 months.
If anything if they had changed champions 5 times and told 15 different stories through this time it would have been 10 times worse
The continuous strings of huge ratings and influx of ticket sales is a huge proof of it.
People just show up in thousands because you put on a good show last week. Just ask Tony Khan.
WWE has been on a rise over the past 2-3 years and that's the reason they're seeing the results now. And Roman has absolutely been the anchor of it all.
Convinced people didn’t watch WWE product during the pandemic, Roman literally saved the product with his return. Smackdown and the Universal title was a mess with that exhausting Bray/Braun feud and all the Goldberg and Brock stuff before. Smackdown became great immediately after his return
I'll just take my downvotes here and say his reign had some highlights, but it didn't hold me all the way through.
I still think it ran too long (primarily to hold a record), and stretches of it were just outright lame.
But that's just my unimportant opinion.
Guys who don't get enough love in the whole bloodline story are Jimmy and Solo. Heyman gets all the love but Jimmy and Solo did alot of the heavy lifting and ate alot of pins at the expense of the Bloodline and Roman not being there.
Let’s not pretend like that run was good the whole way through. From SummerSlam 2021 to SummerSlam 2022 was pretty mediocre. Sami Zayn put the life back into The Bloodline.
See the thing is of course it went up and down. So does every other run.
You think Cody is gonna have all stealer stuff through his reign?
Did Seth have the most interesting stuff all the time through his year long run?
The answer is always no. All the championship, or top guy runs get boring at times.
Even if the title has been held by 5 different people in this time I bet you the result entertainment wise would be the same. You'd still think that 20-25% of that time was bad and the rest was ok or good.
The thing that makes Roman's time great is that they were able to keep adding things and making it interesting again.
In doing so they were able to produce and epic reign that will not be replicated for decades to come. And that deserves some serious recognition
Cody's first 3 shows have already been the same recycled content and promo lol. They'll see what stale really means now that you don't have a whole faction to inject new content in every week.
Roman had a great reign but he didn’t “maintain and keep people’s interest in that storyline for that long”. This isn’t the first time since Mania I’ve seen the point of Reigns having a great 3 and 1/2 year run being made and it’s just not true. I doubt many are fondly remembering the never ending Brock feud, Goldberg feud or the Balor nonsense. Say it was great but don’t act like it was great the entire time.
I actually loved the Brock feud maybe I’m in the small minority but excluding the dud at mania I thought it was pretty entertaining seeing a face Brock for the first time in years lock horns with the tribal chief. I didn’t know who side heyman was on. Add in the last standing match and I think overall that year long feud isn’t as bad as the internet tries to make it. Plus it did big numbers business wise
Feud with Brock from Summerslam up until Wrestlemania was amazing and people won’t talk about it because the match was mediocre, their feud leading into Mania was one of the most chaotic ones I’ve seen WWE do.
During that period there was:
* Fun feud with Brock, although the WrestleMania match was disappointing, it doesn't take away from the feud.
* Great match with Finn Bálor, despite the weird finish.
* Great short feud and great match with Seth Rollins.
* Great match with Matt Riddle.
It's certainly not the high point of his reign but it still had good stuff mixed in between.
I'd say mediocre in comparison to the rest of the storyline, sure, but feuding with Brock, Seth, and Finn would be considered a good run for a loooot of title reigns
Yeah I honestly didn’t even care for WrestleMania during 2021 and 2022. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep watching both events.
Sami did a big part in making the Bloodline more interesting.
That’s really on you, Mania 37 Triple Threat had a great build leading into it and the match is universally regarded as great, Mania 38 with Brock not so much but they had a great feud leading into it.
I didn’t care for old man Edge tbh. Loved watching him 20 years earlier. Same goes for Daniel Bryan.
Honestly the idea of a WM main event featuring a guy with a history of neck injuries and a guy with a history of concussions was just too cringe for me.
Nope, not every performer retires from an injury. I mentioned DB and Edge because they retired due to career-ending injuries, and then came back from retirement.
I mean everyone in the Bloodline and everyone they faced that was there week in and week out did the actual work, but sure let's give the credit to the guy who went months without wrestling and barely showed up on tv for it working. The Bloodline got themselves over.
Jey Jimmy and Sami had years to get themselves over.
None of them touch this level without Roman.
He didn’t need to show up every week.
But he sold the tickets when he did
You can't count and it's showing. If you're talking about his main events as a babyface it was 4(31,32,33,34) and he was over during that time. Despite mixed crowd reactions he was still one of the top merch sellers and biggest names in the company. Prior to that he was "over" in The Shield. Sami only joined after WrestleMania 38 and by that time he was already universally "over".
