Who Is the Current Face of WWE Heading into WrestleMania 36?

Wrestling has always been a hierarchy. Talent rises and falls along the way while certain acts remain at the top. Above all else, though, is the face of the company.

Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Rock and John Cena have taken on that role over the years. Others could claim to have held it briefly, but the great faces of WWE stand the test of time.

The modern era of WWE has led to shifts in focus. It has rarely felt like one Superstar stood above the rest as the face of the company. With a massive roster and a trio of brands, this is to be expected.

However, the company cannot go without a face. Whether it is for marketing major shows or getting fans to tune in each week, it always has a lead figure to get everyone invested.

WrestleMania 36 is on the horizon, and it is hard to easily pick out who the true face of WWE is. However, a few names stand out as keys contributors to building up the company.

Bray Wyatt: If he was still the universal champion, an interesting argument could have been made for Bray Wyatt's importance to WWE. While he is still valuable to SmackDown as a marketable talent, he was clearly trumped by Goldberg and Roman Reigns due to recent booking.

Charlotte Flair: The No. 2 woman in WWE, Charlotte Flair has defined the women's division more clearly than anyone else in WWE over the past five years. However, she is not nearly as marketable as the woman who has now passed her in the last year.

Triple H: NXT has risen over recent months, and while the black-and-gold brand has many talented stars, its face is Triple H. It has been his product from the start, and it is rare that he does not come up when discussing the brand. However, NXT is still not at the level of popularity of Raw or SmackDown.

John Cena: Anyone with no knowledge of WWE probably thinks of a few names when it's mentioned. Most would assume John Cena was still at the top of the company, and he does come back occasionally. He is just not around enough to keep that status.

Is there anyone more protected in WWE than Brock Lesnar?

He has been treated like an unstoppable force since his return to the company in 2012. Even when he puts over stars like Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins, it does not take long for him to return to the top of the mountain.

While The Beast may not be an absolute star at the level of John Cena, he has felt like the biggest one in WWE especially over these past few years. Overcoming Lesnar has become a challenge on the level of defeating The Undertaker.

If he was on the show every week, no one would question that The Beast was the face of WWE. However, even the company seems to waver on giving him such a label.

He is rarely front and center on posters. His matches no longer always main-event. While he is vital to the product, he comes across more as a part-time attraction.

At this moment, Lesnar may be the biggest star in the company, but he hasn't quite been treated as the face of the product. That role has gone to those competing every single week.

This time last year, it felt like Seth Rollins was poised to take on the role of face of WWE. He was on a roll. Fans were behind him. He was poised to defeat Brock Lesnar. However, his 2019 was a catastrophic failure.

Luckily, he has recovered with a shift in character. Since turning heel, The Monday Night Messiah has looked so much more comfortable. He dominates screen time as before on Raw, but he is no longer loved but hated.

A heel can be the face of the company, and Rollins does still feature heavily on WrestleMania promotional material. It just doesn't feel like he is on the same level anymore. He's not the guy who everyone tunes in for on Raw.

It could be argued 2019 was the year he lost his one chance at the top. He may get more opportunities, but they are not coming any time soon.

Rollins may be the last wrestler featured on the red brand opener, but one Superstar is far more clearly positioned as the face of Raw and potentially WWE.

Roman Reigns has the easiest argument for the title of face of WWE. He is the forefront figure on the Friday Night SmackDown opener. Since his heroic return from leukemia on February 25, 2019, The Big Dog has been a constant fixture in the main event scene even when he has remained outside the title picture.

As the company ramps up to the future, he has been positioned as the face of SmackDown, which is WWE's figurehead product given the enormous deal the company made with Fox.

The face of WWE is a role Reigns has carried before. While 2019 had made him feel like he might not be quite at that level, 2020 has started with a monumental statement of his important to WWE going forward.

He was poised to main-event one of the two nights at WrestleMania 36 this weekend with Goldberg, but he chose to bow out due to health concerns. The Show of Shows will not be the same without him.

Still, it's easy to argue he is still the face of WWE—just not the one pulling everyone in to watch WrestleMania this year.

For a half a decade, the Women's Revolution sounded like a marketing ploy rather than a genuine shift in focus for WWE. A few key wrestlers arrived to change that. No one was as important in truly putting women on the map as Becky Lynch.

Her 2018 evolution allowed her to go from a well-respected performer to the top woman in the business. In 2019, there were many times she came off as the biggest star in the entire company.

No one has been featured more often on marketing material in the past year. No one has been in more solo promo segments or worked off more legends. She has had segments with John Cena, The Rock and Steve Austin, and no one has blinked an eye.

The difference between top star and face of the company is clear, though. The Man may be Raw's top act, but she often shares time. She may outshine Seth Rollins and Brock Lesnar often, but she gets less time on average each week than they do.

It has been incredible to watch her rise to household name in WWE. Only Roman Reigns potentially stands above her, including sharing space on most posters and the latest WWE 2K video game.

With his absence, Lynch will almost certainly main-event one of the two nights at WrestleMania this weekend.