Microcosm Of Why Roman is Failing

[romanstylesiii]

This has always bothered me, as I work in production.

During AJ Style's debut, there is a close up of Roman that lasted 14 seconds. People say this was a mistake, but no producer I have ever worked with has ever miscued a shot, or gone to the wrong feed for that amount of time.

14 seconds is an eternity to a producer. A wrong camera cue is usually fixed within 2-3 seconds. 

Whether it was Kevin Dunn or Vince, they decided to purposely focus the moment on Roman and not AJ. They focused a moment in which a new superstar was debuting on Roman.

This is not a "I hate Roman" thread, this is pointing out that with the constant over pushing of Roman is why people continue to backlash. Austin would get booed with treatment like this.

During a New Day skit in that same Rumble, the producer decided to just cut away from it (instead of doing picture and picture) to show Roman limping during to the ring.

Multiple big spots in that Rumble were cut away from, to show Roman. This happened over a dozen times.

Fans are not going to blame production, they are going to blame the wrestler that is being over focused on. 




WWE's production is usually amazing, and I could only really say the NFL is better in the sporting world, but their over focus on Roman is drowning him. Leave fans wanting more, don't give him more TV time if fans are booing him. 

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

I believe it has been documented that the primary camera crew was not at the Rumble due to being stranded at a blizzard, so they had to use a back up crew.

The whole night was filled with production errors, including Kofi Kingston's elimination being missed on the live broadcast, so while WWE loves their over-pushing of Roman, this was not because of that.

[Powerline]

It doesn't excuse the fact it took them SO LONG to cut to Styles (even the backup crew shouldn't be as inept as they were that night, and I hope there were serious changes in how they work/are trained after that event), and it honestly wouldn't surprise me if the camera would've stayed on him longer anyway considering the build of the match itself, for all intents and purposes, revolved around Roman. But yeah, I just chalk it up as a legit production gaffe.  It does serve as an ironic little "in a nutshell" moment, but I don't think it was ever intentional.

Honestly, when I saw it as it happened, I thought maybe AJ Styles jumped his cue to go out, and that the camera would've cut just in time had he waited for the music to build and all that. Once you heard that crowd, you knew either AJ jumped the gun or the camera was late. But then I saw the alternate footage with the Tron revealing outright before he even came out that it was him, and that put an end to that.  The camera had missed at least one thing.  

[G✇JI☈A]

Every decision to get the crowd behind Roman is almost always wrong.

Take for example again in the 2016 Royal Rumble. Roman is pretty talented in ring but I'm guessing he not have the endurance to compete in a match like the Rumble from start to finish. So WWE needed away to get around that. What they did helped absolutely no one. If you don't remember the short lived stable the League of Nations led by Vince dragged Roman out of the ring, lay a beating and sent him through one of the announce tables thinking that would eliminate him from the Rumble without actually eliminating him. Vince & Co just went "welp, job done, let's go boys" .. yeah they looked stupid.

But the worst booking thing they did as Roman was being stretchered to the back. Roman get's up and walks to the back himself. This was one of these attempts to make him look strong. Ironically it made him look weak. Because if he could of walked to the back unaided.. Why the hell didn't he just head back to the ring and continue in the Rumble. I mean his title was at stake here. So in attempt to make him look strong, he looked like a big pussy who needed a little bit of a lie down. Everyone watching knew he would be back. They could of just the injured athlete giving the I'm OK thumbs up from the stretcher. But no.

That's one of the many reasons people boo him.

[________ has left the building]

Blame it on the Reigns.

We are running out of things to crucify Roman for. Now, it's his fault for production missteps and f*** ups. And people do blame the producer. Because the producer is someone more hated than Roman Reigns: Kevin Dunn. WWE recognized their mistakes at the Rumble and released alternative cuts of AJ's debut on their website and Youtube. But yeah, it's totally Reigns' fault that a skeleton production crew made mistakes and didn't capture different moments during the Rumble.

[One-Armed Drummer of Defrebel]

I haven't learned to read words this big yet, leave me alone

[This Player Hating Mothman]

Dec 26, 2016 2:44:33 GMT -5 Oh Cry Me a Screwball said:

I believe it has been documented that the primary camera crew was not at the Rumble due to being stranded at a blizzard, so they had to use a back up crew.

The whole night was filled with production errors, including Kofi Kingston's elimination being missed on the live broadcast, so while WWE loves their over-pushing of Roman, this was not because of that.

