Roman Reigns on Who Could Take Over His Spot In WWE, He Probably Should Have Been More Willing to Say No To Certain Creative Early In His WWE Career, Why Live Events No Longer Makes Sense For Him, Importance Of Metrics In Wrestling, & More

A recent episode of the Club Shay Shay Podcast featured WWE World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns. One of the topics discussed included Reigns’ thoughts about who he believes could take over his spot as the new face of WWE.

“Yeah, there has to be (someone putting themselves in position as face of WWE). Even within my career, we transitioned out of me briefly with Cody (Rhodes) because you need as much talent as possible. You want to lift up his money. We want to have as many tent poles holding this to scale it out, to make it as big as possible. So, a lot of people could be asked to take on that responsibility or help out. But yeah, me and Cody are of similar age. I think I’m just barely older than him. So yeah, we definitely need a younger guy to step into that role. I think we have a lot of young talent, a lot of fresh faces. And at the end of the day, they just got to go through their 10,000 hours. They got to put that time in.”

Reigns also gave his thoughts about his belief that he probably should have been more willing to say “no” to certain questionable creative decisions early in his WWE career.

“I probably would’ve said no a few more times early on. But I just didn’t have the equity within the company. I wasn’t rooted well enough in the main event scene. I was still auditioning. I was still proving myself. I was still earning that equity. This was like 14 years ago, and they’ll still quote me for saying ‘suffering succotash.’ This was so long ago. It was 12 years ago. I’ve delivered unbelievable work since then, but still, I’ll be tied to that.

There’s probably, and not many, there wasn’t that many, but there’s probably two or three promos or scenarios, segments, or finishes of a match or something like that, that I would probably go back and develop the balls to be like, ‘Nah, not today, brother.’”

Reigns also gave his thoughts about why him working WWE Live Events no longer makes sense for him at this point in his WWE career.

“I just outworked them. Every single day. People don’t, they look at it as a highlight reel now, but you know how it is. Every single day you’re putting in work, every live event. There is 100s. Now with my schedule, people will pick on it, but they don’t remember from 2012 to 2018 when I was doing 150, 200 shows a year, every single year, just working my a** off. But staying in the lab, continually getting the reps, conquering my 10,000 hours. Putting my time in, that’s where I learn how to do everything. And we’re trying to get that back. I think we’re trying to run more live events and they are good.

But we’re just at a business model where TV rights are TV rights. And there’s just so much money on the line that we got to that point where it’s just like, it doesn’t make sense for me to do live events anymore. What if I got hurt? There’s so much money that’s riding on Mondays and Fridays and our PLEs now that I can’t just go out there and wrestle for 4,000, 5,000 only, just for those eyes only. Now, I got to conserve it. But those are the reps that are critical. To have a fresh crowd, every single night and you can run the same thing.” 

Reigns also gave his thoughts about his historic 1,316-day reign as WWE Universal Champion and him being grateful to share that time and moments together with The Usos and Solo Sikoa to make it extra special for him.

“Yeah. I mean, there were times where it was like, ‘Man, I can’t believe it’s coming (to an end).’ Because it got so routine. We got so comfortable. It was a comfortable feeling being in that stride. You know, it was a perfect pace for me. But I would just say the times, you know, there’s a picture of me and my cousins all sitting in the Gorilla position, and we’re just waiting to go through an entrance rehearsal. We’re like, just a quick little rehearsal for the cameras to look at something. And we’re just holding, just sitting there. We’re all in workout clothes, just not paying attention, just sitting there.

“But just that killer’s row of us, who it was me, the twins, and then Solo. And it’s just, those are, I mean, those are who I grew up with. I spent a lot of my life with them. And to be able to travel the world and do what we do and contribute to our family business, having those moments and being, the plane rides going to Saudi, coming back from Saudi, things like that, that we just had together. I’ve been fortunate enough to do what I love with the people that I love, and I know not everybody can say that. So I’m extremely grateful for that.”

Reigns also gave his thoughts about if it bothered him that Conrad Thompson had recently called him overrated as a top star in WWE.

“No, because, I mean, the truth is, are there a lot of people watching that guy’s show? So you’re gonna say stuff. I’m a metric mover. That type of stuff. They know I give views and all that stuff, so it’s fine. It is what it is. If you look at the guy’s background, you already know where his support system is, you know what I mean? All you got to do is scroll a little bit, and you see who he’s a fan of and stuff like that, and who he’s connected to. If they want to use my name to get views, that’s the industry right now.”

In a separate recent interview with the Notsam Wrestling podcast, Reigns also gave his thoughts about how his name maximizes online views for wrestling.

“We’re in a world now where views are currency and where you’re speaking about wrestling, if you want to maximize your views, you use my name. That’s kind of what’s been happening. There’s a whole bundle of us on this cast that know this realm, know this elevation of people and how they’ll use your name to get attention. It’s fine. It’s all built into this ecosystem of entertainment that we have. Everybody is extremely connected, everybody’s opinion matters now, so go online and voice it. That’s how we make these measurements, that’s a part of the metric. That’s a part of the analytics — but to say they put you in a position, no, the numbers back up the positioning always.”

Reigns also gave his thoughts about his victory over LA Knight at WWE’s Money in the Bank 2026 event and the importance of metrics in wrestling.

“Guy I just beat, LA Knight, hell of a talent. Hell of a merch mover. The Big Dog moved more merch than LA Knight does. You know what I’m saying? That was from, what’s that, eight years ago? So, the position has always been verified, but everybody’s going to have an opinion on it. They don’t always understand the metrics and what goes behind the business. That’s the difference in between being a fan and being in a place of power that affects the industry and making those decisions for it. It’s all built into, it’s all baked in.”

Transcript h/t: FWOnline.com 1, 2, & 3, Fightful.com 1 & 2