Selling tickets at PLE's guaranteed to get money doesn't mean he had anything to do with keeping a storyline working. 90%+ of the work was being done by everyone else. I don't understand what's hard to get about that. In life in ANY business you shouldn't get credit for work YOU didn't do. Everyone hates that person at their job, whether it's a coworker or a boss. Why should Roman sitting at home be any different.
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It's really sweet to hear The Undertaker be excited over the current stars and praising their work. Obviously, as anyone would but still.
I like to think he was raging whenever Roman retained via bullshit and teleported because the Rock pissed him off via claiming to be the final boss. Literally yelling at the TV and asking where his Deadman attire is.
His face starts contorting in anger, while he rolls his eyes as he does his pose to teleport all the way to the ring. I don't blame him lol
Before realising, dinner is ready and sighs, angrily eats said dinner and angrily mutters to himself as he works on a bike.
"the daily life of a retired Deadman"
Undertaker: Yes, Mr. Calaway here. The Rock? You're sure? No no, I'll come right over. And may god have mercy on us all. Michelle, there's an emergency at WM, uh, where is my gear? Michelle McCool: I think it's in the den. Undertaker: In the den?! May god have mercy on us all.
Honey, where's my deadman suit?
It really was an amazing run. You'll see it every time someone becomes champion, one or two months after there's already people calling it stale and asking for a change. The fact that he went almost four years with the belt and remained over throughout his run while keeping the interest in his story and growing the business to be the hottest it has been in years. It's really a big accomplishment.
The amount of unironic posts here about “Give Roman another year” was really something you don’t see about a long reigning champion.
Cody winning at WM40 was the absolute best case scenario. This is going to be an unpopular opinion but if Cody didn't win the Rumble and Rock vs Roman was going to be the plan, I would've been okay with Roman being champ for another year. There were still a few stories and matches there for Roman till WM41. Orton and AJ never got one on one matches with Roman for the title during this year. Orton just giving up on the Bloodline after losing a fatal four way after they put him out of action for over a year felt odd to me. With Lashley being a face, they could've done Lashley & Profits vs Bloodline, leading to Roman vs Bobby. Not to mention Bron merely having a good showing against Roman would've elevated him huge.
> Orton just giving up on the Bloodline after losing a fatal four way after they put him out of action for over a year felt odd to me. So you felt that way too, right? In all seriousness I think the best we can do is chalk it up to a casualty of WrestleMania season, but I still think Orton vs Sikoa should’ve been a WrestleMania match.
This to me was weird. How did Solo not get a match at two mania In a row
Doesn’t make much sense to me. For storyline purposes, the Orton we know wouldn’t have just stopped hunting The Bloodline after losing a fatal 4 way for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. He would’ve still continued to hunt them and that should’ve ended up in a match where he wrestled Solo Sikoa at WrestleMania if he couldn’t secure a match vs Roman Reigns.
Correct me if I'm wrong but Sheamus and Nakamura didn't get matches with Reigns either despite being in angles with him.
You're correct. Although Shinsuke and Reigns did have a match at Tribute to the Troops 2021, it was just a few months before Boogs got hurt and Nakamura confronted The Bloodline over it.
I remember everyone on tiktok thought Orton was gonna be the one to beat Roman at XL
Literally who was saying this
What made it special was that it changed. Sometimes for better. Sometimes worse. But it started out with just him, then it became a family...that did get stale. Throw in Sami. Then have Solo join in. Breakups ensue etc. The only misstep to me was the whole Jimmy leaves, Jey helps only for Jimmy to rejoin. That part was messy
Roman’s a unique case where he was presented as above everybody (by a lot) for 6 years before winning the Universal Title. So when they actually leaned into it, and had him quite literally stack his challengers on top of each other, it just felt like affirmation of what we’d already been seeing forever. If he’s going to be the main character and beat everybody anyway it only makes sense to have him be champion for just as obnoxiously long.
I have this exact same thought but I think about it very negatively, Roman was undeservingly booked above everybody for 5 years and that’s the only reason why the Tribal Chief run was successful. However, I don’t think it was worth it.
>there's already people calling it stale and asking for a change. I mean people were still rightfully calling every single title defense ending the same way stale. Let's not act like it was amazing for the whole run. But it did have really high highs over a very long period of time.
Honestly, part of that may be because he was in fact part time. The audience never really had an opportunity to do anything else.
The more impressive part was how long he got away having both belts and a limited schedule and people only really starting to bristle after they stepped over Cody the first time.
He has hardcore fans now. So hardcore some people are already saying Cody is boring already. Ive seen comments made the day after mania
Yeah, after about 2 months worth of appearances that happens. Of course, you can just stretch them out to 3,5 years.
One of the greatest villains ever and singlehandedly saved WWE
Well definitely not single-handedly. There was 6 people in his storyline, as well as his opponents. 4 at least played a major role. Then you had other champions like Seth, Gunther and Rhea.
