Roman Reigns is the current Universal Champion and his current run as the Tribal Chief on Friday Night Smackdown has proven to be his best run yet. Before that for many years, fans have demanded he become a heel and actively rejected him as a babyface and face of the company.
Former WWE writer Brian Gewirtz recently spoke on The Masked Man Show, where he talked about what Vince McMahon might have thought regarding Roman Reigns’ heel turn.
Gewirtz added that it was Vince rejecting ideas for John Cena turning heel and seeing his success, which led him to believe that the same would come true for Roman Reigns.
“When it came to Roman [Reigns], the model was John [Cena], right? Because there were plenty of times when the writers would come in and be like, ‘Can we just turn John heel?’ With the, ‘Let’s go Cena, Cena sucks. Can we do it? Can we pull the trigger?’ And it was something Vince [McMahon] never wanted to do.
“I think the problem was I think he took that approach with Roman as well. I think it was the, ‘Don’t listen to people, trust your gut, Roman’s a babyface, he’s the new face of the company. At some point, obviously that mindset of, ‘We gotta keep Roman babyface, we gotta keep John Cena babyface’ shifted and in this particular case, it’s like similar to when [Hulk] Hogan turned heel in WCW.”
