The complete history of the WWE Championship - Part 19 

Roman Reigns (December 14, 2015 - January 24, 2016)

Roman Reigns: Defended the WWE Championship against 29 superstars in the 2016 Royal Rumble

Operation: Get Roman Reigns over as a Superstar baby face continued into the winter of 2015 with the same unfortunate results.

The WWE Universe continued to resent Reigns whom they saw as Vince McMahon's pet project. The problem being that fans were being told to cheer the "Big Dog" as opposed to gradually and organically warming to him.

He ended Sheamus's short title run to earn his second WWE Championship on the December 14, 2015 episode of Raw. It was a good match but the experiment was still not working.

WWE decided to stack the odds against Reigns so that fans would have to cheer him. A sound idea in theory and in the pre-internet world it likely would have worked. However, in 2015 and 2016, the WWE Universe was wise to the backstage goings on and did not stand for it.

The idea was that Reigns would be made to defend his WWE title versus 29 other superstars in the 2016 Royal Rumble match. The success of Reigns's reign was evidenced by how quickly he lost the strap. Reigns's second title run lasted a paltry six weeks.

WWE would try again with the "Big Dog" in 2016.