Raj Dhesi does not accept that Roman Reigns is overrated, though he is prepared to concede the first half of the argument.
The former WWE Champion, who wrestled as Jinder Mahal, weighed in on Instagram, joining a debate that has run through wrestling media for the best part of a fortnight.
“Roman Reigns is not overrated. Name anybody who can compete with Roman Reigns in terms of presentation, in terms of psychology, in terms of communication, in terms of aura.”
“Perhaps pre-pandemic Roman Reigns, you can call overrated. But this version? No way.”
Conrad Thompson told Eric Bischoff on 83 Weeks that he considers Reigns the most overrated main eventer in WWE history, and Bischoff agreed. Almost everybody with a platform has answered it since.
Jim Ross, asked the same question on Grilling JR, would not go there, saying he does not know that Reigns will ever be considered the greatest of all time while calling him great for the business with a Hall of Fame career. JBL spent close to half an hour of Something To Wrestle arguing with Thompson about it, telling his co-host that having a manager does not disqualify a wrestler from the greatest-of-all-time conversation and pointing to Bruno Sammartino as someone who also took negative crowd reactions without it costing him that status.
Bischoff then used much of this week’s 83 Weeks answering the reaction. He did not retract anything, saying he is bored and does not see the character evolving, but he also delivered the most complimentary passage anyone has given Reigns in the whole exchange.
“When he walks through that curtain, you don’t need to know his backstory,” Bischoff said. “When he walks through the curtain, you know you’re looking at a star.”
Later in the same episode, explaining why he can still rely on a Reigns performance, Bischoff said that Reigns has an aura nobody else has had in some time, and that nobody in either WWE or AEW has it.
Thompson has since set out the fuller version of his own case, which is less about Reigns than about Paul Heyman. He compared the career to Keyser Söze, arguing that Reigns’ success is the greatest trick Heyman ever pulled, that there is a tale of two Romans either side of Heyman’s arrival, and that the slot was interchangeable enough that Cesaro could have filled it and got the same result. He named Sami Zayn as the most valuable part of the Bloodline story. He was also clear that Reigns has done nothing wrong, negotiated well and is a great guy, and that the point is that Heyman deserves more credit.
Dhesi’s dividing line is not Heyman but the pandemic. Reigns turned heel and aligned with Heyman at Payback in August 2020, in front of no crowd, and it is everything after that point which he is defending. What came before, the run in which WWE pushed Reigns as its top babyface against an audience that frequently would not have it, he is willing to give up.
He has some proximity to that earlier period. Dhesi held the WWE Championship in 2017, beating Randy Orton at Backlash in May and holding it until November, and worked with Reigns during the years he is prepared to write off.
Reigns has held the World Heavyweight Championship since beating CM Punk at WrestleMania 42 in April, and retained it against Seth Rollins in the main event of SummerSlam night two. He defends it on Raw from Arena CDMX in Mexico City on September 14, against a challenger being determined by an eight-man tournament of luchadores drawn from Raw, SmackDown and AAA, announced by Rey Mysterio in his role as AAA general manager. That match is set to be Reigns’ first on WWE television in close to two years, which is the part of the schedule Thompson built much of his argument around. Reigns is also advertised for Money in the Bank in New Orleans on October 10 and Survivor Series: WarGames in Houston on November 28, though WWE has not announced a match for him at either.
Dhesi was released by WWE in April and has worked the independent circuit under his own name since, while appearing regularly across wrestling media. He has spent recent weeks calling for heel turns for both Cody Rhodes and Oba Femi.
View this post on Instagram
