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Roman has impressive talents as a wrestler, but they're overshadowed in a lot of ways by his peers. For example, I think Roman's single greatest talent is a natural instinct for timing. He knows just when to react, just when to sell, just when to counter, just when to pop out his superman punch for the coolest looking shot, and that's a very rare and valuable gift. But is he as good at that as the absolute all time master of timing Randy Orton, or somebody with perhaps a lesser ability at timing for moves but a much greater ability for combining it with match psychology to manipulate the crowd like John Cena? Granted they're 15 year veterans at this point, but I would argue they were both better at those things at similar points in their careers to where Roman is now. I think Roman's also quite good at making his offense look hard-hitting. His spears and apron boot and superman punch and tope and other various spots do have a certain visceral nature to them, and in some of his best matches like against Daniel Bryan or Brock Lesnar or even Bray Wyatt in the Cell he displayed a gift for, lacking a better turn, savagery. He can turn up the level of intensity and violence in a match with ease just using body language and facial expressions, and really make it feel more like a fight than a match. But is he better at that than Kevin Owens or Sami Zayn or Bray Wyatt or Dean Ambrose when he's not phoning it in? Again, those guys have years of experience on him, but based on tapes I've seen of them previously they were ALWAYS better than Roman at those metrics. Roman is good looking in a traditional sense and beyond that simple handsomeness he has a "good look," a distinctive style that makes him stick in the mind. He also has good physical charisma and facial expressions. But either he doesn't know how to use them instinctively like Seth Rollins or the New Day guys do, or he's so hamstrung by the writers/bookers in how he MUST use them for his "character," (which seems to be trying to combine Aloof Too-Cool Kevin Nash with White Meat Superman John Cena even though those are contradictory) that it absolutely cripples his ability to get himself over on those alone. And despite those strengths, Roman has terrible TERRIBLE weaknesses. His verbal charisma and talking skills are a black hole that makes AJ Styles look like The Rock, and AJ is infamous for being a bad promo. He promo style is like a carbon-paper copy of people who are much better than him and it makes him that much MORE awful. His ring psychology and generalship are in the toilet, which means that any time he's not wrestling one of the best in the world in those categories his matches are sloppy messes, and this is supposed to be the guy carrying the entire company on his back. His character is a giant mess that breeds resentment and disinterest like roaches, and his presentation continues to try to leech goodwill from The Shield, damaging them as a concept in perpetuity and him as a direct result of that resentment. His moveset is limited and his attempts to expand it have generally been dismal failures, exposing a fundamental lack of skill at the craft that may never be bridged, and while this has never stopped guys like Ultimate Warrior or Hulk Hogan from being mega-stars, the modern audience doesn't like it and that counts for a lot. The best way to make up for a limited moveset is to use feats of strength or technical sequences to make up for them, but Roman is really bad at both of those things, and when you have guys like Cesaro, Styles and Brock Lesnar to compare him to his lacking in those areas stands out even more. In summation? Roman's not bad, but he's worse than pretty much everybody else that the booking places beneath him. He's a jack of SOME trades, a master of maybe one or two, and a failure at the rest, and he's surrounded by a wide variety of Masters that further expose his weaknesses. I like Roman despite everything, and I'll be the first to admit he's done his part to make a lot of great matches the last few years. But he's not what he should be for the spot he's in. That's my story, kthanks.
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Jun 1, 2016 02:08
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 11:53 |
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Fenrir posted:Pretty much my thoughts as well, but you did a better job writing it than I probably would have.  is my specialty. Especially most people won't read.
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Jun 1, 2016 02:36
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smell this posted:The scene opens in an empty corridor of the arena. Roman Reigns stands alone in front of a solitary camera. The Samoan brute brushes his long black hair out of his face. That would easily be the best promo of Roman's singles career.
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Jun 2, 2016 08:04
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LanceBurrito posted:Much like Cena, he'll eventually have enough excellent matches that people will remember that he's the common factor in them. Hey, if Roman puts on 4+ stars with Big Strongman Wyatt I'll take back everything I ever said about the guy. If John and Batista can do it with Khali, Roman needs to be able to do it with his non-union swampman equivalent.
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Jun 3, 2016 07:20
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Big Coffin Hunter posted:Roman Reigns had a really good match with Bray Wyatt who has had worse matches working with similar talent What similar talent has Bray wrestled? Has Roman shared even a single opponent in a major singles match with Bray, other than Bray himself and Daniel Bryan?
