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Your timing is a little off, I think. He was hated about at the midpoint of that year, when it was largely reported that he was going to be Vince's golden boy. It was a pent up backlash, from the fans feeling slighted when they gave Batista such a big push a year earlier, which ultimately blew up in their faces, and they were forced to change the WM main event to include Bryan, because Orton vs Batista was shaping up to be an absolute disaster. To the fans, it's like they proved their point, and then Vince went against the consensus again a year later, and gave another big goon the spotlight.
There is some smarkyness, to how Reigns was treated by the fans, but in certain respects, I can understand it, because it seemed for a while there, that Vince was just trolling them, and they let his golden boy have it, in response. Just look at that Rumble Reigns won. It wasn't just Bryan getting treated like shit. It was all the darlings, and you ended up with Reigns, Kane, and Big Show at the end. There's no way that wasn't an intentional big "fuck you" to the fans.
Reigns was initially liked though. In the Batista Rumble, they wanted him to win so badly at the end. The worm started to turn, when the writing was on the wall about the direction they were going, which was well before the Rumble. It also didn't help much that they tried to make Reigns a wise cracking, against all odds John Cena clone.
The end of that rumble was the worst I have ever seen. You knew show and Kane were not going to win. The crowd was half booing because of the horrendous, lazy writing. It was a literal writing botch. Terrible. But no, reigns was not getting that much hate before that rumble at all.. Mete months earlier we had the "I cheered for reigns first" signs being popular. The previous year he got a huge pop after the rumble because he was in so long.. He was loved as a heel at that time; he didn't fkn change.