Went from circumstantial at best evidence to something made up out of the sky. Ambitious. Better question is that who'd possibly be doing worse after a 4 year push?
Answer to your question: Everyone else on the roster.
I'm a Reigns fan. I've been one since he came up and miss when he was really popular despite being worse in the ring and on the mic compared to now.
I also don't think he's "the guy". Why? Because "the guy" doesn't seem to exist on the roster based on the evidence provided these past few years and may be an outdated concept...
I always have this very simple question (which is far more simplified than my previous post) that I often pose to the anti-Reigns crowd (not saying you're anti-Reigns as I have no idea where you stand with him), which always leads to deflection and not an actual answer.
My question is simple:
Who is doing better business than Reigns? Who is consistently doing better business than Reigns? That's it. Who is this person or these people so I can throw my support behind them being in "the guy" consideration. The numbers are out there so it shouldn't take much to pull up people consistently pulling in better ratings, attendance, merch etc. The guys mentioned in this thread, how are their numbers looking in comparison to Reigns?
I do this little thing where I compare things between AJ Styles and Jinder Mahal, because it's interesting and it's funny to see narratives change in some circles. AJ Styles was WWE Champion for 20 weeks or so and Jinder Mahal has been WWE Champion for 16 weeks and counting. When AJ was champ, people thought Smackdown was a superior show to Raw with better booking and a better roster. With Jinder as champ, people more or less think the opposite...yet somehow Smackdown Live with Jinder Mahal as WWE Champion has seen consistently better ratings (11 weeks out of 16 so far) and house show numbers in comparison to AJ as WWE Champion.
I would never argue that Jinder is a better wrestler, promo, personality etc. than AJ Styles...however if I was asked one good reason why he should be champion over AJ, I can point to unbiased numbers that clearly show
he did better and is doing better in the same position. See how this works? It should be just as easy to say Moveset McKickpads or U.D. Serveit is just under Cena in merch, always seems to draw Super No Vacancy level event attendance and ratings always go up when he's featured.
One of the funny things in this Roman/Cena back in forth: If Roman is getting crapped on for not doing x or y for better business, the entire roster is also getting crapped on for not stepping up and doing x or y for better business. Like if Klandy is considered ratings poison, what does that make the people who don't do better ratings than him? It makes me smile to see the ratings go down each week so far since Cena has been back on Raw. It's funny when you consider the content of the promos.