{"id":18454,"date":"2016-05-04T14:49:32","date_gmt":"2016-05-04T19:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=18454"},"modified":"2016-05-06T01:59:45","modified_gmt":"2016-05-06T06:59:45","slug":"guest-editorial-depressing-reign-roman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/05\/04\/guest-editorial-depressing-reign-roman\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Editorial &#8211; The Depressing Reign of Roman"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-1147417332\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p><strong>Guest Editorial &#8211; The Depressing Reign of Roman<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>By Dave Roughton<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was a massive fan from the Attitude Era until around 2004 where I retired with Steve Austin and The Rock as\u00a0a full-time viewer.<\/p>\n<p>My first show back was WrestleMania 31, and Seth Rollins cashing in and stealing the WWE Title had me sold. I was back. I&#8217;ve thrown myself back in and would considered myself more than a casual fan since then.<\/p>\n<p>I loved Seth, but he was a heel and would get the boos from the crowd (sans Summerslam). Followed by him we had a Roman, who wasn&#8217;t over, Sheamus who wasn&#8217;t close to over, Roman (still not over), The Game as a heel followed by once again an uninspiring Roman reign (no pun intended).<\/p>\n<p>In the 14 months I&#8217;ve been back watching, there hasn&#8217;t been one uplifting, universally over babyface championship reign. It&#8217;s been depressing and the floundering ratings are echoing that.<\/p>\n<p>My mother and uncle, definition of casual fan, watch a Raw replay each Wednesday when they catch up for dinner. They\u00a0were so fed-up and annoyed with the product that they stopped watching before WrestleMania. After Mania, they checked it back out again as Roman was champ and the thoughts of a fresher, finally babyface champion enticed them back. But nope. He&#8217;s booed out of every building and booked as a tweener. They feel dirty cheering him on and supporting him because he&#8217;s not the uplifting champion they were seeking. <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_2003457956\"><span class=\"aQJ\">In 14 months<\/span><\/span> the World Title picture has had nothing but clouds hanging over it for either the casual fan, the smart fan, or like right now, both.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know what the answer is. It might be A.J. Styles, but it&#8217;s not Roman. Roman has improved and his match against A.J. at Payback was terrific. But he&#8217;s not the face of the company they need right now to generate the excitement that the champion should. And, it&#8217;s been that way for a portion of the fanbase since I&#8217;ve been back, and possibly longer before that (I believe Brock Lesnar was heel when he beat John Cena).<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-968458409\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>For WWE, just give us something or someone to universally cheer for;\u00a0remove the negativity from the World Title picture and from the (heel) authority figure aspect of the show. Lift those clouds and let it be fun again.<\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-1670386921\"><div id=\"pwtor-204960249\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Guest Editorial &#8211; The Depressing Reign of Roman By Dave Roughton I was a massive fan from the Attitude Era until around 2004 where I retired with Steve Austin and The Rock as\u00a0a full-time viewer. <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/05\/04\/guest-editorial-depressing-reign-roman\/\" title=\"Guest Editorial &#8211; The Depressing Reign of Roman\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[2632,74,104],"class_list":["post-18454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guesteditorials","tag-guest-editorials","tag-roman-reigns","tag-wwe-title"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ReignsBelt_PegJarret.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18455,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18454\/revisions\/18455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}