History Wrestling / RomanReigns

** For all the hype of WWE promoting Roman's 1000+ days reign as Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, as of November 2023, he has only defended his title 54 times, including in house shows and dark matches [[note]]That's practically less matches most wrestlers competed in a year[[/note]]. In comparison, Hulk Hogan, whose first reign Roman aimed to surpass, has defended his title a whopping ''468 times''[[note]]Hogan even defended his title for a whole week in NJPW[[/note]]. Even other wrestlers who held a World Championship for over a year have (Wrestling/CMPunk and Wrestling/AJStyles]]) have them defeinding their title nearly a hundred times despite their reigns' lasted a quarter of Roman's. Add to the fact that he rarely wins a match without outside interference [[note]]as opposed to Lesnar[[/note]], all the promos make it hard to swallow and don't do Roman any justice. He ''is'' a heel champion, but this makes it a bit harder to take him seriously as a dominant one.

** For all the hype of WWE promoting Roman's 1000+ days reign as Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, as of November 2023, he has only defended his title 54 times, including in house shows and dark matches[[note]]That's practically less matches most wrestlers competed in a year[[/note]]. In comparison, Hulk Hogan, whose first reign Roman aimed to surpass, has defended his title ''468 times''[[note]]Hogan even defended his title for a whole week in NJPW[[/note]]. Even [[Wrestling/CMPunk CM Punk's]] second WWE Championship reign has him defending the title 141 times despite lasted a quarter of Roman's. Add to the fact that he rarely wins a match without outside interference [[note]]as opposed to Lesnar[[/note]], all the promos make it hard to swallow and don't do Roman any justice. He ''is'' a heel champion, but this makes it a bit harder to take him seriously as a dominant one.

** For all the hype of WWE promoting Roman's 1000+ reign as Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, as of November 2023, he has only defended his title 54 times, including house shows [[note]]That's practically less matches most wrestlers competed in a year[[/note]]. In comparison, Hulk Hogan, whose first reign Roman aimed to surpass, has defended his title ''468 times''[[note]]Hogan even defended his title for a whole week in NJPW[[/note]]. Even [[Wrestling/CMPunk CM Punk's]] second WWE Championship reign has him defending the title 141 times despite lasted a quarter of Roman's. Add to the fact that he rarely wins a match without outside interference [[note]]as opposed to Lesnar[[/note]], all the promos make it hard to swallow and don't do Roman any justice. He ''is'' a heel champion, but this makes it a bit harder to take him seriously as a dominant one.

** For all the hype of Roman's 1000+ reign as Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, as of November 2023, he has only defended his title 54 times, including house shows. In comparison, Hulk Hogan, whose first reign Roman aimed to surpass, has defended his title a ''468'' times. Even CM Punk's second WWE Championship reign has him defending the title 141 times despite lasted a quarter of Roman's. Reigns ''is'' a heel champion, but this makes it a bit harder to take him seriously as a dominant one.

** For all the hype of Roman's 1000+ reign as Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, as of November 2023, he has only defended his title 54 times, including house shows. In comparison, Hulk Hogan, whose first reign Roman aimed to surpass, has defended his title a ''468'' times. Even CM Punk's second WWE Championship reign has him defending the title 141 times despite lasted a quarter of Roman's.

* CharacterShilling: His initial singles run following the Shield break up in 2014 has commentators and backstage officials, both in and out-universe, constantly praising his wrestling skills and performance non-stop, despite most of them are full of crap and is nothing more than WWE trying heavily to push Roman as the best. Most notably, Paul Heyman was heavily critised in 2015 when he commented that Roman is better than "any other guy in history" and everyone from the likes of Wrestling/BrunoSammartino, Wrestling/HulkHogan, Wrestling/AndreTheGiant, Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin, [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]] and Wrestling/JohnCena are inferior to Roman.

In September 7, 2021, the Pro Wrestling Illustrated magazine declared him the second best wrestler of 2021, behind Wrestling/KennyOmega, for their annual PWI 500 listing. He would go on to take the top spot the next year in 2022, becoming one of seven men to top the list more than once. [[note]]Along with Reigns, Omega, Seth Rollins, Triple H, Steve Austin, and Bret Hart have all been #1 twice, with John Cena having been #1 three times.[[/note]]

** Roman's FaceHeelTurn of late 2020 sees him playing a role similar to that of a ruthless [[TheDon Mafia Don]]. He's placed a significant emphasis on family (and being the one who is at the top of the family), showing tough love to [[Wrestling/TheUsos his subordinates]], has some AffablyEvil moments (such as refusing to fight Wrestling/KevinOwens because "there's a lady in the ring"), and is obsessed with using fear as a weapon of control and power. Additionally, he rarely gets his own hands dirty, throwing his cousin Jey Uso into the fire to fight his battles for him. For bonus points, Roman is Italian on his mother's side. His rivals have actually derided him as a "community theater mob boss” or the like.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Even though Reigns is currently a {{Heel}}, he gave Lesnar a rather nasty NoHoldsBarredBeatdown (including busting the latter's head open) during the ''MSG 2022'' event. Considering the fact that Lesnar had no problems doing the same to Reigns back when he was the {{Heel}} with Heyman at his side during their 2018 feud, Reigns' actions are understandable to a degree.
** His beat down of Seth Rollins at the 2022 Rumble qualifies as this as well. Despite Roman the top heel in the company in terms of place on the card, Seth is far more despicable as a heel, making Roman the face by default.

* AnimalMotifs: With dogs. The Shield was known as the Hounds of Justice and was used as attack dogs by CM Punk and the Authority. During his initial singles run, he was known as the Big Dog. Fitting as a dog, he was the most loyal member of the Shield and cares for his compatriots. As the Tribal Chief, he is often compared to a bulldog, a big brute who bullies others who are smaller than him and if he is being sadistic at the moment, he is likened to a rabid dog.

