It's hard to think about someone being on the same level as far as in-ring competence with Bret Hart, tbh.
I'll say this about Roman: he's exceedingly competent and (to my knowledge) doesn't haven't a propensity for injuring people, like some of his former shield running buddies. His offense is believable and he sells really well.
I only really have two issues with Roman: he's booked like Cena, which is lazy, and the Superman Punch is the dumbest fucking thing in the world. Like, People's Elbow level of dumb. It's the wind-up. I fucking hate it so goddamn much.
He really isn't, and never has been. Being a face that wins isn't being booked like Cena. That's being booked like a main event face.
John Cena booking from 2005 to 2014: Cut 3 months of jokey promos where he tells the audience his opponent is a joke, kills their gimmick, beats them 3 times usually the last time in his opponent's signature gimmick match, and goes from selling death to popping up hitting the FU/STF and smiling like nothing happened with no build at all, then moving on to the next guy. Once in awhile you'll get ONE serious promo. Sometimes he'd lose the first or second match, but decisively win the others and the guys he beat would go back down the card.
Roman Reigns booking: Cuts promos building up his opponents as big threats even if they're jokey at times, sells like death, jobs when it makes sense, puts them over the next night when he beats them, has 5 minutes of comeback as opposed to 15 seconds and usually only gets his comebacks started because opponents make a mistake, everyone he faces comes out looking better than they did beforehand, changes his attitude and the structure of his match depending on the opponent (from cocky power dude against someone like AJ to sympathetic underdawg against Braun to gatekeeper against Balor) has already done more for AJ and Braun than Cena did for anyone in his 12 years outside of maybe Punk.
We're talking about a guy who has spent the past 2 months getting the shit kicked out of him every time he's on screen and jobbed clean in the center of the ring to a powerslam last night. That superman booking tho. Roman has more losses in the past 2 years than Cena had in about 8 straight.