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Jun 3, 2016 07:41
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The_Rob posted:Bray is actually really good in the ring. I agree, I'm just wondering what his measuring stick is when he claims that Bray has wrestled similar talent and Roman has proven to produce better matches when I don't think they've ever wrestled the same guy other than "5-star-with-Mops" Bryan.
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Jun 3, 2016 07:54
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RacistGuidingLight posted:Ambrose. Roman's never had a pure one-on-one match with Ambrose, they've only ever met as part of three of four-way bouts. That said, the match with Brock was reasonably close to a one-on-one bout between the two since most of that match's psychology was the pair taking Brock out so they could fight among themselves, and the majority of the actual wrestling done was just those two. If you subtract all of Brock's parts from that match and only focus on the parts of those two working together, I wouldn't rate it any better than Bray vs Ambrose in the Ambulance Match, which was stellar. Bray's only other serious match with Ambrose, the TLC match, was pretty highly rated by most people other than the gigantic flaming dumpster fire of a finish. And if we're allowing poo poo finishes to ruin otherwise great matches, then that applies to the Reigns/Ambrose/Brock Triple Threat too. While it was no Exploding TV, that chairshot nosell into flash spear was such a hilariously awful anticlimax after the teased one-arm Powerbomb to Brock and Dean's Chair Bonanza that it basically ruined the match for me, and unless I'm misremembering the gameday thread I was far from the only one to think so. EDIT: I completely forgot about the Survivor Series main event at the end of the World Title tournament. That was singles vs Dean pure and simple, and it was a very good match despite being super short and a bit underwhelming as the climax of the tournament, plus being overshadowed by the Shaemus cash in. Mae culpa, credit to Roman. Better than vs Bray in the Ambulance match? In my opinion, no. Bray's big match against Kane was a Ring of Fire of match, which is hard for anyone to make look good. Even still, I remember enjoying the match, and considering it was a clean victory that began his big push which lead to incredible mega-overness by Mania six months later, I'd say it was a giant success by any metric. Roman has never had a PPV match against Kane, but most of their outings on TV have been mediocre. Big Coffin Hunter posted:big show I'll give 100% credit to Roman, he and Big Show had a 4 star match in Last Man Standing at Extreme Rules. It was a tour de force, just a plain fun rollicking rip-snorting good time. They 100% nailed it. But does that erase the 5 or so absolutely god-awful horror stories those two put on during that same feud? Because I remember all of those. The Roman-canrana, that ring any bells? Granted, those were all TV matches, and previously I'd only judged PPV singles outings, as I think it's the the most appropriate measure of individual wrestling skill. But Bray has never wrestled Big Show on PPV in singles, so if in this one case I were to compare them on TV bouts AND PPV combined, while I will admit Bray has never had a good one-on-one match with Big Show and Roman has had one, that's still a really crappy batting average for both of them and I don't think it says much of anything about either of them as wrestlers other than Last Man Standing is a really good match to have against Big Show. Alberto Del Rio had a great one against Big Show as well lest we forget. Sanguinia fucked around with this message at 11:50 on Jun 3, 2016 |
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Jun 3, 2016 11:42
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That storyline with Shamus was actually quite excellent in-and-of-itself. Nobody was happy with that Cash In and were dreading Shaemus as Champion, but with Vince's help it actually felt like for once EVER the odds were ACTUALLY against Roman and it made it easy to get behind him. Throw in an Authority Figure actually getting his comeuppance so Roman could look cool and Shaemo making all their matches awesome brutal hoss-offs culminating in a TLC MATCH so there was actually some god drat proper escalation to the feud, and its no surprise that everyone was actually cheering for Roman. They played to his strengths, hid his weaknesses, told a good story, gave the badguys a thumping and everyone went home happy. But then they decided that they had to gently caress EVERYTHING UP AT ROYAL RUMBLE because even when they do everything perfectly they can't leave well-enough alone. They could have done Triple H vs Roman at the Rumble and let everyone actually go home happy with Dean or AJ or Brock winning, but then I guess we couldn't have had "The Mania Where We Will Make Everyone So Miserable They Will Somehow Cheer For Roman." A brilliant master plan there Vince.
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Jun 6, 2016 05:32
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Oh Snapple! posted:It also didn't last and by the time the TLC match rolled around Roman was already floundering again. That match was loving dead in the water and no one cared. Really? I remember that match starting dead but being red hot once the second half really got going, and people being on their feet cheering when Roman won on a level that was reminiscent of his Royal Rumble battle with Batista
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Jun 6, 2016 06:11
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MassRafTer posted:Amazing that AJ Styles was able to carry easily gassed, poor work ethic Roman Reigns to a better match than most of his matches with great wrestlers in Japan. I know your gimmick is contrarianism and 99% of the time PSP posters deserve it for their dumb group-think and poorly formed opinions, but the idea that either of those matches with Roman AJ had were better than most of his New Japan matches is batshit madness.
