Roman Reigns responds openly to a WWE push that was too abrupt and forceful. When Joe Anoa’i joined the company in 2010, he was instantly regarded as The Next Big Thing before making his main roster debut in 2012. Although Anoa’i was positioned for success, largely because of his Samoan ancestry, which linked him to The Rock, his initial Big Dog babyface stint was met with negative reception from audiences.
Joe Anoa’i discussed his reign in the WWE as Roman Reigns in an interview with Vanity Fair. He also took the time to discuss the unfavorable crowd reactions that occurred when he was the Big Dog. According to his Vanity Fair profile, he states:
They have a well-educated fan base, and since those shortcomings are obvious, they just won’t accept someone who isn’t completely ready. They were able to spot my weaknesses and the inexperience that still plagued me.
It was really easy. They were truthful, but I wasn’t.
It’s an open admission of what fans had been saying for years prior to Roman Reigns’ rebranding as Tribal Chief of The Bloodline: He wasn’t prepared for his first solo push. Roman’s Big Dog run must be thoroughly examined in order to place Anoa’i’s remarks in a larger context and comprehend what went wrong.
Roman Reigns’ tenure as The Big Dog is regarded as a failure, even though he won the WWE World Championship and participated in multiple WrestleMania main events. For want of a better description, it was a gimmick that was forced upon audiences who expressed their disapproval of it. Roman Reigns was beloved as a member of The Shield with Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins before he became The Big Dog, but he was essentially a blank slate at this time. While Ambrose and Rollins spoke for their promos, he was the quiet enforcer.
After Rollins’ unexpected betrayal, Reigns had to learn on the fly when it came time to start cutting promos and creating his own character. He was thrown into the main event picture before he could fully mature or discover his voice. It didn’t help that a poorly timed hernia injury that would not be healed until weeks before Royal Rumble hindered his progress. When he returned, his lack of promotional skills was revealed, and fans were incensed that WWE had selected Reigns as their heir apparent rather than Daniel Bryan.
The crowd chose Daniel Bryan as their favorite hero, and he abruptly and genuinely became the champion of the people. The Big Dog was despised by viewers because Daniel Bryan felt like a character in every manner that the latter did not. Throughout Reigns’ tenure as The Big Dog, the absence of sincerity would emerge as a recurring theme, and Joe Anoa’i specifically addresses this in his interview. To his point, inauthenticity and inexperience were both working against him, and the WWE audience is astute enough to spot them.
Anoai’s initial run as The Big Dog was prolonged by inauthenticity, as WWE portrayed him as the greatest talker and in-ring performer, even though at the time he was neither. He wasn’t a horrible performer, but he was still a rookie, and fans weren’t satisfied with the expectations placed on him compared to his actual abilities as a young rookie. The flaws in Reigns’ game were not only obvious, but fans were even more incensed when WWE chose to overlook them and continue to support him despite them. Fans disliked the lie that WWE was trying to sell them, but they didn’t detest Reigns as a person or a persona.
It’s also crucial to keep in mind that one of the main reasons why fans didn’t like Roman Reigns was his disagreement with The Authority’s corporate stable. They were presented as the ultimate underdog, up against a machine that was deliberately trying to prevent him from reaching his full potential. In reality, fans knew the exact opposite was true.
For once, fans continued to support The Big Dog as he returned to WWE after his recovery. When Reigns changed his name to The Tribal Chief, authenticity would finally be a key to his success. The Roman Reigns character placed more importance on his family’s legacy in his role as Tribal Chief. As the Head of the Table, he not only surrounded himself with his family but also made supporting them the main goal of his mission statement. The Big Dog’s failure was caused by inauthenticity, whereas WWE used a genuine, accessible quality to combine fantasy and reality.
As a result, audiences continue to find resonance with the character. Beyond the character, he kept becoming better on the mic and in the ring, to the point where he can now legitimately argue that he is one of the WWE roster’s top in-ring wrestlers and talkers, if not the best. Audiences are able to recognize and celebrate development and realism just as much as they are able to see through inauthenticity and inexperience. Roman Reigns is evidence that the WWE Universe is prepared to overlook subpar performances, such as The Big Dog, in order to recognize and reward such progress.
