Roman Reigns and the saga of WWE’s struggle to make stars-Sports News , Firstpost

Over the weekend, WWE star Roman Reigns caused a stir on the internet by teasing that his days at WWE might be drawing to a close.

“I’m starting to work into a new phase in my career, and I honestly don’t know if I’ll be back here again. If that’s the case, I just wanna say thank you for all these years of support,” Reigns, addressing fans at a live event, said.

Reigns, it turned out, wasn’t referring to leaving the company at all but rather a new contract and a lighter working schedule. Nothing new for a top star: see Hulk Hogan in WWE/WCW, The Outsiders in WCW, Brock Lesnar in WWE, Sting in WCW/WWE and TNA and The Undertaker in WWE.

However, on Monday news broke that Reigns hasn’t been advertised at all for the WWE for July and August.

While speculation is rife that Reigns might be doing some TV show or movie or simply taking some well-deserved time-off, the possibility of his absence yet again highlights a larger question: What happens once Reigns’ in-ring career inevitably begins to wind down? And can the WWE become the star-making factory it once was?

But before we get to that, let’s first state plain facts. Roman Reigns, whether some people like him or not, is the biggest star in the entire wrestling industry.

For good reason. The WWE machine has been pushing Reigns –  face, heel or tweener –  as the face that runs the place since 2014. The company has gone out of its way to ensure that no one is on Reigns’ level.

Recall his defeat of The Undertaker at Wrestlemania 33, stacking up Edge and Daniel Bryan at Wrestlemania 37 and pinning them both, handing Goldberg defeat at the 2022 Elimination Chamber and more recently his defeat of ‘The Beast’ Brock Lesnar. Champion for over 600 days, Reigns has proclaimed himself to be operating in ‘God mode’.

But the problem for WWE, which revolves around Reigns and is geared towards promoting him as the biggest star of all time, is that Reigns is already in his mid-30s and is already spoken about someday following in The Rock and John Cena’s footsteps in Hollywood (Reigns had a small part in Hobbes and Shaw).

The company has, in its sole focus on the elevation of Reigns, kept many talents under its heel. Drew McIntyre, for example, of similar age to Reigns has been already pushed as top dog – albeit not the way Reigns has and without similar success.

Randy Orton is the 20-year veteran who has the respect of all, but is hardly new or fresh. Pushing Edge to the top of the card would be nothing but a retread. Matt Riddle is firmly entrenched in his role as an upper-mid card player. Bobby Lashley, 45-years-old and seemingly chiselled out of granite, just lost to the WWE’s latest immobile giant Omos.

The less said about Big E’s title run the better.

And while the company has currently staked its chips on making Theory a star – with John Cena himself singing his praise on social media – it’s far too early to tell if McMahon’s pet project will truly resonate with the fans or be ultimately fall short.

Bron Breakker is a true prodigy, but he’s at least a couple of years of experience short of being truly ready to take on the mantle.

Let’s face it, the biggest star WWE has to replace Reigns in the near future is…. Cody Rhodes.

Yup, that Cody Rhodes. Who left WWE after being unable to break free of a comedy spot in the lower mid-card. The Cody Rhodes that spent the past few years in the WWE’s biggest opposition since the heyday of WCW: All Elite Wrestling.

Which is quite an indictment of the WWE’s ability to get wrestlers over with fans.

Also not great for WWE?  Since its fabled Attitude Era and the war with WCW drew to a close, the WWE has succeeded in making just one mainstream crossover star: John Cena.

While Reigns is certainly the WWE’s top star, he isn’t even close to the same level of star as John Cena, leave alone The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin who are arguably the biggest stars of all time.

To be fair to Reigns, his ascent to the top of WWE took place in the backdrop of a rapidly-changing industry. The company left the PPV business altogether – first in favour of its own WWE network in 2014 which plateaued at around a million plus subscribers – and then in favour of migrating to the streaming platform Peacock in 2021.

But much as the WWE tried to make Reigns the next Cena, Reigns is no John Cena.

Despite his ‘needle-mover’ claims and accompanying T-shirt, Reigns clearly doesn’t sell tickets like Cena – which was made clear by Cena’s last run where he legitimately helped WWE move tickets at live events

Ticket sales struggles

This brings us to WWE’s ticket sales struggles.

Forget the happy talk of WWE’s last conference call and record profits.

Ticket sales – what Vince McMahon has himself repeatedly proclaimed as the barometer to judge the health of his company – are in fact down year over year.

What’s worse, what was once unthinkable actually happened in 2021: AEW actually outdrew WWE in certain markets and was competitive in others.

TV deals

The sole saving grace for WWE is that company is in truly excellent financial health, the biggest chunk of its money coming from its massive TV deals with the USA network and Fox.

This, even as its ratings held steady this year after experiencing a prolonged slump since 2015. While some of that can be excused by TV ratings shrinking as a whole, the WWE’s ratings were, on average, shrinking faster than traditional TV.

Then there’s the new kid on the block: All Elite Wrestling.

Which has, since its inception in 2019, not only proved to be a true alternative to WWE (sorry TNA fans), but actually beaten the WWE occasionally in the all-important 18-49 demo.

The most recent and high-profile example of this was when Smackdown last year – featuring the last half-hour sans commercials with Reigns, Lesnar and Paul Heyman went head-to-head with AEW’s B show Rampage headlined by ex-WWE star CM Punk and Matt Sydal.

Does it need to be said that a three-year-old wrestling company – helmed by a novice booker – should in no way beat the flagbearer of the industry, one which has a forty-year head-start, at anything?

Where does WWE go next?

WWE needs to put their eggs in more than one basket and elevate some fresh stars.

The problem is that since 2002, they haven’t had a winning track record when it comes to picking stars. Cena was a hair’s breadth away from being fired until Stephanie McMahon heard him rapping on a bus while on tour overseas. CM Punk got himself over and was seemingly punished for it.

WWE fought Daniel Bryan’s ascent tooth-and-nail until it had no option but to relent or face the embarrassment of the main event at the biggest show of the year being hijacked by fans.

While WWE could simply break out the old WCW playbook and attempt to lure away AEW’s young guns – MJF, Wardlow, Jade Cargill, Darby Allin, Sammy Guevera – by shelling out the big bucks, that might be more difficult than it first appears.

For one, WWE, in an effort to remain as profitable as possible, has cut dozens of wrestlers and office staff over the past couple of years. Second, management might not want to upset the always unsteady apple cart of the locker room pay structure and the assorted egos that go with it.

And third, AEW might actually be able to match the WWE when it comes to paying for top tier talent.  The company, which earns around $45 million dollars per year in TV rights fees from TBS/TNT, looks poised to receive a massive increase in rights fees.

Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics recently predicted that AEW should receive an increase of 4.5 times its current deal. That would be an incredible achievement amount for a company that’s been around for three years. Not to mention a potential streaming deal with HBO Max or another content-hungry company.

While the WWE is in excellent financial health, the company hasn’t been able to consistently churn out good creative or even elevate home-grown talent particularly since 2018.

With AEW’s continued critical and commercial ascent, Reigns cutting down on his dates and even possibly even making for Hollywood in the not too distant future, the WWE could soon be facing its most turbulent creative times since the early 1990s.

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