Jim Ross On How He Would Have Booked Roman Reigns In This Year’s Royal Rumble Match

WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross recently participated in a Q & A for Sports Illustrated’s Extra Mustard blog where he talked about his new deal with AXS TV and more. During the Q & A Ross was asked about Roman Reigns not being able to connect with a large section of WWE’s fans and he gave his thoughts on how he would have booked him at the Royal Rumble. You can see his answer below.

“Roman Reigns took more heat than he ever deserved for how he was booked at the Royal Rumble. He was a nose tackle in the ACC at Georgia Tech at 300-plus pounds, and then decided to go into the family business of pro wrestling. The thing we told him was, ‘You’ve got to work on your body,’ and I’m sure The Rock probably had some influence on that, too, but Reigns worked extremely hard and is very dedicated. The way he was booked in the Royal Rumble was decided by management. It was executed poorly. There should have been medical staff trying to help him and he could have pushed them away, refusing a ride to the trainer’s room. But the damn story was not told. And I’m not lashing out at anyone, because I don’t know if that was by design or not.

In hindsight, instead of sprinting and running to do anything, Reigns should have walked very deliberately and used his facial expressions to tell a great story. But we have the luxury of re-booking something we’ve already seen. I understand the intent of the storyline, but we never got a medical update on Reigns. It might have been a philosophical thing from upper management to have fans forget about Roman for a while, so it wasn’t the announcers’ fault and it damn sure wasn’t Roman Reigns’ fault.”