Former WWE writer Kevin Eck published his latest blog, “The Eck Factor” on Sportsblog, and talks about how Roman Reigns’ WWE introduction was debated.

Eck says he wanted to originally pitch Reigns as being a cousin of the Usos and play up his Samoan heritage, but Vince McMahon and Triple H agreed this wasn’t the way to go. Eck outlines a plan that would acknowledge the Usos and Rikishi as family, which result in a bigger feud for Reigns and The Shield when they were still together. The blog goes on to say bringing up Reigns’ bloodline might hurt him in some way and brings up the fact that they still went this route while pushing Reigns as a babyface. You can read a few excerpts below; click here for the full article:

Surely Vince would love the pitch and I’d get one of his “that’s really good thinking” figurative pats on the back.

Instead, Vince and Triple H were in agreement that we absolutely should not acknowledge that Reigns is Samoan.

Their belief was that it would pigeonhole him and damage his mystique. The inference was that the audience had a preconceived notion of what a Samoan wrestler is. You know, a guy in a grass skirt who wears a puka shell necklace.

I suppose they did have a point. I mean, just imagine how much bigger of a star The Rock would have become if only WWE had hidden his Samoan heritage.

http://kevineckwrestling.sportsblog.com/posts/3738852/my-pitch-for-the-shield-and-the-usos-in-wwe-that-was-rejected-because-we-couldn-t-say-roman-reigns-is-samoan.html

realt wrote:

You know, a guy in a grass skirt who wears a puka shell necklace.

You know, from everything I've heard, Vince is the only person in the world who still thinks this. There's a reason a lit of people thought the Umaga gimmick was dated when it debuted.

That being said, Reigns' run with the Shield was about as good as you could have hoped for. I don't think bringing in the Usos and all that would have done any good for either party at the time.