But even if it wasn't the primary crew, the cameras they cut to are still directed by guys like Dunn and Vince, who know the show and exactly what they should be cutting to, as well as the agents who put together the match and inform them of what cameras to hit when--that kind of thing isn't memorized by the people in the truck who work the cameras, it gets fed to them live by the people who do know. Which means that it was someone telling them to put the camera onto Roman and not cut to the entrance ramp. Same with Kofi's elimination spot; it was missed so that we could look at Roman selling the table shot, which is a problem on two levels; one is obviously the production issue, and the other is the fact that they planned out having Roman be dragged out, put through a table, sell, and then have to limp his way off to the back. And in that time, they decided the best ring action to put in was the once-a-year Kofi elimination save that has become a mainstay. The people putting the match together didn't think to at least not have those things run concurrently, because all the considerations were made to think about Roman and spend the whole match building sympathy for when he ended up losing it.

I'm not saying there weren't production errors, but I'm saying that the two aren't mutually exclusive.

[Mighty Attack Tribble]

I've posted in another thread about it, but evidently there were three goals for for AJ's entrance:

A) Recreate the famous pop from Jericho's debut in '99 when his name appeared on the 'Tron.

B) Recreate the moment in the '97 Rumble where Austin reacts to Bret's entrance.

C) Use Roman's reaction to put over to the fans not familiar with AJ that he's a big deal and legit threat.

The more I think about it the more I'm sure that they were waiting for a reaction from Roman, and one never came. He looks sort of confused when the music hits, and then when the word "PHENOMENAL" appears on the 'Tron and the crowd goes apeshit his expression just goes neutral. At this point they cut to AJ walking out, a good 3-4 seconds after the fans have started going crazy.

In the "unseen footage" video on YouTube they try to fix this by cutting to a wide shot of the ring and the 'Tron... and then cut back to Roman's slack-jawed face at the very moment the fans start reacting, missing the "Jericho" moment. Pointless if he's not reacting at all.

It might have been the B-crew on production duty, but either someone didn't clue Roman in that he needed to give a stronger reaction, or he simply botched it and whoever was directing the cameras didn't think fast enough on their feet to make the best of it.

[Deleted]

It's so annoying. It's absolutely the hamfisting.

Roman is okay. He's gotten a lot better in a short time. If left more to his own devices, few would resent him so and he would be the correct amount of over. He could organically maybe become who they unabashedly try and tell us he is in time.

Eff that noise though. Roman is just the focal point of the WWE. RIGHT NOW. They're so committed to it at times that they nearly piss away their absolutely jacked roster comprised of plenty of more complete packages.

[King Devitt: Scrum Guzzler]

It will still go down as "Stupid Idiot"/"Botch" of the year to me.

[Bub (BLM)]

Dec 26, 2016 3:04:56 GMT -5 G✇JI☈A said:

Every decision to get the crowd behind Roman is almost always wrong.

Take for example again in the 2016 Royal Rumble. Roman is pretty talented in ring but I'm guessing he not have the endurance to compete in a match like the Rumble from start to finish. So WWE needed away to get around that. What they did helped absolutely no one. If you don't remember the short lived stable the League of Nations led by Vince dragged Roman out of the ring, lay a beating and sent him through one of the announce tables thinking that would eliminate him from the Rumble without actually eliminating him. Vince & Co just went "welp, job done, let's go boys" .. yeah they looked stupid.

But the worst booking thing they did as Roman was being stretchered to the back. Roman get's up and walks to the back himself. This was one of these attempts to make him look strong. Ironically it made him look weak. Because if he could of walked to the back unaided.. Why the hell didn't he just head back to the ring and continue in the Rumble. I mean his title was at stake here. So in attempt to make him look strong, he looked like a big pussy who needed a little bit of a lie down. Everyone watching knew he would be back. They could of just the injured athlete giving the I'm OK thumbs up from the stretcher. But no.

That's one of the many reasons people boo him.

That was the funniest moment in the entire thing to me. The babyface champion limped to the back while uber-heel Kevin Owens limped to the ring and battled through the injuries from the last man standing match. The heel looked gutsy while the babyface looked like he was waving a white flag.

[Deleted]

The best thing about AJ Styles debut was Roman Reigns vibing to AJ Styles music going "damn that's a dope entrance theme."

[Dub H]

Dec 26, 2016 3:12:21 GMT -5 ________ has left the building said:

Blame it on the Reigns.

