WWE Backlash 2018 Results: Roman Reigns Beats Samoa Joe But Proves He Badly Needs A Heel Turn

WWE Backlash 2018 marked a big win for "The Big Dog" as Roman Reigns defeated Samoa Joe.

That represented a marked change from running theme as of late for Reigns, who has spent 2018 losing virtually every match he's had. It started when Reigns lost the Intercontinental Championship to The Miz back in January and then followed it up by failing to beat Shinsuke Nakamura in the Royal Rumble match and losing clean to Seth Rollins in that unforgettable gauntlet match on Raw. Though he did pick up a win at Elimination Chamber, that surprising streak of losses would continue when he came up short Brock Lesnar at both WrestleMania 34 and the Greatest Royal Rumble before he defeated Joe at Backlash.
But the continued rejection of Reigns as a top babyface should lead to the unthinkable happening: A full-fledged heel turn.
Moving Reigns to the dark side is one of those long debated but never expected issues that has driven wrestling fans mad over the past few years. While well-respected industry veterans like "Stone Cold" Steve Austin have said Reigns should turn heel so that fans can eventually accept him as a babyface when he turns back, Triple H has maintained that Reigns is "already a heel" while Reigns himself has said a heel turn would be pointless.

Given the recent booking of Reigns and the current state of the WWE roster, particularly on Raw, you have to wonder if there will ever be a more opportune time to transform Reigns into its biggest bad guy.
WWE, after all, has already make it clear that it is having second thoughts on making Reigns "the guy." If it wasn't, then Reigns likely would have slayed "The Beast" at WrestleMania 34 and certainly would have done so at Greatest Royal Rumble. But he didn't, and it's certainly a telling sign that on the same night that Reigns failed to beat Lesnar for the third time in less than a year and the fourth time overall, Braun Strowman won the biggest Royal Rumble in history.
In fact, it is the rise of Strowman and many other top babyfaces, especially on the red brand, that has made Reigns expendable as a good guy. Keep in mind that, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (h/t Ringside News), Reigns, who was once easily WWE's No. 2 merchandise seller, now is fighting for that spot with AJ Styles and has yet to overtake John Cena even though "The Champ" has been gone more than he's been around over the last few years.
It speaks volumes that Reigns has never been able to surpass Cena and has been caught by Styles when "The Phenomenal One" had spent the past two years on SmackDown and, though he's certainly been pushed, hasn't been featured as heavily as Reigns has. What's also notable about that list of WWE's best merchandise movers is that Strowman, Seth Rollins and Finn Balor all rank among WWE's top sellers, and perhaps not coincidentally, are babyfaces on the same brand as Reigns.