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- Feb 18, 2008
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I think those few months Roman missed with the hernia really fucked up his momentum. That time off also let the focus stay on Seth and Dean more, which showed people how good they were. It had always just kind of been assumed that Roman would be "the guy" to come out of the Shield, but his time away let people see that Seth and Dean were absolutely on his level, at the very least.
Then Roman came back and had some stumbles in his promos, still had fairly rudimentary wrestling compared to Seth and Dean, and was given absolute shit to work with in terms of his character and those dreadful cartoony promos they gave him. The Rock, Stone Cold, and maybe Jericho could have taken the Jack and the Beanstalk shit and maybe ran with it and made it their own and made it funny, but I don't know that anyone else ever could have done anything not terrible with it. So that time period just amplified his promo weaknesses instead of trying to hide them.
Add to that the fact that Daniel Bryan was back but not going back to the top of the card, and it was a recipe for disaster. I was at the Rumble in Philly and I felt bad for the guy. The WWE left him hung out to dry and it was mostly due to their own mistakes on the creative side.
A year and a half later, he's grown in leaps and bounds in the ring. His promos aren't great, but when they're kept short he can deliver, which is more than some guys can do. My only problem with Roman today is that character is still all fucked up. Sometimes he's still the golly gee babyface. Then he kills HHH and starts to get some good heat. Then he's back to the golly gee underdog (which makes no sense for a guy who looks and wrestles like him). Then he acts like kind of a dick again but it doesn't last. It's like they can't decide whether to bite the bullet and let him be a beast (and a heel) or whether to stay the course and force the "new John Cena" thing that just ain't working. The guy has a lot of talent, but I fear they're ruining him and if they don't right the shit soon it might be hard to ever come back from it.
Then Roman came back and had some stumbles in his promos, still had fairly rudimentary wrestling compared to Seth and Dean, and was given absolute shit to work with in terms of his character and those dreadful cartoony promos they gave him. The Rock, Stone Cold, and maybe Jericho could have taken the Jack and the Beanstalk shit and maybe ran with it and made it their own and made it funny, but I don't know that anyone else ever could have done anything not terrible with it. So that time period just amplified his promo weaknesses instead of trying to hide them.
Add to that the fact that Daniel Bryan was back but not going back to the top of the card, and it was a recipe for disaster. I was at the Rumble in Philly and I felt bad for the guy. The WWE left him hung out to dry and it was mostly due to their own mistakes on the creative side.
A year and a half later, he's grown in leaps and bounds in the ring. His promos aren't great, but when they're kept short he can deliver, which is more than some guys can do. My only problem with Roman today is that character is still all fucked up. Sometimes he's still the golly gee babyface. Then he kills HHH and starts to get some good heat. Then he's back to the golly gee underdog (which makes no sense for a guy who looks and wrestles like him). Then he acts like kind of a dick again but it doesn't last. It's like they can't decide whether to bite the bullet and let him be a beast (and a heel) or whether to stay the course and force the "new John Cena" thing that just ain't working. The guy has a lot of talent, but I fear they're ruining him and if they don't right the shit soon it might be hard to ever come back from it.