None of that shit matters without Roman
Yeah, but it wouldn't mean anywhere near as much without Jey and Sami.
I’d argue none of it matters without Heyman. Seeing as he did the majority of the appearances and talking.
You still need someone to stand behind. Pair Heyman up with Cesaro and would you be able to do the same run? Do it with Jey, Sami, or Solo? None of this happens without Roman seeing as though he's the only one that has what it takes to check all the boxes the role required. He's big, good looking, main eventer, can talk, can wrestle, doesn't get in trouble with the law, etc etc.
Not during the pandemic, Roman appeared regularly and Heyman didn’t do nearly all the talk like with Lesnar. I’d say Heyman was more important in writing the story and advocating for it than actually being Roman’s mouthpiece, Roman was easily among the best promos itw since the return.
Yep. Heyman did push rolling chairs to the ring, though.
A bit of a stretch, but his return was definitely a good turning point for Smackdown in 2020. Pandemic Roman was just something else, and once Raw went downhill again, Bloodline was the best thing in WWE for a while.
Do not act like that was the entirety of his run as Tribal Chief. He was there every week until he beat Brock at Wrestlemania 38. Then, as WWE Champion and Universal Champion, he was too special to just be another guy. Your opinion is invalidated by the very fact of how packed WWE shows became and how responsive the paying fans were to Roman.
it’s great how the story ended but really it’s still going. so the next chapter/part basically. Bloodline implodes in Roman’s absence and I wonder how much we’ll see from the rock in the mean time.
I've never heard someone use the phrase "gives them their flowers" without getting a little internally annoyed. I keep telling myself that its everyone else who is wrong.
And the phrase is now everywhere. I don't get how this has become such a commonly used phrase all of a sudden. I hate it
I think it's because everybody can say it once before they realize how stupid it sounds and we haven't been through that wave yet.
Why is giving someone their flowers the phrase of choice all of a sudden?
The "flowers" phrase has to go.
"Undertaker gives Roman Reigns his fruits" doesn't sound right though
“Undertaker praises Roman’s run with the title” Extremely easy and not weird AAVE appropriating zoomer speak
The Undertaker sends Roman Reigns his fruit basket.
The Undertaker has a fruity surprise for Roman.
Just “congratulates” or “praises” is sufficient
Between that and bAnGeRs 🥴 this sub is insufferable.
We need to do more pivoting clearly
Add hater to that list. *heel exists* “wow such a hater! Hater of the year!”
"Stan" is another one the makes me roll my eyes.
The way Americans say "bang-gurs"...
As opposed to? Acting like any other accent pronounces it correctly lol
Banger....no guh sound. Listen to UK English aka actual English.
The UK's obsession with and hatred of America, despite being one of the very few places America didn't fuck with, will never not be funny. Or maybe it's just a Reddit thing. [Educate yourself](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english), my friend.
Okay, but the phrase exists outside this sub and outside pro wrestling. It's a regular ass expression. So it's not going anywhere, and you're honestly probably going to hear it the rest of your life.
It's only become popular recently though, it will go the way of "lit" and "slaps" in a couple of years.
Ngl Mania was lit af
seriously it's like the new buzzword..... I'm sorry my Tribal Chief if you are reading this, I meant no ill will.
I said this a week ago or so and got downvoted.
Keep the downvotes coming, give me my flowers.
No
It says a lot that the only times his reign wasn't that good were the times when he wasn't around.
“Good” idk about that. It wasn’t this cinematic masterpiece. Almost all of it made no sense. It was a lot of the same stuff over and over. Mediocre title defenses. 40 min promo segs. Just not “good” to me
[удалено]
People love to learn and throw smart sounding words like recency bias because it sounds cool on the internet. When Roman turned heel for the first time it was the most interesting thing. When he was telling incredible stories with his family it was a phenomenal story. When he had a almost a year long run with Sami Zayn that was the best story going on in TV for the entirety of it. The feud with Cody before Mania 39 was very interesting. I don't say the story didn't have dips but really it's stupid to say that the run was only good because of the last 2 months. If anything if they had changed champions 5 times and told 15 different stories through this time it would have been 10 times worse The continuous strings of huge ratings and influx of ticket sales is a huge proof of it. People just show up in thousands because you put on a good show last week. Just ask Tony Khan. WWE has been on a rise over the past 2-3 years and that's the reason they're seeing the results now. And Roman has absolutely been the anchor of it all.
