Sheamus And The League Of Nations Faced Roman Reigns 48 Times In 6 Months. Here's How Many They Won
Back in November 2015, Roman Reigns — a long way away from becoming "The Tribal Chief" — was struggling to get over with the fans as WWE's new top babyface; Vince McMahon's booking had done him no favors. Anyone remember the disastrous 2015 Royal Rumble, which ended with fans in Philadelphia booing Reigns out of the building?
Looking to give fans some reason, any reason, to cheer for Reigns, McMahon decided to turn to an old standby: the foreign heel. And what's better than one foreign heel? Four of them. Enter the League of Nations. Bringing together four heels representing four nations –- Sheamus (Irelend), Alberto Del Rio (Mexico), Rusev (Bulgaria), and King Barrett (the United Kingdom) -– the League of Nations was united in its hatred of the United States and apparently Roman Reigns, too.
The group's first appearance was on the November 30, 2015 episode of "WWE Raw." Sheamus had won the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at Survivor Series a week earlier by cashing in his Money in the Bank contract on the newly crowned Reigns. The two had a rematch for the title on Raw, but that match ended abruptly when Rusev dragged Reigns out of the ring, forcing a disqualification and saving the title for Sheamus. Surrounded by Rusev, Barrett, and Del Rio, Sheamus declared his new stable the League of Nations.
From there, the faction continued to make life difficult for Reigns. Or at least, they tried to. Between November 2015 and May 2016, The League of Nations faced Reigns in 48 matches between TV and live events. But, how many did they actually win?
The League of Nations was a 'punching bag' for Roman Reigns
As it quickly became clear, the League of Nations was created to help get Roman Reigns over as the top WWE babyface at all costs, even if it meant making the heels involved look incompetent. Across six months, the League of Nations beat Reigns only five times in 48 matches. The feud did little to help Reigns or its members, and the angle was not popular with fans.
Calling the stable a "waste of an opportunity," Rusev –- now AEW's Miro –- has bemoaned WWE's misuse of four championship-caliber heels in several interviews. He said the angle even led to some backstage infighting among the League of Nation members. "We were told we were going to be put together and nobody told us we were going to be a punching bag for Roman Reigns, and that's the only reason we're doing this," he said in a February 2022 interview on "The Kurt Angle Show," adding that it became evident the group was going "to do just nothing but jobs."
On a 2020 episode of WWE's "The Bump," League of Nations leader Sheamus called the angle a "dead end" and described it as the first time in his career he had ever felt stuck in a rut. He added that his most frustrating moment with the League of Nations came when Reigns essentially won a four-on-one handicap match against the stable on the January 21, 2016 episode of "Smackdown."
On paper, the League of Nations could have been great. Sheamus told talkSport in 2020 that he thought the stable could have been booked to be as dominant as The Shield or The Wyatt Family."But at the end," he said, "I think all of us were just kind of like, 'I'm glad that's over.'"