Reigns has held that title for more than 900 days now, defending it successfully at three consecutive ''[=WrestleMania=]'' events, including a title-for-title match at ''[=WrestleMania=] 38.''

* ContrastingSequelMainCharacter: Roman is often considered to be the next Wrestling/JohnCena, ie the face of the company, and much like Cena, Roman was often booed by fans despite being a babyface. The main difference between the two is that Cena started out as a heel jobber, who slowly climbed up the ladder to become a main event star while Roman started out as part of a major faction and was immediately pushed as a main event talent the moment he went solo. Cena tends to wear bright colors and his characters are highly charismatic and engaging toward the crowd, whereas Roman wears dark colors and doesn't speak much. While both receive negative responses from the audience, Cena either ignores and sometimes goes along with them while Roman slowly lets their criticism corrupt his sanity and morality. What made Roman's rise to the top so turbulent, in fact, is that the company tended to ''ignore'' the differences between the two of them and push him as if he were Cena anyway, which the fans hated because they didn't ''want'' a new Cena after over a decade of having him on top. Ultimately, Roman was only able to truly succeed Cena as the next face of the company by turning heel, as that was as far away from Cena's character as you could get.

* FunnyBackgroundEvent: When the Wrestling/WWERaw and Wrestling/WWESmackDown ''Wrestling/SurvivorSeries 2016'' teams faced off and Wrestling/ChrisJericho puts Wrestling/AJStyles' [[ItMakesSenseInContext soccer mom hair]] on [[TheDreaded The List of Jericho]], Roman could be seen trying to read it over Jericho's shoulder at various points.

* VillainousBreakdown: By the end of the 6/17/2023 episode of ''[=SmackDown=]'', it was obvious that the normally icy, collected Tribal Chief was already ''seriously'' off his game after Jimmy's betrayal at ''Night of Champions 2023,'' snapping and losing his composure at Jey and Heyman with greater frequency. So when Jey followed his brother's example that night and swerved Roman by taking his brother's side, punctuating the declaration by flattening Roman with a superkick, it was the final nail in Roman's sanity. The final shot of him on the show, before another double superkick from both Usos shut him up for good, was that of a disheveled, feral-looking Roman ''screaming'' obscenities at his cousins, something he had never done in his entire run as the Tribal Chief.
* VillainousBSOD: In a perhaps surprising bit of continuity, Roman's Tribal Chief character (although consistently booed, being a {{heel}}), is prone to being broken by especially antagonistic crowds. Whenever an audience is overwhelmingly virulent towards him, he tends to fall into something of a ThousandYardStare, sometimes shaking his head defiantly as if saying "No, please, not again..." as he endures memories of similar hostilities during his time as a babyface.

* BigStupidDoodooHead: At ''Money in the Bank 2023'', while the London crowd sings "stand up if you hate Roman", Roman responds by childishly whining to Wrestling/PaulHeyman that "England's the worst, the dumbest place of all of time."

** HoistByHisPetard: He would find himself on the receiving end of one at ''Money in the Bank 2023'', when he pinned Jey Uso after nailing him with a Spear...only for Jey to strike him between the legs with his arm as he kicked out.

* AGodAmI: During his ''Tribal Chief'' run. This trope was subtly there at first, but ''really'' kicked in after he defeated Brock Lesnar to unify both the Universal and WWE titles at Wrestlemania 38, effectively becoming ''the'' top heel in WWE. As the man himself put it, he's in "GOD mode" (as in "Greatness On a Different level").

* InvincibleVillain: ... he surprisingly turns heel and has a change in character. No other heels have been more successful than Roman, and that includes the likes of Triple H, Hollywood Hulk Hogan, Seth Rollins and even Brock Lesnar. Roman has held the Universal Championship for more than two years, becoming the longest world champion in history since Hulk Hogan's first reign, and went through every big name in the roster including the likes of [[HeroKiller Daniel Bryan, Rey Mysterio, Edge, Matt Riddle, Drew McIntyre, Cody Rhodes]], Finn Bálor in his [[SuperMode "Demon King" persona]], [[InvincibleHero John Cena, Goldberg]] and fellow InvincibleVillain ''Brock Lesnar''.

** His feud with Wrestling/SethRollins was cut short after Reigns required emergency surgery because of a hernia.

* AGodAmI: During his ''Tribal Chief'' run. This trope was subtly there at first, but ''really'' kicked in after he defeated Brock Lesnar to unify both the Universal and WWE titles at Wrestlemania 39, effectively becoming ''the'' top heel in WWE. As the man himself put it, he's in "GOD mode" (as in "Greatness On a Different level").

** Ironically, Heel!Roman can’t get fans to boo him. Well, at least that was the case until his abuse of his own stable reached CompleteMonster levels. There's a thin line between EvilIsCool and EveryoneHasStandards.

** Ironically, Heel!Roman can’t get fans to boo him.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Roman's FaceHeelTurn of late 2020 sees him playing a role similar to that of a ruthless [[TheDon Mafia Don]]. He's placed a significant emphasis on family (and being the one who is at the top of the family), showing tough love to [[Wrestling/TheUsos his subordinates]], has some AffablyEvil moments (such as refusing to fight Wrestling/KevinOwens because "there's a lady in the ring"), and is obsessed with using fear as a weapon of control and power. Additionally, he rarely gets his own hands dirty, throwing his cousin Jey Uso into the fire to fight his battles for him. For bonus points, Roman is Italian on his mother's side. His rivals have actually derided him as a "community theater mob boss” or the like.