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WWE Rumors: Roman Reigns Returning to Universal Championship Picture By ‘Royal Rumble’

By Shawn Lealos
Published on: 15:56 PST, Oct 1, 2016

Many fans have been vocally demanding that Roman Reigns receive a demotion in the WWE and move back down the card and it seems that the WWE has accommodated those fans. While Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins have been battling for the WWE Universal Championship, Roman Reigns has remained contented with fighting for the United States Championship, the secondary title on WWE Monday Night Raw.

However, this might be just temporary. WWE insider Dave Meltzer was on a podcast recently and made some interesting comments about Roman Reigns’ position on the card. Meltzer admitted that Reigns will be out of the Universal Championship title picture for now, but it won’t last long, mentioning that Roman could be back in the title hunt after the Royal Rumble in January.

“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.”

The Royal Rumble is where Roman Reigns was anointed the title of The Man this year and that is also where fans turned on him fully. It was only a year removed from the fans cheering for Roman in the Royal Rumble in 2015 when they didn’t want Batista to win it. One year later Reigns received the Batista treatment. If Roman is pushed into the title match at WrestleMania next year, fans might not care that he was demoted for a few months at the end of 2016.

That is the plan for now though. Roman Reigns was moved out of the WWE Universal Championship title picture to try to help win his fans back over. He was put into a title match with the “evil foreigner,” which has worked for most wrestlers needing a fan push, but it might not work in a year where many people are trying to preach against discrimination based on nationality. It might still split some fans down the middle.

However, it has worked so far. The loud boos that Roman Reigns received when fighting for a chance for the WWE Universal Championship are dying down. He was getting booed against faces like Finn Balor and even against heels like Kevin Owens. Fans just didn’t seem to want him anywhere near the big world title.

Despite this, there are still vocal WWE fans who love Roman Reigns. Much like John Cena, many of the people booing Roman Reigns when he wrestles are males while females and kids are all still cheering the former member of The Shield. The WWE knows that they have a star in Roman. They just need to find a way to win over those very loud vocal dissenters. Having him feud with Rusev and defend the United States Championship might be the key.

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As the Inquisitr previously reported, the WWE seems to have more faith in Roman Reigns to pull in the audience than it does in their Universal Champion Kevin Owens. They booked Roman in an important spot on WWE Monday Night Raw last week to battle the presidential debate and Monday Night Football. Now, it looks like the WWE may be lining up Roman Reigns to continue his fan rehabilitation until early 2017 where they will then pull the trigger on his main event push to WrestleMania.

[Featured Image by WWE]

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