We are running out of things to crucify Roman for. Now, it's his fault for production missteps and f*** ups. And people do blame the producer. Because the producer is someone more hated than Roman Reigns: Kevin Dunn. WWE recognized their mistakes at the Rumble and released alternative cuts of AJ's debut on their website and Youtube. But yeah, it's totally Reigns' fault that a skeleton production crew made mistakes and didn't capture different moments during the Rumble.

Read the op , he never blamed Roman , so don't be a dick to him.

[Dub H]

Dec 26, 2016 3:04:56 GMT -5 G✇JI☈A said:

Every decision to get the crowd behind Roman is almost always wrong.

Take for example again in the 2016 Royal Rumble. Roman is pretty talented in ring but I'm guessing he not have the endurance to compete in a match like the Rumble from start to finish. So WWE needed away to get around that. What they did helped absolutely no one. If you don't remember the short lived stable the League of Nations led by Vince dragged Roman out of the ring, lay a beating and sent him through one of the announce tables thinking that would eliminate him from the Rumble without actually eliminating him. Vince & Co just went "welp, job done, let's go boys" .. yeah they looked stupid.

But the worst booking thing they did as Roman was being stretchered to the back. Roman get's up and walks to the back himself. This was one of these attempts to make him look strong. Ironically it made him look weak. Because if he could of walked to the back unaided.. Why the hell didn't he just head back to the ring and continue in the Rumble. I mean his title was at stake here. So in attempt to make him look strong, he looked like a big pussy who needed a little bit of a lie down. Everyone watching knew he would be back. They could of just the injured athlete giving the I'm OK thumbs up from the stretcher. But no.

That's one of the many reasons people boo him.

If in.not mistaken it has been reported that Roman was the one that decided to walk back instead of being stretched.

Why he did or why Vince allowed it? I will never know

[Deleted]

Dec 26, 2016 5:08:39 GMT -5 @supersweetbotch said:

The best thing about AJ Styles debut was Roman Reigns vibing to AJ Styles music going "damn that's a dope entrance theme."

That would honestly be such a rad meta gimmick. Dude gets a moon push, it doesn't take, he doesn't even believe in it, but then is shown to kinda pop for other guys that are better off in some aspect than he is get their foot in the door.

Damn, that theme is hot, what a sick move, f*** is he good on the mic, etc.

They keep pushing him anyways. He keeps seeing things he likes that other people are doing. He would eventually have to clash with Vince for being a "fanboy."

[MrElijah]

I think the botch added to AJ's entrance a bit.

Roman goes from "so who's this?" to "Well......f*** me!"

[Pushed to the Moon]

I hated them not showing AJ at the time but watching it back the main thing that stands out is how f***ing terrible the commentary is.

"IS IT?! CAN IT BE!" Hey Cole why don't you try and sound more forced and contrived. You sound way too natural bro!

[DjZonk]

Dec 26, 2016 7:23:23 GMT -5 MrElijah said:

I think the botch added to AJ's entrance a bit.

Roman goes from "so who's this?" to "Well......f*** me!"

Yeah, I loved it. Had no issue with it myself.

[________ has left the building]

Dec 26, 2016 6:35:29 GMT -5 Dub H said:

Dec 26, 2016 3:12:21 GMT -5 ________ has left the building said:

Blame it on the Reigns.

We are running out of things to crucify Roman for. Now, it's his fault for production missteps and f*** ups. And people do blame the producer. Because the producer is someone more hated than Roman Reigns: Kevin Dunn. WWE recognized their mistakes at the Rumble and released alternative cuts of AJ's debut on their website and Youtube. But yeah, it's totally Reigns' fault that a skeleton production crew made mistakes and didn't capture different moments during the Rumble.

Read the op , he never blamed Roman , so don't be a dick to him.

I did and that is why I said people do blame Kevin Dunn for production screwups. They did during the Rumble and continue doing so. There are legit reasons to not like Roman but this doesn't hold weight.

[Dub H]

Dec 26, 2016 8:48:36 GMT -5 ________ has left the building said:

Dec 26, 2016 6:35:29 GMT -5 Dub H said:

Read the op , he never blamed Roman , so don't be a dick to him.

I did and that is why I said people do blame Kevin Dunn for production screwups. They did during the Rumble and continue doing so. There are legit reasons to not like Roman but this doesn't hold weight.

Yes , because Roman is the character or focuses on , they will.naturally hate the character that is badly portrayed. It is not a reason , it is an example of how the wwe screws up the character , from a production standpoint. It still affects the product and Roman