WWE Raw's Plan To Get Roman Reigns Cheered Vs. Jinder Mahal Is Already Backfiring.





WWE Raw officials think having Roman Reigns feud with Jinder Mahal will get him over with the crowd, and man ohman, are they in for a rude awakening.




According to the Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer (h/t Ringside News ), Mahal vs. Reigns is essentially a replacement feud for "The Big Dog" after he was originally expected to face Brock Lesnar at Money in the Bank on June 17. With Lesnar no longer set to wrestle at Money in the Bank , WWE switched gears and is moving forward with a feud between Reigns and "The Modern Day Maharaja," turning the nightmare of many fans into a harsh reality in the process.




The logic behind having Reigns feud with Mahal is simple: It is WWE's latest attempt to quiet the boo birds for Reigns, and an almost comically bad one at that.
As Meltzer also pointed out on Wrestling Observer Radio (h/t Ringside News ), WWE is attempting to replicate the same storyline we saw with Daniel Bryan in 2013 and 2014 when Bryan had to overcome The Authority, a.k.a. WWE management, attempting to hold him back and prevent him from reaching the top of the WWE mountain.

They’re trying to tell the story and I can’t believe it because they’ve been trying for a couple of months, but they’re still trying to tell the story that [Roman Reigns] is Daniel Bryan and management is screwing him over and that’s why he’s not the champion. But nobody buys it.


And it's already backfiring.


Fan vitriol and resistance of Reigns is at an all-time high, but Raw's viewership is hitting a new low. Viewers have been tuning out in droves since WrestleMania 34, and fan dissatisfaction with the push of Reigns reached a boiling point at Backlash when fans were so feud up with the fact that Reigns was main eventing (and winning) instead of AJ Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura that there was a mass exodus from the building while the match was still going on. The following night's Raw was the least watched episode of 2018, too.








WWE's solution? Pair Reigns with Mahal, a heel who is despised in much the same way Reigns is. There is a thin line between legitimate heel heat and "go away" heat, and Mahal toes that line more than any of WWE's other villains. The general consensus is that Mahal's six-month main event run on SmackDown didn't work out, and the evidence says it wasn't a business- boosting move in India (or in the US) like WWE wanted it to be. Mahal may be fine as a midcard heel, but he's widely viewed as nothing more than that, and fan discontent with his WWE title reign was eerily similar to the ill will fans are feeling toward Reigns right now





That's what makes it such a baffling creative decision for WWE to think a Mahal vs. Reigns feud is anything but a disaster waiting to happen, especially given that Money in the Bank will take place in front of a, well, unfriendly Chicago crowd.

Neither star has proven to be a
substantial draw alone, so they likely won't draw well together. Mahal was widely seen as the main reason why the SmackDown product was so lackluster for much of 2017,and in fact, the show's ratings hit a 2017 low as soon as his push began. The push of Reigns, meanwhile, has gotten so overbearing that fans are finally making a statement by walking out of WWE live events as their way of telling fans they've had enough of "The Big Dog."

But with Lesnar apparently gone for an extended hiatus, whatever Reigns is doing will be pushed as the biggest storyline on Raw while Lesnar is out. WWE doesn't even seem to care that Braun Strowman, Seth Rollins, Finn Balor and Elias,among others, are putting Reigns (and Mahal, for that matter) to shame with the reactions they're currently generating. WWE also is ignoring the fact that a two-on one attack by Balor and Sami Zayn on Reigns during Raw's main event last week resulted in a chorus of cheers from the crowd, as did Mahal's blindsided attack on Reigns.

So, desperation comes calling in the form of a Mahal/Reigns feud that will not accomplish anything WWE wants it do, namely getting Reigns cheered.





If anything, the opposite will prove to be true, and we'll somehow end up in a parallel universe where Mahal gets cheered more than WWE's supposed top babyface.

Recent reports indicate that Vince McMahon still views Reigns as "the guy," but when is the guy not the guy?

Fans made it clear long ago that they are unwilling to accept Reigns as WWE's top star, but they've shown that they'd be more than willing to accept someone like Rollins, Strowman, Styles or Daniel Bryan in that role. Having Reigns feud with Mahal, Lesnar or any other major heel won't change that. At this point, only an extended heel run could be the saving grace for Reigns, but WWE appears unlikely and unwilling to commit that.




So, desperation comes calling in the form of a Mahal/Reigns feud that will not accomplish anything WWE wants it do, namely getting Reigns cheered.

If anything, the opposite will prove to be true, and we'll somehow end up in a parallel universe where Mahal gets cheered more than WWE's supposed top babyface.

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