Reason for heat and backlash on Roman Reigns and Bobby Lashley

On a recent edition of his podcast - Grilling JR - Jim Ross discussed why Bobby Lashley received a lot of flak backstage and from the fans after winning the ECW Championship at December to Dismember. He talked about the reason for Roman Reigns and Bobby Lashley receiving backlash from fans.

He revealed that while the fans and Paul Heyman himself wanted CM Punk or RVD to become the ECW Champion, it was Bobby Lashley who was chosen to be the face of the brand. On being asked by Conrad Thompson if Lashley was pushed because he looked like a 'Vince McMahon wrestler', Jim Ross stated that it could be the case and it might have harmed him in the long run.

Drawing similarities between Lashley in ECW and Roman Reigns today, Jim Ross talked about why they got heat from fans:

''It put Bobby in a tough position, much like Roman Reigns is booked. All said and done the guy gets a lot of backlash when the guy hasn't done anything negative to be booed or cheered about. It's that 'force-feed'. You can see it is not organic. You're trying to make people like something they don't like. It's a sign of the 18-34 demographic being defiant.''

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Roman Reigns' return at SummerSlam

Roman Reigns recently returned at SummerSlam and there has been a lot of talk about how there was a mismatch between the fans' reaction on the video screens. Many were seen giving thumbs-down reactions and presumably booing The Big Dog, but the audio was full of cheers.