WWE solved that problem … for a night, anyway. That cash-in never happened, because Lesnar hit Strowman with an F5 and then repeatedly beat him over the back with chair shots to leave him unconscious at ringside. Meanwhile, as soon as Lesnar stepped back into the ring, Reigns met him with a spear and a 1-2-3 to end Lesnar’s title reign. You would think that WWE, knowing it had an issue that it had to hide with Reigns winning, would rather look for a finish that wouldn’t get that response, instead of masking a bad finish to cover up a negative reaction. WWE thinks it solved a problem, but all it did was pretend the problem doesn’t exist. That doesn’t solve anything. But the truth is, the Reigns character has not connected with the fanbase. Television numbers might be good enough to rake in $2 billion in television rights, but in reality WWE’s viewership is on a steady decline. WWE got paid, for no other reason, than it’s 52-week original programming, and even more importantly, it’s live-event programming. Vince McMahon wants Roman Reigns to be his top babyface, and with his stock price at a near record high, and the television rights fees soaring, the fans rejecting Reigns does not matter. Vince is betting — and he’s probably correct — that the fans rejecting Reigns is not a large enough portion of the audience to make a dent in WWE’s bottom line. Or, he believes that the fanbase that rejects Reigns will still buy their tickets regardless of whether or not Reigns is pushed as champion. He might be correct on the latter. The Reigns rejection is nothing new. He was rejected a the 2015 Royal Rumble in Philadelphia, even though the Rock came out and endorsed him to end the night. Yet here we are, three years later, and that same fanbase continues to fill up WrestleMania stadiums and venues like Barclay’s Center for SummerSlam last night. Vince doesn’t need to cater to the hardcore fan, because truth is, he already has that audience. That’s what he’s betting on, anyway, and his defiant push of Roman Reigns proves that. Will it ever come? Probably not. At least not until Vince gets this out of his system.
