RAW Superstar Roman Reigns appeared on Sports Illustrated’s Off The Board Podcast this week to hype Sunday’s WWE SummerSlam pay-per-view from Brooklyn. Topics discussed include his match with The Undertaker at WrestleMania and his memorable segment the following night on RAW, if he considers himself a locker room leader, Enzo Amore’s backstage heat and more.
Reigns shocked the world at WrestleMania 33 when he defeated The Undertaker in what may prove to be the Dead Man’s final match ever. The following night, he opened RAW and was booed mercilessly for several minutes before simply declaring, “This is my yard now.”
Reigns described the promo as one of the most gratifying things he’s ever done in WWE. “There’s a different type of appreciation that you have for a really good match, like a 30-minute bout, and taking the crowd on that roller coaster ride. I’ve been fortunate enough to be in a few of those matches to where it was just incredible, the crowd was awesome they were just going nuts the whole time, super into the match, but that [promo] was probably the most gratifying thing I’ve… I enjoyed that segment more than any other segment and I had just wrestled and beaten the Undertaker the night before.
Reigns continued, “But it was so bittersweet to just be able to have full control. I just felt like everybody was on a string at that point and I was just pulling them. There’s a little thing where you can see I pretty much mouth it, ‘I got em in the palm of my hand.’ I had thousands of people doing exactly what I wanted them to do and it’s like master plan and it’s unfolding perfectly in front of your eyes. I could’ve stayed out there for another 20 minutes. We had other segments and other brothers that had to go out there and do their work. But the whole time, I was looking at every different cameraman and they’re all telling me to ‘go home’ and that signal is just one finger doing a little circle, saying ‘wrap it up, take it home, let’s go,’ and I sat there and looked at cameramen doing that for five to 10 minutes and I knew we were getting pretty deep into that Seg One and we’re about pretty much cross over into Seg 2 and Seg 3 and I felt bad because there were guys, I think it was one of the Hardy Boyz against Sheamus or Cesar, and I did feel bad because I did eat into their match, but there was that electricity out there and you don’t leave the table when you’re on the heater.”
In recent months, Reigns and John Cena have been exchanging trash talk on Twitter, which had led many fans to believe WWE is planting the seeds for an eventual big money match between WWE’s two top Superstars. When asked if he thinks he’ll find himself across the ring from Cena one day, he replied, “I think so. If you’re here for the right reasons — and this doesn’t just go for wrestling, this is anything, this is what drives our world — you wanna be in there with the best. To say John Cena is not one of the best of all time is asinine. He is. He’s a 16-time heavyweight champion. There’s only two men in the whole world that can say that. So to be able to share the ring with him, to do a big fight with John Cena, I’m all for that.”
He added that he’s in WWE for one reason. He’s here to stand out and he’s not going to back down from anybody. He feels that he’s stepping up, has proven himself over the years and deserves to battle the face of WWE.
“I think, what a great way to honor both of our careers and what we’re trying to do and the way we try to drive this train,” he said. “What better way to do it than in the ring, one on one.”
You can listen to the full podcast below. H/T to Sports Illustrated for the transcribed quotes.