UnderdogMindset

Booed by fans and cancer to best WWE story and character

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Roman Reigns
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Posted: Apr 2, 2023 Updated: Jun 20, 2023
Cancer Doubters Wrestling

Roman Reigns today is the greatest WWE superstar by far; no one has pinned him in the last three years. It is tough to imagine any point that he wasn't the "Head of the Table," but for a while before 2020, he was regularly booed by fans.

Reigns was a member of the popular stable, The Shield from his debut in 2012 to 2014. After the group disbanded, Reigns became a single competitor and was pushed as a face to win many matches and belts, which caused fans to start rooting against Roman. As a result, some considered him the "most despised wrestler" in the company and a failure.

Another unfortunate setback for Roman was his leukemia cancer returning in October 2018. He was first diagnosed with it in 2008 before he even started wrestling, which he kept secret from the public. Fortunately, his leukemia went back into remission a few months later. He would return to the WWE shortly and start getting cheered a bit more.

It was not until 2020, when Roman became a heel, that he became the number one superstar in WWE, and Roman's storyline, The Bloodline, became the best story in wrestling in many years.

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Quotes

We're all fighting some battle, Someone is out there connecting with you during your fight, even if you don't realize it. If my story can somehow inspire someone to push another hour, or go through another treatment, then everything I went through was all worth it.

Roman Reigns

As I’ve gotten older, empathy is something I’ve had to work on. I look and I see through the lens of different perspectives, so I have that understanding as a human. But at the same time, when I run into tough sh-t, I push forward. The negative stuff? It ain’t for me. We’re gonna move forward, lock-in, and create something positive here. Because I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy.

Roman Reigns
References

  • Persona and reception of Roman Reigns

  • Wrestlemania 39: How a Samoan dynasty became the greatest wrestling family of all time

    Since 2020, the three of them -- dubbed The Bloodline -- have been involved in one of the most compelling storylines in the history of professional wrestling, one that has made a mark in television ratings and at the box office.

  • 'That Was My Introduction to Manhood': Roman Reigns Opens Up About His Battle With Cancer

    It’s been nearly four years since Roman Reigns made an announcement that rocked the WWE — and the entire sports entertainment world — to its core. On Oct. 22, 2018. It was the last episode of Monday Night Raw before a highly-anticipated Crown Jewel pay-per-view. Roman Reigns – scheduled to defend the WWE Universal Championship that weekend – stood in the center of the ring, and let the world know of a secret he had been keeping from everybody.

  • Inside the rebirth of Roman Reigns: From hated to hero and back again

    Reigns, a 6-foot-3, 265-pound former All-ACC defensive tackle at Georgia Tech, let down his guard. He dropped character. And he confessed a secret to millions that only his closest friends and family knew up to that point.

  • Heal Turn: After Beating Cancer, Roman Reigns Finds a New Purpose

    Roman Reigns had headlined four straight Wrestlemanias before this year's event. But earlier this month, at WWE's signature show at MetLife Stadium, he was content simply to be on the card.

  • WWE superstar Roman Reigns announces his cancer is in remission, returns to action on Raw

    Four months after WWE superstar Roman Reigns courageously announced during an episode of Raw that his real-life battle with leukemia was forcing him to relinquish the universal title and step away from the ring effective immediately, Reigns made an appearance on the same program Monday to provide fans with an update on his fight. And boy was it a good one.

  • Roman Reigns: the biggest failure in professional wrestling history?

    And yet, outside of short periods Roman never really got over. Week in week out there would always be a contingent of fans who would just sit there and boo him, However, I never really considered it to be Roman’s fault. He was blatantly booked too strong, and the millions of people. WWE creative ignored all fan response in their relentless pursuit to push Roman Reigns.

  • The highs and lows of a record-breaking WrestleMania 32

    WWE started building Roman Reigns as the next great hero of the company about 18 months ago, and in that time has achieved the exact opposite: Reigns is the most despised wrestler WWE has had since it turned Sgt. Slaughter into an Iraq-sympathizing traitor in 1990. Honestly, that's nothing to sneeze at, even if it happened by accident. Reactions like Roman received from the crowd at AT&T Stadium on Sunday are priceless in the wrestling business. The problem is, WWE seems determined to ignore the reaction entirely, choosing instead to mute the crowd mics than to embrace its new despicable star.

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