Roman Reigns is now universally accepted as the premiere WWE Superstar, but that wasn't always the case.

From when The Shield broke up in 2014, it was clear that Roman Reigns was the guy that WWE higher-ups, specifically Vince McMahon, wanted to push up the card.

With John Cena approaching his 40s and being just a few years away from starting a career in Hollywood, management saw Reigns as the next face of the company.

Within a few months of The Shield breaking up, Roman had won the Royal Rumble and was chosen to main event WrestleMania 31 in a WWE Championship match with Brock Lesnar.

However, WWE fans simply rejected the push, with many not wanting to see Roman in the main event scene, particularly as a babyface.

Roman is now accomplished on the microphone, and recognised as one of WWE's best talkers, but footage from 2014 has proved that this really wasn't always the case.

A clip has been shared of one of Roman's promos from 2014 with Renee Young, and it makes for some really quite awkward viewing.

Although he mentioned being the 'Head of the Table', which was a neat little bit of foreshadowing for his 2020 character change, Reigns stumbles over his words in his promo, and clearly wasn't ready for the push WWE was trying to give him.

Reigns would have only been 29 at the time, and to his credit, has become a lot better on the mic, but he really wasn't the best talker back at the beginning of his run with the company, as you can see below.

Fans have also commented on how Roman's tremendous character work now makes his work back in 2014 look even less impressive, as you can see below.

Roman Reigns is one of WWE's top stars

This isn't a knock on Roman Reigns, but more on WWE for putting the now Undisputed WWE Universal Champion in a position that he clearly wasn't ready for.

Reigns has more than settled into himself now, and is widely regarded as one of wrestling's biggest active stars, but not the single biggest.

Roman will be in action at Clash at the Castle on September 3, as he defends his belts against Drew McIntyre in Cardiff at WWE’s first pay-per-view in the UK since 1992.

You can watch WWE Clash at the Castle live next weekend in the UK on BT Sport, in the US on Peacock and in all other international markets on the WWE Network.