WWE World Champion Roman Reigns spent the week being called the most overrated main eventer in company history, and the argument falls apart the moment anybody checks the record. Conrad Thompson picked the wrong target.
The comments came on 83 Weeks, where Eric Bischoff said the SummerSlam main event against Seth Rollins was a good match that did not do much for him personally. Thompson took the conversation somewhere else entirely, offering what he framed as a take he knew would upset people.
Thompson said Reigns is “probably the most overrated main eventer in WWE history.” Thompson went on to call Reigns an industry plant.
The podcaster argued the company would be no worse off without him and compared his in-ring work to a version of Goldberg who stays out longer. Thompson also likened the current Bloodline material to the nWo in its final years.
Thompson accused Reigns of skipping the press obligations that Cody Rhodes and John Cena handle. The press charge is the easiest to knock down.
Reigns ran exactly that circuit years ago, including the leukemia announcement and comeback that put him on mainstream news programs well outside the wrestling bubble.
Manufactured stars do not get booed out of four straight WrestleMania main events and come back stronger. Reigns spent roughly five years absorbing rejection from the exact audience the company kept insisting would come around. The character that eventually connected was built out of that failure rather than around it.
The payoff was the longest world championship reign in three decades. Reigns held the Universal Championship for 1,316 days, headlined the biggest shows on the calendar throughout, and turned a stable of relatives into the most discussed angle in modern wrestling.
Bischoff, sitting on the same podcast, described the early Bloodline run as one of the finest stories the business has produced. Stories like that do not happen around a passenger.
The business numbers say the same thing. Reigns headlined the two highest-grossing WrestleManias on record, anchored the Saudi Arabia shows through the entire stretch.
He also served as the closing act every time WWE needed a card to feel enormous. Booking decisions of that size do not get made repeatedly for a performer the audience tolerates.
Goldberg worked short because working long exposed him. Reigns has gone the distance with Daniel Bryan, Rollins, Rhodes, and CM Punk. The slow, deliberate pace Thompson objects to is the same tempo main event heels have used since Bruno Sammartino was drawing at Madison Square Garden.
Criticism of the current Bloodline chapter is fair. Jim Cornette and former ESPN writer Andreas Hale have each argued the saga has been stretched past its natural end.
Bischoff lived through riding the nWo until it collapsed, and warned on the same episode that the retrospective view sours when a company runs a story too long. The critique lands on the booking. Blaming the length of a storyline on the wrestler at the center of it is a different claim entirely, and a much weaker one.
Reigns is the biggest star WWE has produced since John Cena, and the list of names above him is very short; Bruno Sammartino, Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, The Rock, Cena. Arguing that Reigns does not belong in that conversation means arguing against the last six years of business.
The test Thompson proposed is the one that sinks his own point. Remove Reigns and ask what happens to WrestleMania main events, to the biggest angle of the decade, to the SummerSlam card that just ran.
WWE built its entire modern era around one man, and nobody builds an era around somebody replaceable. Reigns is champion again and still working weekly. The next defense is already booked for Raw in Mexico City on Sept. 14 against whoever wins a lucha tournament spanning Raw, SmackDown, and AAA.
A hot take is supposed to be defensible. Calling the defining performer of a generation overrated is just loud.
If you love sports, download Stadium Rant from the Apple App Store and join one of the fastest-growing social sports communities. Be sure to follow us on socials too — you can find all our profiles on our Linktree.