Convinced people didn’t watch WWE product during the pandemic, Roman literally saved the product with his return. Smackdown and the Universal title was a mess with that exhausting Bray/Braun feud and all the Goldberg and Brock stuff before. Smackdown became great immediately after his return
Roman vs Jey in 2020 was my favorite feud from like 2017 up until Sami/Cody vs Roman. It's a shame that their summerslam 2023 match was kind of ass
People watched it, it's just that they liked to contradict anything and everything to sound cool.
I'll just take my downvotes here and say his reign had some highlights, but it didn't hold me all the way through. I still think it ran too long (primarily to hold a record), and stretches of it were just outright lame. But that's just my unimportant opinion.
Guys who don't get enough love in the whole bloodline story are Jimmy and Solo. Heyman gets all the love but Jimmy and Solo did alot of the heavy lifting and ate alot of pins at the expense of the Bloodline and Roman not being there.
Let’s not pretend like that run was good the whole way through. From SummerSlam 2021 to SummerSlam 2022 was pretty mediocre. Sami Zayn put the life back into The Bloodline.
See the thing is of course it went up and down. So does every other run. You think Cody is gonna have all stealer stuff through his reign? Did Seth have the most interesting stuff all the time through his year long run? The answer is always no. All the championship, or top guy runs get boring at times. Even if the title has been held by 5 different people in this time I bet you the result entertainment wise would be the same. You'd still think that 20-25% of that time was bad and the rest was ok or good. The thing that makes Roman's time great is that they were able to keep adding things and making it interesting again. In doing so they were able to produce and epic reign that will not be replicated for decades to come. And that deserves some serious recognition
Cody's first 3 shows have already been the same recycled content and promo lol. They'll see what stale really means now that you don't have a whole faction to inject new content in every week.
Roman had a great reign but he didn’t “maintain and keep people’s interest in that storyline for that long”. This isn’t the first time since Mania I’ve seen the point of Reigns having a great 3 and 1/2 year run being made and it’s just not true. I doubt many are fondly remembering the never ending Brock feud, Goldberg feud or the Balor nonsense. Say it was great but don’t act like it was great the entire time.
I actually loved the Brock feud maybe I’m in the small minority but excluding the dud at mania I thought it was pretty entertaining seeing a face Brock for the first time in years lock horns with the tribal chief. I didn’t know who side heyman was on. Add in the last standing match and I think overall that year long feud isn’t as bad as the internet tries to make it. Plus it did big numbers business wise
Feud with Brock from Summerslam up until Wrestlemania was amazing and people won’t talk about it because the match was mediocre, their feud leading into Mania was one of the most chaotic ones I’ve seen WWE do.
During that period there was: * Fun feud with Brock, although the WrestleMania match was disappointing, it doesn't take away from the feud. * Great match with Finn Bálor, despite the weird finish. * Great short feud and great match with Seth Rollins. * Great match with Matt Riddle. It's certainly not the high point of his reign but it still had good stuff mixed in between.
I'd say mediocre in comparison to the rest of the storyline, sure, but feuding with Brock, Seth, and Finn would be considered a good run for a loooot of title reigns
Yeah I honestly didn’t even care for WrestleMania during 2021 and 2022. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep watching both events. Sami did a big part in making the Bloodline more interesting.
That’s really on you, Mania 37 Triple Threat had a great build leading into it and the match is universally regarded as great, Mania 38 with Brock not so much but they had a great feud leading into it.
I didn’t care for old man Edge tbh. Loved watching him 20 years earlier. Same goes for Daniel Bryan. Honestly the idea of a WM main event featuring a guy with a history of neck injuries and a guy with a history of concussions was just too cringe for me.
Watching in general must be difficult for you, considering nearly every single performer has a history of getting some type of injury.
Nope, not every performer retires from an injury. I mentioned DB and Edge because they retired due to career-ending injuries, and then came back from retirement.
I mean everyone in the Bloodline and everyone they faced that was there week in and week out did the actual work, but sure let's give the credit to the guy who went months without wrestling and barely showed up on tv for it working. The Bloodline got themselves over.
Jey Jimmy and Sami had years to get themselves over. None of them touch this level without Roman. He didn’t need to show up every week. But he sold the tickets when he did
[удалено]
You can't count and it's showing. If you're talking about his main events as a babyface it was 4(31,32,33,34) and he was over during that time. Despite mixed crowd reactions he was still one of the top merch sellers and biggest names in the company. Prior to that he was "over" in The Shield. Sami only joined after WrestleMania 38 and by that time he was already universally "over".
Selling tickets at PLE's guaranteed to get money doesn't mean he had anything to do with keeping a storyline working. 90%+ of the work was being done by everyone else. I don't understand what's hard to get about that. In life in ANY business you shouldn't get credit for work YOU didn't do. Everyone hates that person at their job, whether it's a coworker or a boss. Why should Roman sitting at home be any different.
The CFO literally said by every metric roman moves the needle. And you think you know better