How Can Bobby Roode Be More Interesting?
Bobby Roode is a great wrestler with a great gimmick and an even better theme song. Him winning his first singles championship this past Tuesday night on Smackdown Live was a moment the WWE Universe had been anxiously waiting for. So if all the pieces of the puzzle seemingly fell together perfectly for fans and Roode, why do a lot of people feel unsatisfied?
The biggest reason I’m hearing as to why people are more frustrated with the ending of Smackdown as opposed to rejoicing in Roode’s victory is the manner of which the WWE handled the ending of the United States Championship tournament. Even as one of the few people of actually enjoy Jinder Mahal, I agree that the finals match the two of them put on left something to be desired.
Creative having the idea of pulling the tournament finals off of the Royal Rumble card resulted in a lot of confusion and anger from the WWE Universe. Aside from that, it made the tournament instantly feel less important.
Now, it makes sense that this move could be a time safety precaution to make sure there is plenty of time for both Rumble matches. It could also be because they’re planning another United States Championship match at the Pay-Per-View, one seeing Roode defend his belt against a man who didn’t exactly lose it in the first place.
But to answer the question in the headline, I believe it comes down to one single gimmick change that can turn Bobby Roode’s career on the main roster in a proper direction. At the end of the day, it really is quite simple.
Bobby Roode needs to turn heel. The majority of his NXT run was as a heel and Roode was one of the most ‘over’ people in the company. Not only that, but his “Glorious” gimmick screams heel! Imagine how much more captivated you would be if Roode was flaunting his glorious-ness around everywhere and shoving it in people’s faces.
However, if WWE is going to have Ziggler come back soon and face Roode for the “title he never lost”, then we may be waiting a long time for that heel turn to come. If you don’t believe me, take Sami Zayn as an example.
People stopped caring about Zayn because he was just another good guy lost in the sea faces (see what I did there). It wasn’t until he turned heel in October of last year that people started giving a damn, even if it was to boo him.
If you really think about it, the majority of people who have come out of NXT with success have been heel gimmicks that continue to be heel. Bray Wyatt, Kevin Owens, and Samoa Joe are great examples. If you’re thinking, “well Owens and Joe have been heels most of their careers before coming to the WWE”, that’s the exact same for Bobby Roode!
He was a heel during his tenure at TNA, now Impact Wrestling, and carried that over to NXT with great success. What’s to say a heel run on the main roster would slow any momentum down?
By: Patrick Gallagher
Twitter: @RealPatrickG