What should Roman Reigns be: a face or a heel?
That is a question that Eric Bischoff has been wondering as of late. He recently spoke to the All Things Wrestling podcast about Roman Reigns’s character and how inconsistent his character can be at times. Bischoff says that they have eventually choose a character for him and stick with it:
You (WWE) have to make a choice and you have to commit to a character. You’re either a babyface or a character that the fans relate to, support, love and aspire to be, or you’re not. And if you’re not, you’re heel, you’re despicable and they need to learn to love to hate you. And I think when you take that safe road in-between and let the fans decide…to me, it’s a cop-out. To me, that’s kind of like raising your hands and saying, ‘Look, I’ve got ideas. I really don’t have a plan, so let’s just put him out there and let the fans choose.’ I think that’s just the most cowardly creative cop-out that I’ve ever heard.
And of course, like many others, Eric Bischoff talked about how there is too much WWE programing. He compares it to the likes of NFL football in that there’s just way too much content to watch. He then brings up a certain show he used to produced that kind of set the precedent for today’s wrestling show::
It’s kind of like football…there’s just too damn much of it. It’s all day Sunday, it’s Monday Night Football, it’s Thursday Night Football…[there] is just so much of it out there that none of it feels special anymore and I think that’s really acute when it comes to sports entertainment and professional wrestling. I used to produce three hours of Nitro, so I know what kind of monster that is. I would think that it’s harder to watch three hours of content than it is to produce it.
WCW Nitro went to a three hour format in 1997 and was dropped by the end of 1999. Raw has been three hours permanently since 2012, and despite sagging ratings there’s no plans to switch back anytime soon.
