Big E is at a delicate transition period at this point in the history of his career because he is transitioning from his time with The New Day to what will hopefully be a massive singles run – one in which he works with Roman Reigns many times over in the next decade
Paul Heyman was featured as he is every week December 11 on Talking Smack with Kayla Braxton. He gave Big E some poignant advice about what his mentality might be for the rest of his WWE career post-New Day. Heyman told E that the first step he has taken in his revived singles run of going after the Intercontinental championship is absolutely and unequivocally the first move in the right direction towards Big E becoming a legend in WWE history (and hopefully one day being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame).
The most important sentence Paul uttered Friday night was his last. The rhetorical question, “When was the last time you saw Roman Reigns in the ring, and anybody even bothered to mention The Shield?” What Paul meant by this was that perhaps Big E’s mentality as a singles competitor should be focused on winning championships and establishing himself as a perennial world champion. It is very true that when anyone thinks of Roman Reigns, they don’t necessarily think of The Shield. That is simply just an interesting footnote in the legend of Reigns (obviously the other two members of The Shield have gone on to experience major success in their careers).
However, Reigns was with The Shield for only about a year and a half while E was with The New Day for six. Roman Reigns’ entire career history before The Shield took place in NXT, but Big E had a run of a couple of years on the main roster before The New Day even started (courtesy of Xavier Woods’ idea to start a stable that was all about the team), as Intercontinental Champion even before the group got going. Prior to that, E was the second-ever NXT champion – right after Seth Rollins – something not even Roman can claim.
Big E might be the perfect man to ultimately overturn the Head of The Table and take the Universal championship from the Anoa’i family. There are not many credible challengers to take the Universal title off Roman that are being portrayed by the WWE creative team as legitimate contenders to become champion and lead SmackDown into the future. At least that is one of the primary complaints I have been reading about – that Kevin Owens is not a believable contender right now to Roman Reigns – my question is “Who would be?” And the answer is no one, especially not in the month of December – which is always a down month for WWE anyway. The product has its ebbs and flows as does everything.
E and Roman Reigns have similar career paths in WWE because, in 2014, Mr. McMahon was down to these two men in the decision-making process as to who was going to be the next face of the company after John Cena. Perhaps at the time, McMahon asked himself, “Which of these guys resonates with me more?” The WWE universe did not agree with him for several years, but now that Roman has turned heel he is revealing more of his authentic self than ever. At this point in time, The Tribal Chief is being wholeheartedly embraced by the WWE fanbase for that very reason.