Quote:
Originally Posted by BigCrippyZ
You can't be serious or this stupid. They've been pushing him as the next guy since Royal Rumble this year. Just because the fans shit on the idea of him winning at Mania against Lesnar did they pull back a little and hold off.
If Vince & co. could've gotten away with putting the title on him at WM, they would've. If Vince & co. could've kept presenting him as a bubble gum, Cena 2.0 baby face, who kept cutting long, horribly written promos they would've. Hell, they could still fall back into that pattern at anytime.
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That's just not accurate.
No doubt he was being pushed as the NEXT top guy at the 15 Rumble, but he wasn't THE GUY yet. They made a mistake IMO by putting him next to Daniel Bryan. The crowd was still hot for Bryan after the effective job that was done building him and his subsequent injury.
They decided to pump the breaks on his meteoric rise at Mania and start telling a story where he has to struggle to get to the top. Rollins was clearly always going to get the belt at some point in the first half of 15 because he had the briefcase. Likely Reigns would have been screwed and they would have done a chase story for him to get the belt back.
In pumping the breaks on the push, he became the 2nd or 3rd from the top guy on most shows. Cena and Lesnar and others worked with Rollins at the top of the card. That's not positioning Reigns as the top guy for that time period. Even as recently as Hell in a Cell he was at best 2nd from the top.
Post HIAC they started to position him as the focal point, but Rollins got hurt and derailed those plans. WWE to their credit came up with this 6 week arc that saw Reigns go from looking like the hand picked champion to an underdog that tough towns like Boston and Philly were screaming like little girls to see him win. I would say it's been a successful 6 weeks on top for Reigns, and some epic booking along the way even when faced with difficult circumstances.