WWE: Negative Backstage Reaction To Roman Reigns’ Promo On Raw

Roman Reigns cut a lengthy promo in the middle of the ring on this past Monday’s WWE Raw.

He recapped his feud thus far with Bray Wyatt in what sounded very awkward and drawn out. The crowd that packed the Allstate Arena in Chicago on Monday were not feeling Reigns’ promo either as they began to chant “what” at him, to which Reigns replied, “ya’ll can’t hear me or something?” The “what” chants continued until they got tired of chanting it and let Reigns’ know how they were feeling by chanting “boring” at him. The “boring” chants must have hit a nerve with Reigns as he replied back, “no Chicago, this ain’t boring baby. This is real life!”

The crowd weren’t the only ones who hated Reigns’ promo as reports say there was a very negative backstage reaction to Reigns’ promo according to WrestlingInc. The general feeling amongst those backstage is that Reigns should have never been given that much time to speak.

Last night’s WWE Smackdown tapings took place where Reigns cut another long promo. Similar to the fans in Chicago, the Cincinnati crowd gave Reigns the “what” treatment as well. Since Smackdown is taped, the WWE can always drown out the “what” chants to make it seem as if they never happened. However, doing this is still doesn’t do any help for Reigns’ mic skills and his ability to verbally connect with the audience.

Here’s Reigns promo from Raw if you missed it or feel like watching it again:

Mark’s reaction:

I was cringing the whole way through Reigns’ promo. You can see he’s clearly struggling to get through it. He has this looks on his face like he’s really trying hard to either remember his script or search for the right words to say. He’s just not a very good speaker. It’s as simple as that, not everyone is. I blame the WWE for doing this to him. They know he has trouble talking at length in front of a crowd, it’s happened plenty of times in the past and they did it again on Monday. If he can’t speak, he can’t speak. They need to stop pushing him into being something he’s not (John Cena).

Reigns’ character should talk as little as possible, but when he does speak have him say something short and intimidating. Kind of like what they’ve been doing so well with Braun Strowman. They’ll have him talk very briefly when Bray Wyatt does his promos, and it works. It works because what he says is short, creepy, and intimidating. Those brief few sentences are all we need to know to get who Braun Strowman is and what his characters all about. They were taking this approach with Reigns for a while but have now decided to revert back to their old ways of giving him lengthy promos. Hopefully this negative backstage reaction means less talky and more wrestling for Roman.

Did you feel Reigns’ promo on Monday was boring? Do you think it was partially the crowd’s fault for bombarding him with “what” chants, or is it fair game? The “what” chant debate on whether the chants should stay or go is often a lively one so I’d be interested to read your thoughts in the comment section below.