Don’t start booing after reading the headline. The Samoan Superstar has just defended the United States title which is good reason to cheer for. After all, that Bulgarian Brute, Rusev taunted the Americans for a long time until Roman Reigns snatched the US title at the Clash of Champions PPV.
Reigns was pushed to the mid-card scenario after getting suspended during the month of June. It was after the Money in the Bank PPV, WWE declared an official statement to announce the 30-day suspension of the Big Dog. After his return, he was punished by receiving a clean pin from Dean Ambrose in the triple threat main event (including Seth Rollings) at the Battleground PPV. The very next night he got pinned again by Finn Balor and got out of the Universal title mix.
Since then, he got pushed to the mid-card level against Rusev in a feud which targetted the USA vs. Bulgaria emotions. This was done mainly to get cheers from the fans, who continuously boo Roman Reigns in every single arena. But, recent reports suggest that he will not stick to the mid-card level for a long time. At the beginning of 2017, he is going to be in the mix of the Universal title.
Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Newsletter quoted, “Yes, [he’ll be out of the Universal Title mix] until Royal Rumble time, if not longer. I know the idea was to keep Roman Reigns out of the world title picture for a while. So, it’s another way of getting the people to like him, and I guess feuding with Rusev is the one way because of the American going against the Russian. He’s still their guy, but they know they can’t pull the trigger right now.”
Roman’s push to the upper card is on the hold for quite a while now and will be postponed for the next couple of months. However, once the Wrestlemania season starts to pick up during the Royal Rumble PPV, he’ll be back in the hunt of the WWE Universal title, currently being held by Kevin Owens.