With only days until Roman Reigns defends the Universal Championship against Jey Uso, The Big Dawg stopped by Corey Graves’ “After The Bell” podcast to talk about his new attitude, what it’s like to be the leader in the locker room, going home a few months ago, his return, Paul Heyman and more.
Roman Reigns took time off from WWE television, just before Wrestlemania 36, amid concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic due to Reigns being immunocompromised from his leukemia.
Following WrestleMania, Reigns continued to remain absent from WWE programming in the midst of the pandemic. Reigns made his long awaited return to the WWE Universe by attacking ‘The Fiend’ Bray Wyatt after winning the WWE Universal Championship from Braun Strowman at Summerslam.
During the podcast when asked what it is like to return to the WWE, Reigns would go on to say:
“It was cool. I like where we are at right now in the pandemic era outside of what is going on obviously. But to keep everything quiet and come in and do my business and get the hell out of there has been nice. That’s what we’ve been saying is I’m the last one in and the first one out. I get my stuff in and get out of there. It was nice to actually have a secretive moment within the business and have an actual surprise because we know the landscape of social media. The cat gets out of the bag somehow and it’s always someone who was backstage and saw wrestler x and they spill it to whoever they spill it to. Then it’s on Youtube and Twitter and the whole nine. It was nice to actually surprise people and have nobody know. The guys on the inside didn’t even know.”
Reigns was asked what was going through his heart and his mind when he made the decision to miss WrestleMania
“A lot of things to be honest, but I think the most defined thought I had was I made a lot of sacrifices on behalf of my family and this is one area that I’m not going to make that sacrifice. I will sacrifice my career. I will sacrifice the performance. Hell, I’ll sacrifice the audience if I have to in order to protect my family. I will quit and hang up the boots. I’ve done everything I could do in this business. There’s isn’t an accolade or a moment that I haven’t had, whether it was a WrestleMania moment all the way to a house show. I’ve experienced everything you could possibly experience. So, it was about putting my family first. If I had to retire and that’s what would be asked of me, I was willing to do it. So for one of the first times in a long time, I put my family first. There was nothing that was going to change my mind. I needed to go away and wait until we were in a better place of understanding of the process knowing exactly what this virus has done and how it’s affected everybody. The way WWE has taken care of me to make me feel safe and make my family feel safe that I’m going out and then coming back in has been huge and critical to get me back in the ring.”
Roman Reigns, with his advocate Paul Heyman at his side, is due to go one-on-one with his real life cousin Jey Uso for the WWE Universal Championship, this Sunday at Clash of Champions from The Amway Center, Orlando, Florida live on the WWE Network.
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