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Jun 8, 2016 02:26
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RacistGuidingLight posted:"gimmick" Presenting unpopular opinions about Roman or Cena or whatever other thing most PSP posters hate is just posting. Doing it in the most obnoxious possible way in an obvious attempt to rile up the majority hivemind is gimmick posting. You on the other hand RGL, are just a funny dude and I like your posts  I actually also like MassRafter and think he provides a much needed minority counter-point around here, but he can be a bit much in his obvious attempts to stir the pot.
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Jun 8, 2016 02:36
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MassRafTer posted:I like that when confronted with the truth people accuse me of having a gimmick. Since when do you of all people cite to Meltzer Stars as some be-all quality measurement? I'm not taking anything away from Roman's match at ER (Or Payback for that matter, I liked the overbooking and thought it mostly worked, I was a big fan of that bout), but you specifically said "most of his matches with great wrestlers in Japan." As in, those two matches are head and shoulders above the majority of New Japan run matches. Not only is that not even a fair comparison since its holding up two matches within a single feud across a two-month period against an entire multi-year period which just by dint of being a long period of time has a greater chance for a few mis-steps, I frankly just don't consider it to be true.
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Jun 8, 2016 02:46
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MassRafTer posted:I don't want to split hairs but I do not think it is a shocking statement to say the Extreme Rules match was better than 50% of AJ's matches with great wrestlers in Japan. I didn't say head ad shoulders, just that it was better. Meltzer stars are an easy thing to cite since it would be slightly biased of me to list which matches I personally think are worse, and Dave is often accused of rating NJPW matches too highly. Well, I guess that's reasonable. I'll retract my outrage. But I still don't think its in any way logical or fair to compare two matches over a two month period to an entire multi-year run. Of course if you take fewer bites at the apple your average will be higher. RacistGuidingLight posted:Not like MRT needs my help or nothing but y'all lay off him. Saying he posts in bad faith is absolutely rich, considering some of the ridiculous and pedantic attempts attempts at critique on Roman that could be summed up far more elegantly and honestly by simply saying "I don't like him". Considering the myopic criteria for what makes a champ I can't see to many of y'all liking much of anything. As I said, I like MRT and I like the perspective he brings to this forum. I really dislike the groupthink and Reddit-tier poo poo that many folks around here spew. I also don't in any way question the sincerity of his opinions and likes. But I don't think its outrageous to call it like I see it and say he phrases things specifically to get under people's skin. He didn't SAY that Roman is a better wrestler than Okada and Tanahashi, but you could certainly infer it from what he wrote and I can't imagine he didn't intend that to at least a certain degree. Yeah, its SA and everyone always needs thicker skin and to get over themselves, but I'm not going to pretend somebody I disagree with isn't also being kind of obnoxious when they're doing it on purpose.
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Jun 8, 2016 03:07
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RacistGuidingLight posted:Advanced technique. Whatever, if I'm wrong I'm wrong and if MRT said he in no way intended to rile people with obvious implication I'd believe him. I'm just going by what seems obvious to me. Anyway RGL, I want to ask you something: You said that most of the posts about Roman would be more elegant and honest of they just boiled down to "I don't like him." Considering that I'm infamous for feeling the need to explain myself at length about everything, I'm curious: Do you really feel like giving reasons to support "I like/don't like X" is ultimately just obfuscation and/or a waste or effort and the baldfaced emotional statement free of context is more meaningful? And I'm not talking about bullshit opinions based on nothing like "Roman is an entitled poo poo," or "Roman doesn't work hard," I'm talking like concrete examples, specific performances or traits displayed actively on-camera that people can say "This is why I don't like him." I don't necessarily disagree with you, so I'm legit curious.
