Would Reigns be loved if Daniel Bryan was never a factor?

No. Everyone in the 2015 Rumble was booed. Anyone who wasn’t Ziggler and Ambrose would’ve been booed if they won. Reigns was the most inexperienced member of the shield, had the weakest mic skills, had the weakest move set, yet he was just shoved right into the main event of Wrestlemania. What really cemented his downfall was giving him superstar of the year for doing absolute crap and not even being around part of the year.

Daniel Bryan was the guy we all wanted when the Reigns mega push started. When they went in the Reigns direction, it did fuel the anti-Reigns flames. However, I do think realistically they are kind of unrelated. Whether Bryan was around or not, they booked the Roman Reigns character all wrong. He’s positioned as a baby face but everything he does screams heel.

He’s often the bigger guy and favored in matches, so it’s hard for him to get any sympathy from the crowd. He complains a lot about not getting opportunities when he gets more than anyone else. Even now with the Shield stuff, he needed his friends to protect his title for him.

If he was positioned as a heel, he would be a lot more natural and his booking would actually make some sense. Have him be an ass kicker that beats guys down. He’s actually got a lot of charisma when he’s being a jerk. They weren’t afraid to make the Rock a heel. I really think Roman would be in the same boat as the Rock if he was positioned as a heel.

Having a roster full of popular Indy darlings who always come second to Dat Dude in every facet doesn't help matters. But the real problem confronting Roman right now is his booking. I, among others, have clamored for the writing staff to turn him for months, if not years. He exudes heel every time he is on TV. It is the edict of Vince and Creative to keep him as not only a face, but the top good guy in WWE, that causes such a backlash from WWE viewers of a certain mind. Forcing him into the cookie cutter Super Cena mold is doing him no favors in many of our eyes, though I assume this tactic is working for the WWE's target demographic.

What Vince is missing is the opportunity to allow Reigns to develop into the megastar Vince desires. Most of the biggest stars in this industry developed their personality as heels.

John Cena was reportedly close to being released before he started with his rapper gimmick as a heel: he became the most popular talent out of the RA Era.

"Die Rocky Die" echoed through the arenas before a similarly young white bread babyface turned into a smartmouthed catchphrase machine as a heel. A certain redneck was never meant to be much more than a bit player heel before Vince actually listened to the crowd and recognized him as a suitable answer for what the WCW was doing. And now The Rock and Steve Austin are considered two of the most important stars in wrestling history.

Ric Flair started out struggling to find his niche in the wrestling industry. His desire to make it in the business led him to model himself into the stylin' and profilin' "Nature Boy" gimmick that we all identify with him today.

Even Hulk Hogan discovered his famous mannerisms by listening to the crowd's reactions as he was performing as a heel.

If Vince truly wants more than the children demo to embrace Roman Reigns as a top guy, he needs to stop forcing Da Big Dawg down all our throats. It doesn't just hurt us fans to see Reigns cast as some form of Austin, Cena, Hogan, and Rock rolled into one being; it also hinders Roman's growth as a superstar because that doesn't seem to be who he really is anyway. Let him play out his heelness now while he works on finding his voice to be a top face. And if that never comes to him, at least they can know now to find the right guy and save them the frustration of having their "top guy" get booed outta arenas for the next 10-15 years.

People would have been less salty about Reigns in 2015 if Daniel Bryan wasn’t a factor, but he’d still be getting the “don’t tell me who to like, Vince, you’re not my real dad” reactions by now.

havoc7179 Well aware that the Shield was considered a heel faction at the time of their debut but the fans liked them. They were actually the "cool heels." Plus Roman had the benefit of having Rollins and Ambrose by his side so his flaws were masked, the same reasons why Creative has been pushing the Shield reunion for the past year and why Reigns has yet to really move on from the persona he had in that group. So I can agree that he didn't get to showcase his own unique personality as a singles competitor before his megapush.

But who Roman Reigns is right now is exactly who Vince wanted him to be when talks of splitting up the Shield began back in the summer of 2013. Roman had already been cast to fill John Cena's role as the perennial top babyface that can never be shown to have a weakness in a fair fight and can always get wins back in the rare occasion he does lose a match.

It wasnt even a few years that fans starting booing Cena after winning the title. He was getting booed heavily during his feud with Jericho and Christian like 3 months later. Then against Angle after that.

This 100%! Another factor could be the fact that news had leaked around mid-2014 that Lesnar/Reigns was the plan for WrestleMania 31, so we essentially watched him get groomed for that spot and even though it was inevitably happening, the fans just sh*t on him. It’s abit like when it was announced in the summer of 2012 that The Rock would be challenging for the WWE title at Royal Rumble 2013, so we all knew Cena would win the Rumble leading up to Rock/Cena II. We had 8 months to prepare for that and hated every second of it due to predictable outcome, that and the fact everybody felt like CM Punk deserves to main event WrestleMania 29.

The endorsement The Rock and Daniel Bryan gave Reigns leading up to WrestleMania 31 didn’t help either, the fans just didn’t want Reigns in that spot at the time.

This,exactly. Reigns was getting a decent reaction until he got injured. Because it got leaked while he was out that Vince was super high on him,and already had plans for him to win the Rumble and main event Mania... months before the Rumble took place. So people lost their crap because, as you said , Reigns was the weakest member of the former SHIELD at that point and everyone knew Vince had already anointed him the next chosen one. And that's what caused the massive backlash to start. If plans hadn't leaked out, then maybe it wouldn't have been so bad, more of a surprise like "Wow, didn't expect Roman to win the rumble!" ... Instead we knew ahead of time that someone a lot of us thought wasn't worthy of winning the Rumble was going to, so that pissed people off. Then Vince went ahead and did it, just fueling the backlash even more.

I honestly believe if Roman wasn't shoved down our throats by Vince and had a little more promo work, he would be over naturally.