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Jun 8, 2016 03:26
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MassRafTer posted:As for Rey it's more contained on here but a bunch of goons hated him circa 2010-2014 and posted about how bad he was. Rey's was one of my WCW origin-of-wrestling-fandom favorites alongside Ultimo Dragon, Big Show, Sting and DDP since I was about 10, so I can confirm that in the mid aughts and early 10s there were a LOT of people making GBS threads on him. The boo's he got for using the 619 at One Night Stand 05 are certainly legendary enough. The OSW guys little song about Ron Mastery-O and his blown knee is highly indicative of the hardcore IWC's view of him and how WWE "ruined him." at the dawn of the 21st Century. It's pretty obvious that people have only retroactively re-warmed to him because he became a victim of WWE Contract Bullshit and thus became another outsider to rally behind. That plus some sympathy for that brutal booing he got at RR 14 for not being Bryan that he didn't deserve, and how much it must have sucked having a part in the death of Perro Aguyo Jr. And maybe because of how cool his Lucha Undergound stuff has been this year. Point is, Rey had PLENTY of very vocal smark detractors the last ten years. (To the second point, fair enough. Honestly, after Kaze Ni Nare is done I would take a Roman match first too )
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Jun 8, 2016 03:45
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RacistGuidingLight posted:Neither. Choosing either of these positions would be stupid, and don't reflect anything I've said. Ok, I was just trying to parse the reasons behind your statement. Whatever, if you don't want to respond then forget it. RacistGuidingLight posted:Like what Any of his 50 go-away-heat promo performances would probably qualify.
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Jun 8, 2016 03:49
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RacistGuidingLight posted:He doesn't light my world on fire with his way with words but he's not bad neither, material permitting. People seem to be more forgiving of Kevin Owens. Owens to his credit has a ready wit that gets love throughout here but he dies a traitors death to the crowd on the mic giving heel promo number five with his toneless and unpleasant accent. If he were the face of the company, for example, not saying anyone is pushing for that, I am positive that his weekly Cena-esque assertions as to why he's morally entitled or obligated to win would not sell too many t-shirts or maintain the love of the internet people to say the least. That's a fair opinion. I won't say Roman's NEVER had a good promo, even a few of his longer ones have been far from terrible. But to talk about Owen's specifically, I think the style of your promo has to have intimate ties to your character in order to be good. Owen's low-key sorta-monotone promos play into his character expertly because they contrast with his actions, he acts like he's Mr. Calm and Collected Above-it-all, but he gives hints about his inner narcissism and his bully nature that then fully flower when he does something like take time to stomp Alex Riley while fleeing from Finn Balor at full speed. Roman's character being all over the place doesn't exactly help him in this regard, but just generally speaking I just find it hard to believe in his talking. A lot of people cite to the all-time great promos like Jake or Rock or Flair or whoever because they had energy or intensity or knew how to sell the match or get over themself and their opponent at the same time, but I've always defined a great promo as someone who can make me believe in who they are. I remember Roman once did an interview promo where he related a story about his father teaching him how to swim. A lot of people derided it as being kind of plodding and dumb, but I was way into it. My other favorite promo from Roman? Three words he shouted at Daniel Bryan was he was being dragged away by 50 guys with blood pouring down his face: WAIT TILL SUNDAY. In both cases the reason I liked it was the same: it felt like the words were real, and they matched the actions that went with the character. They brought the persona to life for me. Despite all his physical charisma and his other talents, moments like that where I can relieve believe in Roman are exceptionally rare, and I don't like it. But here I've spent 3 more paragraphs explaining myself. So take what you will out of it.
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Jun 8, 2016 04:28
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oldpainless posted:Roman was number one in the rumble this very year and was one of the last few men eliminated so I don't know how fools can question his cardio Probably the 15 minute nap he took halfway through.
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Jun 8, 2016 05:00
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MassRafTer posted:Look you stay over in the Western Roman Empire and I'll hang in the East. Why did Constantinople get the works?
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Jun 8, 2016 05:58
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That DICK! posted:Roman Reigns has the record for most rumble eliminations and is only of only two and only two men to go the distance as entrant one to win the rumble, alongside WWE Hall of Framer Shawn Michaels. How are you going to tell me this guys not a total badass? He didn't win that Rumble, Triple H did. He won when he entered #19.
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Jun 8, 2016 07:17
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Prokhor Zakharov posted:Whoa is it opposite day and nobody told me!? If it was opposite day wouldn't not telling you actually be telling you?
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Jun 8, 2016 08:04
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VoLaTiLe posted:Roman is the best Samoan genetically engineered from the genes of the greatest Samoans known to man. He can't have any of Samoa Joe's genes, he's not FAT enough
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Jun 10, 2016 05:23
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 11:53 |
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Triple H realized earlier today he should have seen this coming when he suggested that Roman use his Wrestlemania Bonus Check to buy a really high quality tailored suit and Roman replied, "Yeah, I'll buy a suit! OF DRUGS! MWAHAHAHAHA!"
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Jun 27, 2016 07:10
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